Table of Contents Notes from the SPS Secretary 3 Lucia Angiolini Notes from the SPS Chair 6 Shuzhong Shen ANNUAL REPORT 2019 6 GSSP-based Chronostratigraphy: Should Boundaries Be Defined by Arbitrarily Chosen Non-Events? 9 Spencer G. Lucas GSSP-based Chronostratigraphy: Should Boundaries Be Defined by Arbitrarily Chosen Non-Events? Reply. 11 Charles M. Henderson Henderson’s Harangue #6 12 Charles M. Henderson Sea-floor carbonate precipitates after mass extinctions - separating depositional and diagenetic fabrics: a discussion 13 Stephen Kershaw Reply to Kershaw (this issue). Discussion on separating depositional and diagenetic fabrics in the aftermath of mass extinc- tions 19 Mingtao Li, Haijun Song, Li Tian Recent progress and future perspectives in the application of Permian palaeobiogeography in the reconstruction of the pal- aeogeography of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and adjacent regions 20 Yichun Zhang, Shuzhong Shen, Haipeng Xu, Feng Qiao, Dongxun Yuan, Qi Ju Progress report : location of the replacement section for the base-Lopingian GSSP 24 Shuzhong Shen, Yichun Zhang, Dongxun Yuan, Quanfeng Zheng, Hua Zhang, Lin Mu, Zhangshuai Hou, Wenqian Wang, Boheng Shen, Yaofeng Cai Application of Arabian palynological zones in the Negev of Israel: preliminary findings 28 Michael H. Stephenson, Dorit Korngreen Reconciling the ramp versus the platform interpretation of the Tesero Oolite, Permian-Triassic boundary in the Alps: a Bahama Bank model 30 Michael E. Brookfield Report on the activities of the Late Carboniferous – Permian – Early Triassic Nonmarine-Marine Correlation Working Group for 2018 and 2019 35 Joerg W. Schneider, Spencer G. Lucas, Frank Scholze, Sebastian Voigt, Lorenzo Marchetti, Hendrik Klein, Stanislav Opluštil, Ralf Werneburg, Valeriy K. Golubev, James Barrick, Tamara Nemyrovska, Ausonio Ronchi, Michael O. Day, Vladimir V. Silantiev, Ronny Rößler, Hafid Saber, Ulf Linnemann, Veronika Zharinova, Shu-zhong Shen Report on the 19th International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian, Cologne, July, 29th–August, 2nd, 2019 40 Hans-Georg Herbig 15th International Permian-Triassic Field Workshop in Sardinia/Italy 45 Gerhard H. Bachmann Report on the 3th International Congress on Stratigraphy, Milano, 2-5 July 2019 46 Daniela Germani Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base-Sakmarian Stage 48 Galina Kotlyar Permian and other Paleozoic Trace Fossils 49 Spencer G. Lucas Fig. 1. Participants of the 19th ICCP 2019, Cologne. Herbig, this issue. Fig. 2. Cone-in-cone calcite. Kershaw, this issue. Fig. 3. Permian track makers. Lucas, this issue. Fig. 4. Cala Viola north of Alghero, NW Sardinia. Bachmann, this issue. Fig. 5. Permian sequences of South Qiangtang Block and Lhasa Block. Zhang et al., this issue. Permophiles Issue #68 January 2020 Notes from the SPS Secretary The second point of discussion was the replacement of voting members, based on the fact that some of them are no longer active Lucia Angiolini or do not participate in the discussion and in the voting proce- dures. This should be done taking into account both the scientific Introduction and thanks activity, level of interest and participation, and the geographic dis- This is the last issue that I will organize and edit as Secretary. tribution of the members. I did the job for eight years, sometimes struggling to secure con- As a third point, Shuzhong Shen focused on Permian GSSPs. tributions; and at other times (as now) struggling with several Three are still to be defined and these are the priority but the academic duties to find time to get it finished. However it was Sakmarian base GSSP has been successfully ratified and estab- really an extraordinary and interesting job. I hope that the next lished in Russia with a good definition and its publication is in SPS secretary will have the same interest, the same passion, for progress. He asked the Russian colleagues about the erection of a preparing Permophiles. monument at the location of the GSSP. A geological park has been Thanks Shuzhong for those great eight years working organized on the site, but not a monument. together, despite the geographical distance between us! The Artinskian base GSSP needs now to be moved forward: My warm thanks also go to the contributors of this issue: conodont, fusulinid and high precision age data are already Charles Henderson, Spencer Lucas, Stephen Kershaw, Mingtao available. Li and co-authors, Yichun Zhang and co-authors, Shuzhong Shen For the Kungurian base GSSP, a section has been excavated, ad co-authors, Mike Stephenson and Dorit Korngreen, Michael but the possible candidate is based on few data, and only on con- Brookfield, Joerg Schneider and co-authors, Hans-Georg Herbig, odonts. Ammonoids are present, but just in a single horizon. Also, Gerhard Bachmann, and Daniela Germani. the policy for sample collections and export should be clarified. I would like to thank Claudio Garbelli for his assistance also So this is probably the GSSP which is in need of much more work. in editing this issue of Permophiles. Then, Shuzhong Shen recommended a larger presence Finally, I would like to keep drawing your attention to the of voting members at the next business meeting at the 19th new SPS webpage that Shuzhong Shen has provided at http:// International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian (XIX permian.stratigraphy.org/, where you can find information about ICCP 2019), in Cologne, July 29th -August 2nd, 2019. Permophiles, what’s going on in the Permian Subcommission, an The chair announced a very important project on Big Data updated version of the list with addresses of the SPS correspond- led by M Stephenson with the support of IUGS, called Deep-time ing members, and the updated Permian timescale. Digital Earth. The main goal of the project is to build a time- Previous SPS Meetings line for all geoscientists globally applicable and integrated with A SPS business meeting was scheduled at Strati 2019, 3th all available data. International Congress on Stratigraphy, Milano, 2-5 July 2019. Finally, there has been some discussion about the Wordian The session ST3.5 “Carboniferous-Permian GSSPs and corre- GSSP, as a recent campaign of field work failed to reproduce con- lations: state of the art” was scheduled for Tuesday 2 July and odont data as in the original definition. Also, there are problems was followed by the SPS business meeting (see report of Daniela in separating the Roadian from the Wordian, so there may be a Germani, this issue and minutes below). During the session, possibility to lump the two. More work and discussion is needed Shuzhong Shen kindly gave the certificate of support of partici- to clarify the situation. pation in STRATI to Alexander Biakov, Massimo Bernardi and Minutes of SPS business meeting, 30 July 2019, Köln Marco Romano. A SPS business meeting was successfully held during the A second important meeting was organized at the 19th 19th International Congress on Carboniferous and Permian in International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian (XIX Köln, Germany. Among the current 17 voting members of the ICCP 2019), in Cologne, July 29th -August 2nd, 2019 (see report SPS, 9 of them attended this meeting and discussed several issues of Hans-Georg Herbig, this issue). SPS supported the participa- relating with SPS and Permian GSSPs. tion of Valeriy Golubev in ICCP 2019. The first thing SPS Chair Shuzhong Shen noted was that Minutes of SPS Business meeting, 2 July 2019, Milano three current voting members have served eight years for the People attending: Jay Zambito, Tea Kolar-Jurkoviez, Marco SPS and will be replaced by new voting members. The Chairman Romano, Ausonio Ronchi, Yukun Shi, Yuri Zakharov, Aymon requested all the current voting members to vote for their candi- Baud, Olga Kossovaya, Alexander Biakov, Charles Henderson, dates as soon as possible. Following the ICS regulation, Charles Bob Nicoll, Mike Stephenson, Xiangdong Wang, Shuzhong Shen, M. Henderson has been invited by the Shuzhong Shen to be the Lucia Angiolini, George Sevastopulo. Chair of the nominating committee. Hopefully, new voting mem- The chair of SPS Prof. Shuzhong Shen opened the business bers will be welcomed before the next IGS meeting in India in meeting announcing that it is time to compile a list of candidates March. Additionally, if any current voting member(s) of the SPS to cover the positions of chair and vice-chair for the next term is not active on Permian research, e.g., reporting their studies to (2020-2024) by the end of Strati 2019 congress. He asked the Permophiles, or involved in subcommission activities, then they voting members to suggest the names of possible candidates to will be replaced by new members. Charles Henderson, who is in charge of the nominating commit- Secondly, we have made progress on Permian GSSP work. tee for the next executive. However, we are also facing a lot of problems which need to be solved. 3 Permophiles Issue #68 January 2020 Cisuralian Series No geo-chronological data, and unreliable chemostratigraphic Recently, the Sakmarian GSSP was ratified in the Usolka sec- data, also make this candidate section not ideal as a GSSP sec- tion located near the health resort Krasnousolsky (Republic of tion. However, this section is the only candidate section for the Bashkortostan of Russia). The alternated non-fossiliferous clas- Kungurian GSSP. The attending members discussed this issue tic beds between the carbonates of the Usolka section make this actively and all agreed that a multidisciplinary method should be GSSP imperfect in terms of its complex lithologies and biostratig- applied for the GSSP candidate sections of the Kungurian Stage raphy. Thus, it is hard to judge if the FO of the marker, that is the if there are more potential sections. In fact, the South Chinese first occurrence of the conodont Mesogondolella monstra, is the Luodian section has high potential to be the Kungurian GSSP, as FAD or not.