Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy Newsletter No. 21 April, 2005 MESSAGE FROM THE NEW CHAIRMAN Dear SDS Members: This new Newsletter gives me the pleasant opportunity to thank you for your confidence which should allow me to lead our Devonian Subcommission successfully through the next four years until the next International Geological Congress in Norway. Ahmed El Hassani, as Vice-Chairman, and John Marshall, as our new Secretary, will assist and help me. As it has been our habit in the past, our outgoing chairman, Pierre Bultynck, has continued his duties until the end of the calendar year, and in the name of all the Subcommission, I like to express our warmest thanks to him for all his efforts, his enthusi- asm for our tasks, his patience with the often too slow progress of research, and for the humorous, well organized and skil- ful handling of our affairs, including our annual meetings. At the same time I like to thank all our outgoing Titular Members for their partly long-time service and I express my hope that they will continue their SDS work with the same interest and energy as Corresponding Members. The new ICS rules require a rather constant change of voting members and the change from TM to CM status should not necessarily be taken as an excuse to adopt the lifestyle of a “Devonian pensioner”. I see no reason why constantly active SDS members shouldn´t become TM again, at a later stage. On the other side, the rather strong exchange of voting members should bring in some fresh ideas and some shift towards modern stratigraphical tech- niques. The new voting membership (to be selected under the new ICS rules by the SDS executives and to be approved by ICS) consists of all previous members whose names have been put forward as candidates until our annual meeting at the Florence IGC and who agreed to take the responsibility. Representatives cover most of the major Devonian areas (countries) and most research fields. South America, unfortunately, is not yet represented as it should be. The forthcoming four years will see the continuation of current activities and a shift of emphasis towards new tasks. Integration of SDS and IGCP 499 activities will be stimulating for both. Rex Crick has agreed to continue with the compila- tion and distribution of our Newsletter and will also place it on the SDS website. His service and our success depends on the contributions you are submitting to him. Whenever you submit a document to our meetings, please send it electronically at the same time to Rex for inclusion in the next Newsletter. At Florence, ICS held a long official meeting, with a strong em- phasis on the various ways how to circulate in future the results of its work, which is mostly the output of all the subcom- missions. Apart from publishing comprehensive books, internet documentation, involving the North American CHRONOS Project, is getting more and more important. Therefore, SDS should document on its homepage in a sufficient way the rele- vant data of our GSSP´s. The past author´s of GSSP proposals are asked to submit (as digital images – preferably as jpg-file - and by email) the following GSSP details: o locality map(s) o suitable outcrop photo(s) o a section log with marked GSSP position o image of the type of the GSSP defining taxon o image of an oldest specimen of the defining taxon from the GSSP bed o photos of additional marker taxa which aid the recognition of the GSSP elsewhere o a more or less complete and up-to-date reference list for the GSSP sections Our homepage should also offer, as a general service, a complete list of the various SDS publications. Data on our sub- stages will have to be added: photos of defining and other marker taxa (types), lists of selected reference sections including the relevant publications. The same will apply to important auxiliary sections which enable correlation into the neritic and terrestrial realm. SDS has already been asked to supply some of this information to ICS. In the near future SDS will produce two more volumes, which contain valuable data: the proceedings of our Morocco Meeting, to be published in the “Geological Society, Special Publication” series, and a review of our substage work, which is planned to appear in the modernized “Geological Quarterly”. I guess that some of our already planned future symposia may lead to further comprehensive Devonian publications. In this respect, SDS can be proud of its past and current achieve- ments. Once we have solved the current substage definitions, hopefully within this year (perhaps slightly later in the case of the Famennian), we should place more emphasis on the following topics: o - Pelagic-neritic correlation: identification of suitable regional reference sections, compilation and improvement of regional charts based on correlation with the GSSP levels and substage boundaries. o - Marine-terrestrial correlation: as above, reference sections and updated regional charts. o - Refinements of Devonian event stratigraphy, with a focus on smaller scale eustatic and global evolutionary events. o - Correlation of regional stage names against the global chronostratigraphy (in order to allow an understanding of the wealth of older stratigraphical data). o - Improvements of geochronological dating and of numerical timescales (e.g., by the integration of various graphic correlation scales and by orbital scaling) 1 April, 2005 Newsletter No. 21 Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy o - Reconstructions of the Devonian world (paleogeography, climate, palaeoceanography, plate tectonics, biogeogra- phy, biodiversity) using the finest available time scale. o The latter task certainly will take us a long way ahead of 2008. I hope you feel encouraged to take part actively in the work of SDS. Of course, SDS is always open for new ideas and suggestions. I am looking forward seeing many of you at our symposium in July in Novosibirsk. yours sincerely, R. Thomas Becker, SDS Chairman 2 Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy Newsletter No. 21 April, 2005 MINUTES OF THE SDS BUSINESS MEETING, RABAT, 1st of March 2004-07-20 No Annual Business Meeting took place in 2003 and there was only an informal meeting of SDS members during the GSA Annual Meeting in Seattle in early November 2003. Instead, two Business Meetings were planned for 2004, the first of which was held in conjunction with the International Meeting on Stratigraphy, on “Devonian neritic-pelagic correlation st and events”, organized jointly by SDS and the Institute Scientific, most prominently by our TM A. El HASSANI, from 1 to 10th March 2004. The Business Meeting was scheduled at the Institute Scientifique at 4.15 p.m. on the 1st of March. At the Rabat Symposium, 24 talks were given which covered a wide range of topics with strong emphasis on Devonian biostrati- graphy, event stratigraphy and sedimentology. A further 20 posters and more than 50 participants give evidence of the sym- posium success and significant advances in Devonian research. The Guidebook of the subsequent SDS excursion to the Dra Valley is about to be published as volume 19 in the “Documents de l´Institut Scientifique” series (A. El HASSANI, Ed.) and will become available to everybody for purchase. Symposium proceedings will be published in the highly regarded “Geological Society, Special Publications” series (BECKER, R. T. & KIRCHGASSER, Eds.), as a volume dedicated to our late former Chairman M. R. HOUSE. The Geological Society editorial board has just accepted our planning for such volume and all authors who have indicated their wish to contribute will be given more details in early August. Publication is planned for autumn 2005 (new manuscript deadline = 1st December) and will serve as one of the first examples for the new collabora- tion between IUGS and the Geological Society. Attendance A total of 33 people attended which is slightly less than at the Toulouse business meeting in June 2002: TMs R. T. BECKER, P. BULTYNCK, A. EL HASSANI, W. T. KIRCHGASSER, P. MORZADEC, ZHU Min, CMs M. BENSAID, C. E. BRETT, D. BRICE, CHEN, Xiu-Qin, M. EL BENFRIKA, U. JANSEN, P. SARTENAER, E. SCHINDLER, M. STREEL, N. VALENZUELA-RIOS, Guests Z. S. ABOUSSALAM (Münster), M. AMLER (Marburg), F. BIGEY (Paris), J. BOCKWINKEL (Leverkusen), J.-G. CASIER (Bruxelles), C. CORRADINI (Cagliari), C. CRONIER (Lille), GOUWY, S. (Bruxelles), V. EBBIGHAUSEN (Odenthal), A. EL AL- BANI (Poitiers), P. KÖNIGSHOF (Frankfurt a m.), LIAO, Jau-Chyn (Valencia), U. MANN (Jülich), G. MCINTOSH (Rochester), J.-P. NICOLLIN (Lille), J. ORSO (Milano), G. PLODOWSKI (Frankfurt a. M.). Five documents were presented at the meeting which were numbered as follows: 1. TSYGANKO, V.: Levels of the substage boundaries from the Middle and Upper Devonian (European North-East). – 1p. 2. Streel, M., Belka, Z., Dreesen, R., Durkina, A. V., Groos-Uffenorde, H., Hance, L., Hartkopf-Fröder, C., Haydukiewicz, J., Korn, D., Perri, M. C., Piecha, M. & Spaletta, C.: Relation of the neritic microfaunas and continental microfloras with the conodont and other pelagic faunas within the latest part of the Famennian. – 6 pp. 3. BLIECK, A.: Marine/non-marine correlation. – 2 pp. 4. BLIECK, A., CLEMENT, G., BLOM, H., LELIEVRE, H., LUKSEVICS, E. & YOUNG, G. C.: Late Devonian tetrapod-bearing localities: a review including new data, and the need of accurate datings. – 10 pp. 5. KÖNIGSHOF, P., LAZAUSKIENE, J., SCHINDLER, E., WILDE, V. & YALCIN, M. N.: IGCP 499 – Devonian land-sea interaction: evo- lution of ecosystems and climate. – 2 pp. 1. Introduction and apologies for absence The Chairman opened the meeting and thanked our Moroccan hosts, especially TM El HASSANI, for their hospitality and the splendid organisation. The fact that SDS has returned to Morocco only five years after the successful 1999 meeting strongly emphasizes the significance of the Moroccan Devonian for international correlation and it is still far from being fully explored.