Table of Contents Notes from the SPS Secretary 1 Lucia Angiolini Notes from the SPS Chair 2 Shuzhong Shen Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy Annual Report 2013 3 Shuzhong Shen, SPS Chairman Officers and Voting Members since August, 2012 5 The Reality of GSSPs 6 Stanley C. Finney GSSPs (Global Stratotype Section and Point) and Correlation 8 Stanley C. Finney We Need a New GSSP for the Base of the Permian 8 Spencer G. Lucas The GSSP at the Aidaralash section is solid and has no alternative 13 Vladimir I. Davydov The Aidaralash GSSP—Reply to Davydov 15 Spencer G. Lucas Proposal for the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base-Sakmarian Stage (Lower Permian) 16 Valery V. Chernykh, Boris I. Chuvashov, Shuzhong Shen andCharles M. Henderson Proposal for the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base-Artinskian Stage (Lower Permian) 26 Boris I. Chuvashov, Valery V. Chernykh, Shuzhong Shen and Charles M. Henderson Report of the Chinese, Iranian, Italian working group: The Permian-Triassic boundary sections of Julfa and Zal revisited 34 Lucia Angiolini, Shuzhong Shen, Maryamnaz Bahrammanesh, Syrus Abbasi, Mina Birjandi, Gaia Crippa, Dongxun Yuan and Claudio Garbelli Age assignment of section 4 of Teichert et al. (1973) at Ali Bashi Mountains (Julfa, NW Iran) 36 Abbas Ghaderi, Ali Reza Ashouri, Heinz W. Kozur and Dieter Korn Report of field excursions 2012/2013 of the “Sino-German Cooperation Group on the Late Palaeozoic Palaeobiology, Stratigraphy and Geochemistry” between Europe and China 40 Jun Wang, Shuzhong Shen, Joerg W. Schneider and Hans Kerp ANNOUNCEMENTS 42 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR ISSUE 59 44 Photo 1: The Permian-Triassic succession of the Ali Bashi Mountains, Julfa, NW Iran. Locality 4 of Teichert et al. 1 (1973) is on the left; Locality 1 on the right. Photo 2: The evolutionary lineage of the Asselian-Sakmarian species of the genus Mesogondolella. Photo 3: Two specimens of Sw. aff. whitei from the GSSP level at 1.8 m above base of Bed 4. Photo 4: A Chinese-German-Italian joint team visited the Permian-Triassic boundary section at Bulla, Bolzano under the guidance of the Chair of the Pander Society, Maria Cristina Perri and Enzo Farabegoli of the University of 2 4 Bologna. Photo 5: A GSSP marker (middle of the photo) was placed on the Roadian-base GSSP section at Stratotype Canyon in the Guadalupe National Park. From left to right, Charles Henderson, Lance Lambert, Jonena Hearst, and 3 5 Shuzhong Shen. Photo 6: Caaschwitz quarry: The actual best outcrop of the potential Permian/Triassic Boundary in 6 the terrestrial facies of the Bunter of Europe. The outcrop is situated in the southeastern part of the Permian Zechstein basin or the Germanic Triassic basin respectively. Permophiles Issue #58 November 2013 EXECUTIVE NOTES Notes from the SPS Secretary Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, May 20-22, 2013. The SCS chair Barry Richards Lucia Angiolini and Shuzhong Shen chaired the meeting. Both chairs reported the progresses of the subcommissions and agreed to organize a joint Introduction and thanks working group on the global correlation of the Carboniferous and This issue was planned by Shuzhong and I in the beautiful land- Permian transition between marine and non-marine sequences. scape of the Ali Bashi Mountains, near Julfa, NW Iran, during Joerg W. Schneider will lead this working group and he is pub- a successful Chinese-Iranian-Italian fieldtrip focused on detailed lishing a note in this issue to call your participation to the brachiopod and conodont sampling in the Permian-Triassic working group. The Carboniferous/Permian boundary GSSP at boundary beds in September 2013 (see report in this issue). The the Aidaradash and its problems of correlation was also inten- issue, which is the second of the new executive committee of sively discussed during the business meeting (see reports in this Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy, was then finalized and issue by Spencer Lucas and Vladimir Davydov). The following edited by Shuzhong in Nanjing and myself in Milano through colleagues attended the bussiness meeting: Alexander Biakov, email communication. Jim Barrick, Ausonio Ronchi, Barry Richards, Vladimir Davydov, I would like to draw again your attention to the new SPS web- Alexaner Ivanov, Shuzhong Shen, Spencer Lucas, Wenkun Qie, page that Shuzhong Shen has provided at http://www.stratigraphy. Dongxun, Yuan, Karl Krainer, Steve Rosscoe, Phil Fedreick, org/permian/, where you can find information aboutPermophiles , Yuping Qi, Lance Lambert. what’s going on in the Permian Subcommission, an updated ver- Two forthcoming SPS meetings are scheduled. One will take sion of the list with addresses of the SPS corresponding members place during the XVIII International Congress on Carboniferous and an updated Permian timescale. Please check carefully if your and Permian to be held in the Kazan Federal University, Kazan, details are reported correctly in the list of SPS corresponding Russia, August 7-15, 2015. members and write to me and the chair if anything is not correct. A business meeting will be organized during an international In this foreword, I would like to thank very much Maryam field meeting on continental Carboniferous and Permian in the Bahrammanesh, Syrus Abbasi, Mina Birjandi and the two driv- second half of July 2014 in Freiberg, Germany. Both this meet- ers Mr. Takhtchin (GSI of Tehran) and Mr. Eshghi (GSI of Tabriz) ings will serve as the kick off for the cooperation of colleagues for the excellent organization of the field trip in the famous Ali interested in Carboniferous and Permian marine - non-marine Bashi sections (Iran) that we led a few weeks ago (September correlation. 25-October 5, 2013). As the secretary, I would like to thank the protagonists of the Permophiles 58 heated debate on the Kungurian base GSSP candidates from the Besides the report of the Kungurian GSSP ballot, this issue Mechetlino section in southern Ural and Rockland section in contains the following reports: Pequop Mountains, Nevada. This discussion was very fruitful to Stanley Finney’s paper, here reported from “Finney, S.C., 2013, move Kungurian studies forward and culminated with the contri- The reality of GSSPs: Ciências da Terra (UNL), 18: 9-12”, is very bution of Stanley Finney, Chair of the International Commission important to stimulate the ongoing discussion among the SPS on Stratigraphy, who clarified the voting procedures and with the members. It outlines the problem that, unfortunately, the GSSP for final and wise decision of the SPS chair Shuzhong Shen to post- a specific boundary is too often presented only as the single strati- pone the vote until further data on both sections are provided. graphic signal at which the boundary is placed in the stratotype We received several contributions from our Permian colleagues section. In reality it only has significance for chronostratigraphic recently, that make this issue rich and interesting. Contributions correlation when it has high potential for correlation across a and comments from Permian workers (and not only from them) are range of paleogeographic and paleoenvironmental settings. very important to move Permian studies forward and to improve We have also included Stanley Finney’s abstract for the Annual correlation and the resolution of the Permian Timescale. In the Meeting of Geological Society of America, October 2013, because same way, these contributions will be important to keep going it says that if an already approved GSSP is shown to be inadequate for future issues of Permophiles. So I want to warmly thanks for reliable, high-resolution correlation it should be reconsidered. Stanley Finney, Vladimir Davydov, Charles Henderson, Spencer Spencer Lucas comments on the primary criterion used Lucas, Valery Chernykh and co-authors, Boris Chuvashov and to correlate the base of the Permian, the FO of the conodont co-authors, Abbas Ghaderi and co-authors and the Chinese- Streptognathodus isolatus, showing that it is now problematic. Iranian-Italian working group and the Sino-German Group for The evolution and taxonomy of S. isolatus are not agreed on, and their contributions to this issue. S. isolatus is a very rare taxon, of little use to global correlation. The GSSP section at Aidaralash Creek is also far from ideal and Previous and forthcoming SPS Meetings leads him to conclude that we should reconsider the position of the Two SPS meetings have been recently held. A joint business base of the Permian and its current GSSP. meeting with the Carboniferous Subcommission was held in Valdimir Davydov answers to Spencer Lucas underlying Albuquerque, during the International meeting on Carboniferous that, at Aidaralash Creek, the C-P boundary position is charac- and Permian Transition, which was hosted by the New Mexico terized by bioevents of the three major fossil groups - fusulinids, Permophiles Issue #58 November 2013 conodonts and ammonoids - and also by palynomorphs. Besides, NE Nevada, USA and at the Mechetlino Quarry section in Russia. it has paleomagnetic proxies with high potential for global cor- relations. He provides other cases of multi-variant interpretation Received Ballots: 13 of phylogeny concerning primary criteria for GSSP and he shows Yes to Rockland: 6 that the distribution of S. isolatus is quite wide. Yes to Mechetlino: 7 Valery Chernykh and co-authors provide a GSSP Proposal for base-Sakmarian stage to be defined by the FAD ofMesogondolella Abstained: 2 uralensis in Bed 25 at the Usolka section; the boundary can be Not voted: 2 correlated by an extrapolated geochronologic age, strontium iso- tope values, a negative shift in δ13Ccarb value, and by fusulines. On April 8th, 2013, the SPS Chair decided to suspend the vote Boris Chuvashov and co-authors provide a GSSP Proposal for on the Kungurian GSSP on the basis that all discussions must be base-Artinksian to be established on conodonts, fusulinaceans completed before ballots are distributed and a vote is taken.