------S------D------S------ SUBCOMMISSION ON DEVONIAN STRATIGRAPHY NEWSLETTER NO. 31 R.T. BECKER, Editor WWU Münster Germany December 2016 ISSN 2074-7268 SDS NEWSLETTER 31 Editorial The SDS Newsletter is published annually by the International Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy of the IUGS Subcommission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It publishes reports and news from its membership, scientific discussions, Minutes of SDS Meetings, SDS reports to ICS, general IUGS information, information on past and future Devonian meetings and research projects, and reviews or summaries of new Devonian publications. Editor: Prof. Dr. R. Thomas BECKER Institut für Geologie und Paläontologie Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Corrensstr. 24 D-48149 Münster, Germany [email protected] Circulation 120 hard copies, pdf files of current and past issues are freely available from the SDS Homepage at www.unica.it/sds/ Submissions have to be sent electronically, preferably as Word Documents (figures imbedded or as separate high-resolution jpg or pdf files), to the Editor or to Mrs. S. KLAUS, IGP, Münster (sklaus@uni- muenster.de). Submission deadline for No. 32 is the end of June 2017. Please ease the editing by strictly keeping the uniform style of references, as shown in the various sections. The Newsletter should be quoted as: “SDS Newsletter, 31: p. x-y.” Content: Message from the Chairman (J.E. MARSHALL) 1 Obituaries Paul SARTENAER (D. BRICE) 2-4 CHEN Xiu-Qin (J. A. TALENT) 4-8 Horst BLUMENSTENGEL (H. GROOS-UFFENORDE & D. WEYER.) 8-16 Michael E. SCHUDACK (R. T. BECKER) 16-17 SDS Reports 1. Minutes of the Brussels Business Meeting 2015 (L. SLAVÍK & C. E. BRETT) 17-21 2. Minutes of the Ghent Business Meeting 2016 (L. SLAVÍK & C. E. BRETT) 21-25 3. Annual Report to ICS for 2015 (J. E. MARSHALL) 25-28 4. Brief report on SDS activities at the 35th IGC (C. E. BRETT) 28-30 SDS Documents 1. Additions to the Polygnathus (s. l.) species list (R. T. BECKER) 31-34 2. Species list of Palamtolepis (R. T. BECKER & S. HARTENFELS) 35-44 3. Pleading for a DCB near Stockum (M. STREEL & D. KORN) 45-46 4. Updating the upper/uppermost Famennian miospore-conodont correlation (M. STREEL) 47-48 Devonian Meetings 1. Field trip to the Devonian-Carboniferous of South Karatau, Kazakhstan, Summer 2017 49-51 2. 4th ICOS at Valencia, June 2017 (with SDS Business Meeting) 52-56 Devonian Publications 1. The Pre-Variscan Sequence of the Carnic Alps 57-58 2. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, vol. 423 58-59 3. Münstersche Forschungen zur Geologie und Paläontologie, vol. 108 59-60 4. Abhandlungen der Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, vol. 572 60-61 5. Göttinger Arbeiten zur Geologie und Paläontologie (now online) 61-62 6. Devonian of the Volga-Ural Subregion (VNIGNI) 62 7. IGCP 591 Closing Meeting, Ghent, Abstract Volume 62-64 Membership News CM Gordon C. BAIRD 64 TM R.Thomas BECKER and the Münster Group (including CMs Sven HARTENFELS, Sarah Z. ABOUSSALAM,, and S. HELLING) 64-71 TM Alain BLIECK 71-72 TM Carlton E. BRETT 72-74 CM Rainer BROCKE 74 TM Carlo CORRADINI 74-78 CM Anna-Christine DA SILVA 78-79 CM David DE VLEESCHOUWER 79-81 CM Ahmed EL HASSANI 81-82 TM Nadezhda G. IZOKH and the Novosibirsk Group (including CMs Olga OBUT, O. IZOKH, and Aleksandr Y. YAZIJKOV) 82-85 TM Ulrich JANSEN 85-86 CM Semen E. KRUCHEK, C, Dmitri PLAX and the Belarusian Devonian Group 86-90 TM John E. MARSHALL and the Southampton Group 90-91 CM Hanna MATYJA 91-93 CM Atike NAZIK 93-94 TM Maria Cristina PERRI 94 TM Eberhard SCHINDLER 94-95 TM Ladislav SLAVIK 95-97 CM Claudia SPALLETTA 97-98 CM M. STREEL 98 CM Thomas J. SUTTNER 98-100 Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy SDS Newsletter No 31 December 2016 MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN BECKER, Sven HARTENFELS, Peter KÖNIGSHOF, Sören STICHLING, and Stephan HELLING, amongst others. Both trips were excellent, well organised and Dear SDS Members, contributed enormously to the success of the meeting. Both field guides have been published. Welcome to the 2016 SDS Newsletter. This is our sort-of yearly compilation of everything Earlier in 2015, a number of SDS members Devonian. All SDS members, both CM´s and TM´s, attended STRATI 15 in Graz, Austria. There we had are expected to contribute news. It is often very a day of largely Devonian and D-C boundary important to see what research is going on before presentations. This was followed by a fieldtrip to the publication. In addition, it is an excellent place to Carnic Alps organised by Carlo CORRADINI, Thomas post notice of research in regional journals that we SUTTNER and Monica PONDRELLI aided by Hans might otherwise not see. Peter SCHÖNLAUB. We visited the classic conodont Sadly, we have received news of the loss of three sections that we have often seen referred to and saw some spectacular scenery and enjoyed a memorable SDS members since the last newsletter. These are night in an alpine hut. our former long-term TM and CM Paul SARTENAER from Brussels and TM CHEN Xiu-quin (“Suzie”) This year (2016) was an International Geological from NIGPAS (Nanjing, China), both leading Congress year and SDS was required to meet in Cape experts for Devonian brachiopods. We have also lost Town. As we realistically saw that few SDS Aleksandr YAZIKOV from Novosibirsk at a rather members would make the meeting, we accepted the young age, still with so much to contribute; alternative of joining the IGCP closing meeting in Aleksandr also worked on Devonian brachiopods. Ghent, Belgium. Here we had an excellent Devonian The Devonian brachiopod community was even session, a business meeting and social programme more struck in 2016 since Gertrude BIERNAT from (dinner, jazz and castles) all ably organised by Thijs Poland also died in March 2016, at the age of 93. VANDENBROUCKE. There were also mid-conference There are obituaries for Paul and “Suzie” in this short courses where we were able to savour an Newsletter, also for Horst BLUMENSTENGEL from introduction to astrochronology and numerical Germany, reknown for his decades of work on stratigraphy both via the delights of R. A very useful Devonian ostracodes. day. The important SDS news this year (2015) was The Cape Town meeting was attended by Carl that Nacho VALENZUELA-RÍOS and Ladislav BRETT and Ladislav SLAVÍK and a report is included SLAVIK, together with Nadia IZOKH and Alexej KIM, in this Newsletter. Thanks to both of them for managed to return to the Zinzilban section in attending; they have usefully increased our TM’s for Uzbekistan to recollect conodonts for redefining the South Africa to 2. Pragian/Emsian boundary. They were successful in Our final meeting for the year was the September the collecting and returned with many kilograms of joint D-C boundary working group organised in samples. These are currently being processed and Montpelier by Markus ARETZ and with the support picked and we can anticipate preliminary findings at of the ICS. Here we made progress on the boundary the ICOS meeting in Valencia in 2017. It is definition and this is also reported in the Newsletter. important to move this re-definition forward as we Many thanks to Markus for moving this forward. cannot formally propose any sub-stages to the IUGS Looking forward to next year, we have the SDS until all our stages are formally established. business meeting at the ICOS conference on In September of 2015 many of us attended the conodonts in Valencia, Spain. We intend to have a splendid IGCP 596 closing meeting in Brussels. more general Devonian meeting rather than just Enormous thanks to Bernard MOTTEQUIN, Cyrille conodonts. PRESTIANNI and colleagues, who made everything John MARSHALL happen. There were two field trips, pre-conference to the classic Belgian Devonian and Early Carboniferous sections organised by Julien DENAYER with Bernard and Cyrille. The post- conference field trip, which I attended was to classic and new sections in the Devonian and Early Carboniferous of the Rhenish Massif by Thomas 1 Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy SDS Newsletter No 31 December 2016 OBITUARIES initially a “naturalist probation”, then “naturalist”, before becoming Assistant Director of laboratory (1958), Director (1965), Head of the Department of PAUL SARTENAER the Palaeozoic Invertebrates Section (1969), and then Head of the Department of Paleontology and (1925 – 2015) Honorary Head of Department (1990). All these functions were connected with D. BRICE intensive research. As early as 1955, he pointed out the confusion between two types of rhynchonellid brachiopods (Nudirostra, Camarotoechia) and specified their external and internal characters by serial sections of Nudirostra. He was among the first to apply this method in the brachiopod studies. In his laboratory, many researchers (including this author) began to learn this method. In 1956, he discovered erroneous interpretations of FORIR (1895-1901) and FORIR et al., 1900) concerning rhynchonellid (dumonti, omaliusi, triaequalis) and a spiriferid species (Cyrtiopsis murchisionanus) of the lower Famennian of Belgium. During the same year, he created two biozones in the lower Famennian of Belgium, based on the distribution of two species of Pugnoides WELLER (including a new one). In 1957, he went ahead by publishing a sketch of the biozonation of Famennian deposits and demonstrated a global significance based on five species of Famennian rhynchonellids: two from Paul SARTENAER in his office in 1983 Western Canada, two from the United States of (photo supplied by his wife Masha HECKER) America, and one from Belgium. He devoted a note to each species, stating their external and internal In July 2015, the international scientific characters, and created for them in 1961 his first five community lost a distinguished scientifist, who new genera.