chitinozoan 31cimp.weebly.com/uploads/6/4/0/5/6405206/cimp_chit_31_2014...commission internationale...

31

Commission Internationale de Microflore du Paléozoïque http://www.cimp.ulg.ac.be

Commission Interna-tionale de Microflore du Paléozoïque

Subcommission on Chitinozoans

Chitinozoan News-letter 31July 2014

Edited by Thijs Vandenbroucke

Online at http://www.cimp.ulg.ac.be/archnews.html

chitinozoan news

Editorial

This will be the last chitinozoan newsletter I have edited, as my

term of secretary is coming to an end this summer, and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to it. You will have noticed that newsletters have been coming out sporadically rather than regularly over the last few years, due to a combination of diminishing volume of contributions and a parallel increase in voices that wonder if, in this day and age, newsletters still are the best way of sharing new ideas and results. As a result, this newsletter contains information about research over the last two-three years (and I have tried to indicate from when the information is dated).

The general outcome of the little e-mail questionnaire we organised last year, was that most people wished to remain on the e-mail list and continue to receive news. A next logical step, I think, is to re-evaluate in which format this would best be done. Personally, I am not convinced that this would be the newsletter as we have it today; if newsletters are continued, I would plead to re-enforce everyone’s investment into the general CIMP newsletter, rather than for those of the sub-commission(s). In the current academic landscape, Palaeozoic palynology is a very small niche domain, and we are continuously encouraged to organise our work in more multidisciplinary fashion (i.e., much wider than palynology), so perhaps the

time has come to re-evaluate the need for splitting our little domain in even smaller subdomains?

Whatever the medium, I hope we can continue to keep each other updated on the science we are doing or planning to do, and look forward to seeing you at one or the other meeting soon,

Best wishes

Thijs

Message from the president

As I already wrote three years ago, we are a small group of

scientists studying the chitinozoans, and our community has shown that our microfossil group can be very useful for detailed biostratigraphical work. In the Ordovician and Silurian, our group nowadays is considered as the third standard group for standard biozonation. It is the fossil group that can bridge between the biozonation with conodonts in carbonate rocks and the biozonation with graptolites in siliciclastic rocks. Besides their biostratigraphic work, many of the colleagues are involved in the study of various proxies and this again is well-appreciated at conferences.

However, based on the limited response we receive from the


Chitinozoan newsletter 31 - July 2014 2

members, I perhaps ought to propose to evaluate the value and significance of our sub-commission to all its members. What do you expect from the Subcommission? A platform for taxonomic discussion? A functional website for chitinozoan workers? A database with all publications in pdf form? Easy identification tools? There also is the question of where we should try to meet: during stand-alone meetings/workshops, or as part of larger conference, such as the upcoming meeting in Padova? I hope that this discussion can be started at the CIMP session in Padova at the end of August.

Jacques

ElectionsJacques and myself launched a call for

candidatures for the offices of president and secretary of this chitinozoan sub-commission on the first of July 2014, and a reminder a few days before the deadline on July 14th. On July 22nd, when this newsletter was compiled, we had received the following declarations of interest:

President: Jacques Verniers (Ghent University, Belgium)Secretary: Wenhui Wang (Nanjing University, China)

Wenhui lets us know that she also stands as a candidate for the post of secretary of the acritarch sub-commission, and that in the context of results of that election, her engagement here might have to be reviewed.

As there is only one candidate for each post, a simple yes/no vote will be held for each candidate – position. Members are invited to vote by sending an e-mail to [email protected] by August 24th.

Thijs

Future meetings2014 CIMP General Meeting

The CIMP General Meeting will be held at Padova, Italy, in conjunction with the 9th European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference, 26-31 August 2014.

http://geo.geoscienze.unipd.it/eppc2014/index.htmlThere will be two CIMP-sponsored Symposia at

the EPPC

S37: Palaeozoic Palynostratigraphy of the Arabian Plate and adjoining regions, and global correlationS38: What’s trendy in pre-Cambrian and Palaeozoic Palynology?

During this meeting, various positions of the CIMP Committee will be renewed, such as President, General Secretary, Treasurer as well as subcommisions’ presidents and secretary. Please refer to the earlier e-mail communication by Gary Mullins concerning the elections.

**********

4th International Palaeontological Congress (IPC 4), Mendoza, 28 September-3 October 2014

All information can be found here:http://www.ipc4mendoza2014.org.arClaudia Rubinstein (see her report below) reports on the various sessions that are of direct interest for palynologists.

**********12th ISOS, June 2015 at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, USA

Hosted by Stephen A. Leslie, James Madison University (Chair) and Daniel Goldman, University of Dayton (Co-Chair)

Important Dates:Second Circular scheduled October 2014 [including Call for Abstracts]Third Circular scheduled March 2015 [with provisional program]Pre-Meeting Field Trips June 3-7, 2015Technical Sessions June 8, 9, 10, 2015Conference Field Trip June 11 Post-Meeting Field Trips June 12-17, 2015.



LocationThe meeting will be on the campus of James Madison University (www.jmu.edu) in the City of Harrisonburg.

**********5th International Symposium on the Silurian System: Quebec City, Canada, July 8 – 10, 2015 (see below, igcp591, for details)

IGCP 591

IGCP591 keeps inspiring Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian research, and providing venues to

present these results. Have a look at the website for reports on past meetings, to download abstract volumes, field guides and special issues, and for an update on planned events.

www.igcp591.org

Of particular interest for the audience of this newsletter, might the IGCP 591 annual meetings for 2015 and 2016:

5th International Symposium on the Silurian System and 5th Annual Meeting of the IGCP 591Quebec City, CanadaJuly 8 – 10, 2015

The aims of the joint IGCP 591/Silurian Subcommission meeting are to investigate the dynamic and important Lower and Middle Paleozoic interval in the history and evolution of life and our planet and to improve our understanding of the definition, correlation and resolution of Silurian time. Contributions on relevant topics (ocean biogeochemistry, sea-level change, biodiversity changes, paleoecology…) are welcome.

Important Dates March 15, 2015: Deadline for registration, abstracts, and payments July 4-7, 2015: Pre-conference excursion in the Gaspe Peninsula July 8-10, 2015: Scientific sessions at the INRS-ETE Complex, Quebec City July 11-17, 2015: Post-conference excursions on Anticosti Island and St. Lawrence Lowlands

**********IGCP591 FINAL MEETING 2016Ghent, BelgiumJuly 5-8, 2016

The meeting will organised by Thijs Vandenbroucke & Jacques Verniers. Scientific sessions on 5-8 July 2016. Satellite workshops and/or field trips to be announced, likely just before and after these dates. Details will be announced in 2015. The meeting will focus on model-data integration in the deep time.

The oldest chitinozoans

Several of our members suggested to dedicate a special section of this newsletter to the

discovery of the oldest chitinozoans, from the Cambrian Stage 5 (~510 Ma) Duyun fauna of southern China, and identified as Eisenackitina? sp. This has been published in Geology, by Cen Shen and co-workers, in early 2013. Some colleagues suggested caution, given that the specimens are secondarily phosphatized, which is typical of the Orsten-type preservation of the Duyun fauna. As a co-author of the paper, your newsletter editor supports the case made in the publication, but very much welcomes discussion on these pages!

Access the paper:http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/41/2/191.

full?ijkey=3y8NYpCdK/S7o&keytype=ref&siteid=gsgeology



Palaeozoic applied marine paly-nologyA special issue of RPP in honour of Florentin Paris(eds. Vandenbroucke, Vecoli, Servais)

On the occasion of Florentin Paris’ retirement as ‘Directeur de Recherche’ of the French ‘Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique’ in October of 2011, we brought together a collection of papers by his friends, colleagues and former students, to celebrate his rich and exemplary career. It is under Florentin’s impulse that chitinozoan biostratigraphy matured, became more widely known and used in Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian research communities, and that it safely secured its place in the toolbox of the Palaeozoic stratigrapher.

Have a look at the volume on: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00346667/198

List of papers:Achab, A., Asselin, E., Desrochers, A., Riva, J.F., 2013. The end-Ordovician chitinozoan zones of Anticosti Island, Québec: Definition and stratigraphic position. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 92–109.Butcher, A., 2013. Chitinozoans from the middle Rhuddanian (lower Llandovery, Silurian) ‘hot’ shale in the E1-NC174 core, Murzuq Basin, SW Libya. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 62–91.de la Puente, G.S., Rubinstein, C.V., 2013. Ordovician chitinozoans and marine phytoplankton of the Central Andean Basin, northwestern Argentina: A biostratigraphic and paleobiogeographic approach. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 14–26.Grahn, Y., Mendlowicz Mauller, P., Bergamaschi, S., Bosetti, E.P., 2013. Palynology and sequence stratigraphy of three Devonian rock units in the Apucarana Sub-basin (Paraná Basin, south Brazil): Additional data and correlation. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 27–44.Lei, Yong, Servais, T., Feng, Qinglai, 2013. The diversity of the Permian phytoplankton. Re- view of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 145–161.Pouille, L., Delabroye, A., Vandenbroucke, T.R.A., Calner, M., Lehnert, O., Vecoli, M., Danelian, T., 2013. Chitinozoan biostratigraphy across the Katian (Late Ordovician) GICE event in the Borenshult-1

Drillcore (Sweden). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 134–144.Servais, T., Achab, A., Asselin, E., 2013. Eighty years of chitinozoan research: From Alfred Eisenack to Florentin Paris. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 2–13.Wang, Wenhui, Feng, Hongzhen, Vandenbroucke, T.R.A., Li, Lixia, Verniers, J., 2013. Chitinozoans from the Tremadocian graptolite shales of the Jiangnan Slope in South China. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 45–61.Yan, Kui, Li, Jun, Servais, T., 2013. An Early–Middle Ordovician acritarch and prasinophyte assemblage from Houping, Chongqing City, South China: Biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental implications. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 110–133.

Stick-insect eggsPeople interested by the «chitinozoan world»

should have a look on the various websites illustrating a great variety of stick-insect eggs (e.g.http://lemondedesphasmes.free.fr/spip.php?article189). A long time ago I indicated (Paris, 1981, Pl. 39, figs. 13-14) striking similarities between the eggs of some stick insects (especially their general morphology) and the classical features of chitinozoan vesicles. On the web, I recently found pictures of ornamented eggs of stick-insects (see below). I am not advocating here for a close relationship between chitinozoans and insects, but simply suggesting that similar biological functions may result in similar morphological patterns. In the case of Phillium sp., the spectacular and complex ornamentation of the eggs illustrated here unfurls a short time after the egg laying.

Fresh laying of Phillium sp. (photo from Bruno Biron)



This observation and the helicoidal organisation of the chitinozoan in chain-like structures should stimulate investigations on possible biological groups candidates for generating chitinozoans for ca. 130 million years!

Note that the radial symmetry of the chitinozoans is not fully present in the eggs of stick-insects.

Florentin Paris

CHITINOVOSP

(Chitinozoan database)

Thanks to Merrell Miller, Jaak Nõlvak, Olga Obut, Tang Peng, Jacques Verniers, I was

able to load some missing illustrations in my database CHITINOVOSP, which includes now 1273 chitinozoan species and subspecies. Some generic and/or age assignments are updated (e.g., standard Ordovician stages). I also improved the quality of the photos, added scale bars and “extracted” each species picture (300 dpi) as an individual JPEG file in order to leave open the possibility to introduce them in “home made” databases or in databases using another software (e.g. ORACLE©) than FILEMAKER©. Additional information about the CHITINOVOSP database is available upon request (contact: [email protected])

Florentin Paris

Eggs of Phillium sp. (Photo from Bruno Biron)



G. Susana de la Puente (Argentina; 2014)In 2011 I started in my position as a scientific

researcher with CONICET of Argentina on chitinozoans of the Ordovician and Silurian successions from Argentina, under the direction of Dr. Claudia Rubinstein in the Palaeopalynology Unit at IANIGLA-CCT, CONICET Mendoza.

In 2013 I moved to Neuquén (Argentina) where I am still working as a scientific researcher for CONICET, concentrating on the same topics under the direction of Dr. Claudia Rubinstein. Additionally I began to collaborate as an Assistant Professor in the Geology Department at the Universidad Nacional del Comahue (Neuquén, Argentina).

I am actively involved in the organization of the 4th International Palaeontological Congress, to be held this year, from September 28th to October 3rd, 2014 in Mendoza, Argentina. http://www.ipc4mendoza2014.org.ar/

Mohammad Ghavidel-Syooki (Iran; 2013)Three PhD students are working on the

biostratigraphy of Upper Ordovician strata in the Eastern Alborz Range of Iran. One of my students is working on the Lower and Middle Ordovician strata and another is working on the Silurian strata of Eastern Alborz Mountain Range.

Yan LIANG (NIGPAS, China; 2013)I am actively working on my PhD at NIGPAS.

Last year, I have published one short paper on chitinozoans in GFF entitled “New data of early Late Ordovician chitinozoans from the Miaopo Formation at Jieling, Yichang, Central China”. And recently, we have finished two drafts on Mid-Upper Ordovician chitinozoans including several new species.

Viiu Nestor (Institute of Geology at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; 2014)

I am still working on the Silurian chitinozoans. This year I shall continue the revision of all species identifications for the East Baltic Silurian biostratigraphic database, within the frame of the project “Quantitative stratigraphical approach to early Palaeozoic chitinozoans and conodonts of the Baltic area: high-resolution time scales and palaeobiodiversity”, guided by Olle Hints.

Jaak Nõlvak (Institute of Geology at Tallinn Technical University, Estonia; 2013)

I continue my work on Ordovician chitinozoans. With D. Goldman we concentrate on the graptoloids and chitinozoans from the Mid Ordovician from Latvia. New chitinozoan material from the Ordovician and Silurian boundary beds from the sections of the East Baltic is under preparation and also one new section through whole Ordovician

Members reports



from central Estonia. Unfortunately all efforts to find some chitinozoans from important Ordovician and Silurian boundary beds from the Mirny Creek section were unsuccessful due to strong heating of these rocks and bad preservation. One new chitinozoan species Baltochitina delicata was described.

Leonard Olaru (Romania; 2013)From 2006, I have been Professor emeritus of

the “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iasi, Department of Geology, Romania. After my pension in 2006, I continued to work, voluntarily, by giving scientific assistance to my younger fellow-workers on the study of biostratigraphy, paleoecology, paleogeography, by acritarchs and chitinozoans, of the Ordovician and Silurian sedimentary formations (Moldavian and Podolian Platforms) and metamorphic formations of the East Carpathians of Romania. Over the couple of last years, our department started to study the palynofacies and TOC from different sedimentary formations of the Moldavian Platform and the Podolian Region (EEP) and established arguments and conclusions regarding the oil and gas prospections (i.e., shale gas) using acritarchs and chitinozoan analyses (especially on the Moldavian Platform).

In this period, I have gathered all my published palynological papers from the period between 1965 and 2011, in two collection volumes, named:

PALYNOLOGY AND PALYNOSTRATIGRAPHY OF SEDIMENTARY AND METAMORPHIC FORMATIONS OF ROMANIA. 2008. VOL. I, 801 pgs., Parts I, II, III (Sedimentary formations of Moldavian and Moesian Platforms; Paleogene flysch deposits from the Eastern Carpathians; Proterozoic and Lower Paleozoic metamorphic formations of the East Carpathians, Romania).

PALYNOLOGY AND PALYNOSTRATIGRAPHY OF SEDIMENTARY AND METAMORPHIC FORMATIONS OF ROMANIA. 2011. VOL. II, 543 pgs., Parts IV – VIII. (Proterozoic and Lower Paleozoic formations from the Western Mountains and Southern Carpathians, Romania; Proterozoic and Lower Paleozoic formations of North and Central Dobrogea County, Romania; Miscellanaea - Varia papers; Scientific geological grants with prospection and exploration application; Published books and handbooks with geological character).

Florentin PARIS (France; 2014). I continue various collaborations on Ordovician

chitinozoans assemblages from Northern Gondwana and I am implementing several regional chitinozoan atlases. I started a collaboration on Silurian Chinese chitinozoans (leader Wang Xiao-hong).

My updated CHINOVOSP database presently records 1266 chitinozoan species with stratigraphical ranges documented according to the last definitions of the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian stages. Separate individual JPEG files are now available for all the recorded holotypes.

For people interested by relationships between chitinozoan vesicles and present day organisms, I provide here an illustration of stick-insects eggs (Phillium sp.) recalling the ornamentation in rows of Hercochitina (the radial symmetry is not present in the eggs)

Peng TANG (NIGPAS, China; 2013)I keep working on Ordovician and Silurian

chitinozoans in South China and Tarim Basin, northwestern China. From 2009 to 2011, I have been working on an oil company project which aims to study Ordovician, Silurian chitinozoan stratigraphy in the Tarim Basin, and provide stratigraphical correlation among outcrops and subsurface areas. I was totally involved in that project. Thousands samples have been processed. Last year, I finally completed that project, and now have time to do stratigraphy work in South China. Part of results of the project, on chitinozoan systematics and biostratigraphy, are being prepared for publication, and will be published in the following couple of years.

Now, I am involved as a group member in a great project led by Prof. Renbin Zhan of NIGPAS, which is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). This project will continue 3 years and focuses on Lower Paleozoic bio-events. In the following 3 years, I will focus most of my energy on Ordovician and Silurian chitinozoans in South China.

In 2012, I published a paper on chitinozoans from the Ordovician-Silurian boundary interval in Zhejiang Province, East China. A chitinozoan assemblage of low abundance and low diversity was recovered near the base of the Anji Formation.



Belonechina cf. postrobusta and Spinachitina verniersi were recovered and, dated the base of the Anji Formation as Latest Ordovician to earliest Silurian. It is the first time that a chitinozoan assemblage across the O/S boundary is recovered from South China, which may help improve our understanding of the chitinozoan distribution and evolution after the end-Ordovician mass extinction in South China and elsewhere. The co-occurred brachiopod fauna was assigned to upper-middle BA (Benthic Assemblage) 3, indicating normal shallow water regimes. Two species, i.e. Belonechina cf. postrobusta and Spinachitina verniersi, are described in that paper.

Claudia Rubinstein (Argentina; 2013)I continue to work on Paleozoic acritarchs and

spores from Argentinean basins, as well as other South American localities. Our projects deal with taxonomy, biostratigraphy, paleobiogeography, paleoenvironments and diversity. In the frame of the PhD thesis of my student, Victoria García Muro, we are strongly involved with the palynological studies of the Silurian of the Precordillera Basin. The Upper Silurian of the Precordillera Basin is well known for yielding rich and diverse microphytoplankton assemblages which provide much information to the knowledge related to the evolution of the organic-walled phytoplankton diversity during this period. Recent papers show the diversity trends of the organic-walled phytoplankton in all Silurian basins of Argentina and highlight particularities of the Argentinean assemblages in comparison with coeval ones. I am actively collaborating with Susana de la Puente who studies Ordovician – Early Silurian chitinozoans. Our work also includes carbon isotope analysis of Late Ordovician- Early Silurian successions of northwestern Argentina.

Among other projects, as General Chair of the next 4th International Palaeontological Congress (IPC 4), to be held in Mendoza in 2014 (28 September-3 October), I am deeply involved with its organization. During the IPC 4 in Mendoza, the AASP 47th Annual Meeting will be held as well, which is of special interest for all palynologists. It should be noted that two of the already confirmed symposia are directly related with Paleozoic palynology and they are organized by CIMP colleagues: The invasion of land: when and where? (Nicholas Minter & Charles Wellman) and

Evolution of photosynthesizing organisms- from microbiota to plants (Malgorzata Moczydlowska-Vidal & Vivi Vajda).

You can find more information about the congress at: www.ipc4mendoza2014.org.ar.

Stewart Sutherland (Canada; 2013)I am currently a member of faculty of the

Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

Thijs Vandenbroucke (CNRS, France; 2014)I continue to work on various aspects of

Ordovician-Silurian planktonic fossils, including a large chunk of chitinozoan work. Besides using these for biostratigraphy, we have been testing the potential of using the palaeobiogeography of these microfossils, as well as their geochemistry, to better understand Early Palaeozoic climates and environments. My published papers include a lot of collaborative work, including biostratigraphic studies in Bornholm and the type Llandovery area, carbon isotope work on chitinozoans (published in GGG), and work on teratologic specimens in Munnecke et al. (2012). I also was delighted to have been involved, with Shen Cen and others, in the description of the earliest chitinozoans known, from the Duyun fauna of Guizhou Province, south China. A full list of papers is available elsewhere in this newsletter and on my website: http://geosystemes.univ-lille1.fr/geosystemes/spip.php?rubrique94&lang=fr

I currently supervise two PhD students at the University of Lille 1 in France. Chloé Amberg uses chitinozoans to substantiate evidence of pre-Hirnantian glaciations. Lorena Tessitore focuses on the Hirnantian of Morocco, as part of an ANR funded research program led by Jean-François Ghienne in Strasbourg. I also co-supervise Hendrik Novak, working on his PhD on the palynology from the Fezouata biota. I have also supervised a number of MSc students that were based in Jacques Verniers’ lab in Ghent, i.e., Wout Salenbien, Tim Collart and Thomas Steeman. More information on their work can be found in Jacques’ report.

My work for the coming years builds on the research summarized above.



Nuno Vaz (Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal; 2013)

I started a master with the student Susana Parra, for the biostratigraphic characterization, with chitinozoans of Ordovician sequences in Valongo and Moncorvo areas, North Portugal.

Marco Vecoli (Saudi Aramco Biostratigraphy Group, Saudi Arabia; 2013)

I am working on chitinozoans of Ordovician and Silurian age from the Arabian Plate, in application to creating/refining high-resolution downhole biozonations to be used for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon exploration. In Saudi Aramco, we are now plotting stratigraphic ranges of key chitinozoan taxa in the framework of robust graptolite biozonation from core material with exceptional stratigraphic record and preservation. This will also help to verify the true stratigraphic ranges of biostratigraphically important acritarch species. Part of the results will be hopefully published in the scientific literature.

Jacques Verniers (Ghent University, Belgium; 2014)

My major occupation being in education and department administration, chitinozoan research time was far reduced and concentrated on guiding students for their Bachelor projects, Master thesis or PhD students.

With Florentin Paris and others we succeeded to publish the manuscript on chitinozoans from the Upper Ordovician from the Qusaiba borehole on the Arabian Peninsula, a diverse and well preserved fauna is present with several new species (Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology)

Tim Collart (M.Sc. 2013) studied a potential paleo-environmental signal in the calcareous rhythmites of the Frognerkilen Formation (Uppermost Sandbian - Lower Katian) in Norway. In parallel Wout Salenbien (M.Sc. 2013) studied the nature of calcareous rhythmites in the Ordovician of Oslo; this was a bed-by-bed study of the Katian Solvang Formation. Both MSc students were supervised by Thijs Vandenbroucke (CNRS), with the collaboration of Axel Munnecke (Erlangen), Oyvind Hammer (Oslo) and Arne Nielsen (Copenhagen).

Thomas Steeman finished his M.Sc. in 2014 on the chitinozoan and δ13Ccarb biochemostratigraphy

of the Silurian “Big Crisis” record in the Long mountain, Welsh Borderland, also under the supervision of Thijs Vandenbroucke, and in collaboration with Mark Williams (Leicester).

For the Bachelor project 2011 of Ivo Van de Moortel & Thomas Steeman we joined a one week excursion led by Carl Brett and Brad Cramer to Kentucky, Ohio, and New York State where we studied and samples Silurian sections, during our 5000 km long trek. The study of the chitinozoans sampled in Tryon Park were presented at conferences in the USA and Belgium. Chitinozoans from Telychian samples taken during that field trip in Ohio, Kentucky and Indianan are now also studied and results will be presented at the CIMP session in Padova

Jan Mortier (Belgium) finished his PhD study on the evolution of the Upper Ordovician to Silurian basin in the Condroz Inlier and the Brabant Massif from a litho- and biostratigraphical point of view. If all goes well he will defend it in September 2014.

After retirement from the teaching and administrative tasks at Ghent University in October 2015 I want to take up again the publication of nearly finished projects: chitinozoans around the Silurian- Ordovician boundary in two boreholes (Rostanga and Lönstorp) in Scania (Sweden); the chitinozoans of the type sections of the Llandovery; the earliest Chitinozoans from the Stavelot Massif in Belgium in collaboration with Wang Wenhui; and further from Scotland, Poland, …

WANG Wenhui (School of Geosciences and Engineering, University of Nanjing, P.R. China; 2013)

During my last year of PhD program, I worked on integrated graptolite-chitinozoan-acritarch biostratigraphy from the Jiangnan Slope, South China. I have two papers about chitinozoans and acritarchs accepted for publication in Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology during 2012, in collaboration with Jacques Verniers, Thijs Vandenbroucke and Marco Vecoli. Based on these data from South China, I am also currently working on Tremadocian biodiversity changes in the Jiangnan slope.

Shen et al. (2012)’s latest report about the earliest chitinozoans from the Cambrian Stage 5 sparks my interest in finding chitinozoans from lowermost



Tremadocian. Experiments will be carried out on samples from three Early Tremadocian sections from the Jiangnan Slope, These sections are well-dated by graptolite biozones.

I will continue my study on chitinozoans recovered from layers in Early to Middle Ordovician from Nanba section, South China. In addition, I am also working on the biostratigraphy of some Ordovician-Silurian boundary sections from the Tarim Basin, northwest China. Integrated study on both chitinozoans and graptolites will help to solve the O/S boundary problems in this area.

Ryszard Wrona (Poland, 2013)I am retired but still actively working on Ordovician

up to Devonian chitinozoans from Poland and adjacent areas. My address for correspondence remains the same.

Rustem Yakupov (Russia; 2013)I am continuing my work on the chitinozoan

biostratigraphy of the Ordovician to Silurian from the South Urals and from the boreholes of the Russian platform



Publications(As received)Achab, A., Asselin, E., Desrochers, A., Riva, J.F., 2013. The end-Ordovician chitinozoan zones of Anticosti Island, Québec: Definition and stratigraphic position. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 92–109.Bogolepova, O.K., Gubanov, A.P., Paris, F. 2013. Early Silurian chitinozoans from Severnya Zemlya, Russian Arctic. GFF 134, 331-333.Butcher, A., 2013. Chitinozoans from the middle Rhuddanian (lower Llandovery, Silurian) ‘hot’ shale in the E1-NC174 core, Murzuq Basin, SW Libya. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 62–91.Cen Shen, Aldridge, R. J., Williams, M., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A. and Xi-guang Zhang. 2013. The earliest chitinozoans discovered in the Cambrian Duyun fauna of China. Geology, 41(2), 191–194. doi: 10.1130/G33763.1.Challands, T. J., Vandenbroucke T. R. A., Armstrong, H. A. & Davies, J. In press. Chitinozoan biozonation in the upper Katian (Ashgill) and Hirnantian of the Welsh Basin, UK. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.Chen Xu, Zhang Yuandong, Li Yue, Fan Juanxuan, Tang Peng, Chen Qing, Zhang Yuanyuan. 2012. Biostratigraphic correlation of the Ordovician black shales in Tarim Basin and its peripheral regions. Sci China Earth Sci, 55, 1230-1237Davies, J. R, Waters, R. A, Molyneux, S. G., Williams, M., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A. & Verniers, J. 2013. A revised sedimentary and biostratigraphical architecture for the Type Llandovery area, Central Wales. Geological Magazine, 150 (02), 300 - 332. doi:10.1017/S0016756812000337. De la Puente, G.S., Rubinstein, C.V. 2013. New palynological data from the Upper Ordovician of the Precordillera Basin, Argentina: A potential key for understanding the geological history of the Precordillera terrain. Stratigraphy - IGCP 591 issue 10 (4): 229–248.De la Puente, G.S., Rubinstein, C.V. 2013. Ordovi-cian chitinozoans and marine phytoplankton of the Central Andean Basin, northwestern Argentina: A biostratigraphic and paleobiogeographic approach. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 14–26.

Debacker, T.N., Verniers, J., Strachan, L., Dumon, M. & Belmans, M. In press (online Jan 2014). Sedimentological thickness variations within Silurian mudstone-dominated turbidite deposits and the effects on cleavage fanning (Anglo-Brabant Deformation Belt, Belgium). Journal of the Geological Society, London. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/jgs2013-031.Delabroye, A., Munnecke, A., Servais, T., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A. & Vecoli, M. 2012. Abnormal forms of acritarchs (phytoplankton) in the upper Hirnantian (Upper Ordovician) of Anticosti Island, Canada. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 173, 46–56, doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2011.10.010.Gendry, D., Courville, P., Saucède T., Laffont R. Paris, F. 2013. Contribution of morphometrics to the Systematics of the Ordovician Genus Neseuretus (Calymenidae, Trilobita) from the Armorican Massif, France. Journal of Paleontology 87, 456-471Ghavidel-syooki, M., Álvaro, J., Popov, L., Ghobadi Pour, M., Ehsani, M. H., Suyarkova, A. 2011. Stratigraphic evidence for the Hirnantian (latest Ordovician) glaciation in the Zagros Mountains, Iran. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 307, 1-16.Ghavidel-Syooki, M., Hassanzadeh, J., Vecoli, M. 2011. Palynology and isotope geochronology of the Upper Ordovician–Silurian successions (Ghelli and Soltan Maidan Formations) in the Khoshyeilagh area, eastern AlborzRange, northern Iran; stratigraphic and palaeogeographic implications. Review Palaeobotany& Palynology, 164, 251-271.Grahn, Y., Mendlowicz Mauller, P., Bergamaschi, S., Bosetti, E.P., 2013. Palynology and sequence stratigraphy of three Devonian rock units in the Apucarana Sub-basin (Paraná Basin, south Brazil): Additional data and correlation. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 27–44.Grahn, Y., Paris, F. 2011. Emergence, biodiversification and extintion of the chitinozoan group. Geol. Mag., 148 (2): 226-236.Herbosch, A. & Verniers, J. in press. Stratigraphy of the Lower Palaeozoic of the Brabant Massif, Belgium. Part II: The Middle Ordovician to lowest Silurian of the Rebecq Group. Geologica Belgica. Herbosch, A. & Verniers, J. 2013. Stratigraphy of the Lower Palaeozoic of the Brabant Massif, Belgium. Part I: The Cambro-Ordovician from the Halle and Ottignies groups. Geologica Belgica, 16 (1-2), 49-65.



Hints, O., Paris, F., Al-Hajri, S. 2014 (in press). Late Ordovician scoleocodonts from the Qusaiba-1 core hole, central Saudi Arabia, and their paleogeographical affinities. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol.Hints, O., Viira, V. and Nõlvak, J. 2012. Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) conodont biostratigraphy in NW Estonia. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 61, 4, 210-226.Kaljo, D., Männik, P., Martma, T., Nõlvak, J. 2012. More about the Ordovician-Silurian transition beds at Mirny Creek, Omulev Mountains, NE Russia: carbon isotopes and conodonts. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 61, 4, 277-294.Kiipli, T., Kallaste, T. & Nestor, V. 2012. Correlation of upper Llandovery - lower Wenlock bentonites in the När (Gotland, Sweden) and Ventspils (Latvia) drill cores: role of volcanic ash clouds and shelf sea currents in determining areal distribution of bentonite. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences 61, 295-306.Kiipli,T., Einasto, R., Kallaste, T., Nestor, V., Perens, H. & Siir, S. 2011. Geochemistry and correlation of volcanic ash beds from Rootsiküla Stage (Wenlock-Ludlow) in the eastern Baltic. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 60, 207-219.Koch, L., Servais, T., Maletz, J, Vandenbroucke T. R. A. & Verniers, J. 2014. The Ordovician of the Ebbe Inlier (Rhenish Massif, western Germany) revisited. GFF 136(1), 142-146 doi:10.1080/11035897.2013.876658Le Hérissé, A., Paris, F., Steemans, P. 2013. Late Ordovician-earliest Silurian Palynomorphs from Chad and correlation with contemporaneous deposits of southeastern Libya. Bulletin of Geosciences 88, 483-504.Lei, Yong, Servais, T., Feng, Qinglai, 2013. The diversity of the Permian phytoplankton. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 145–161.Munnecke, A., Delabroye, A., Servais, T., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A. & Vecoli, M. 2012. Systematic occurrences of malformed (terato-logical) acritarchs in the run-up of Early Palaeozoic δ13C isotope excursions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 367–368, 137–146. Doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.02.029. Nestor, V. 2011. Chitinozoan biostratigraphy of the Pridoli Series of the East Baltic. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 60, 191-206.Nestor, V. 2012. A summary and revision of the

East Baltic Silurian chitinozoan biozonation. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 61, 242-260. (doi: 10.3176/earth.2012.4.05)Nõlvak, J. 2012. A new chitinozoan species from the Middle Ordovician of Estonia. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 61, 2, 131-132.Olaru, L., Tabara, D. 2011. Lithological and palynostratigraphical correlations between Silurian deposits from the Dnestr River Region (Podolia) and the North of Moldavian Platform (Romania). Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii “Al.I.Cuza” din Iasi, Seria Geologie 57 (1), 29 - 47.Olaru,L., Grasu, C., Chihaia, M. 2011. Damuc Series of Haghimas Syncline from East Carpathians, Romania. New petrographical and palynostratigraphical data. Acta Palaeontologica Romaniae 7, 267 - 278.Paris, F. Le Hérissé, A. 2013 (in press). Chitinozoa và Acritacha. In Ta Hoa P. Ed. Geologie Emcyclopedie (in Vietnamian).Paris, F., B. Thusu, G. Meinhold, J.P. Howard, S. Rasul, D. Strogen, Y. Abutarruma, M. Elgadry and A.G. Whitham. 2012. Palynological and palynofacies analysis of early Silurian shales from the shallow borehole CDEG-2a in Dor el Gussa, eastern Murzuq Basin, Libya. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 174, 1-26.Paris, F., J. Verniers, M. Miller, S. Al-Hajri, J. Melvin, Wellman, C. 2014 (in press). Late Ordovician- earliest Silurian chitinozoans from the Qusaiba-1 core hole, (North Central Saudi Arabia) and relation to the Hirnantian glaciation. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol.Paris, F., Miller, M., Al-Hajri, S. Zalasiewicz, J., 2014 (in press). Early Silurian chitinozoans from the Qusaiba type area; North Central Saudi Arabia. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol.Perrier, V., Siveter, D. J., Williams, M., Strusz, D. L., Steeman, T., Verniers, J., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A. In press. Myodocope ostracods from the Silurian of Australia. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.Pouille, L., Delabroye, A., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A., Calner, M., Lehnert, O., Vecoli, M. & Danelian, T. 2013. Chitinozoan biostratigraphy across the Katian (Late Ordovician) GICE event in the Borenshult-1 drillcore (Sweden). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 98, 134–144Rubinstein, C. V. & Garcia Muro V.J., 2011. Fitoplancton marino de pared orgánica y mioesporas silúricos de la Formación Los Espejos,



en el perfil del Río de las Chacritas, Precordillera de San Juan, Argentina. Ameghiniana, 48(4), 618-641.Rubinstein, C. V. & Garcia Muro V.J., 2011. Silurian to Early Devonian organic-walled phytoplankton and miospores from Argentina: biostratigraphy and diversity trends. Geological Journal 48, 270–283. doi: 10.1002/gj.1327.Rubinstein, C. V., Vecoli, C. V. & Astini, R. A., 2011. Biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental characterization of the Middle Ordovician from the Sierras Subandinas (NW Argentina) based on organic walled microfossils and sequence stratigraphy. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 31 (1), 124-138.Schönlaub, H.P., Ferretti, A., Gaggero, L., Hammarlund, E., Harper, D.A.T., Histon, K., Priewalder, H., Spötl, C., Štorch, P. 2011. The Late Ordovician glacial event in the Carnic Alps (Austria).- In: Gutiérrez-Marco J.C., Rábano I. & García-Bellido D. (eds.), Ordovician of the World. Cuadernos del Museo Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Madrid, 515-526.Servais, T., Achab, A., Asselin, E., 2013. Eighty years of chitinozoan research: From Alfred Eisenack to Florentin Paris. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 2–13.Tang Peng, Cai Xiyao and Huang Bing. 2012. Chitinozoans near the base of the Anji Formation in Chun’an County, Zhejiang Province. Acta Micropalaeontologica Sinica, 29(1) 1-12Thusu, B., Rasul, S., Paris, F., Meinhold, G., Howard, J.P., Abutarruma, Y., Whitham, A.G . 2013. Latest Ordovician–earliest Silurian acritarchs and chitinozoans from subsurface samples in Jebel Asba, Kufra Basin, SE Libya. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 197, 90-118.Vandenbroucke T. R. A., Munnecke, A., Leng, M. J., Bickert, T., Hints, O., Gelsthorpe, D., Maier, G. & Servais, T. 2013. Reconstructing the environmental conditions around the Silurian Ireviken Event using the carbon isotope composition of bulk and palynomorph organic matter. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 14(1), 86–101, doi:10.1029/2012GC004348.Vandenbroucke T. R. A., Recourt, P., Nõlvak, J. & Nielsen, A. T. 2013. Chitinozoan biostratigraphy of the Late Ordovician D. clingani and P. linearis graptolite biozones on the Island of Bornholm, Denmark. Stratigraphy 10 (4), 281-301.

Vandenbroucke T. R. A., Vecoli, M. & Servais, T. 2013. Palaeozoic applied marine palynology – Editorial. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 98, 1.Vandenbroucke, T. R. A., Hennissen, J. & Servais, T. 2013. Cyathochitina cycnea (Chitinozoa), a new name for Cyathochitina giraffa Hennissen et al., 2010. Journal of Micropalaeontology, 32, 107-108. doi: 10.1144/jmpaleo2012-014. Vandenbroucke, T. R. A., Armstrong, H., Williams, M., Paris, F, Sabbe, K. & Zalasiewicz, J. A. 2013. Late Ordovician zooplankton maps and the climate of the Early Palaeozoic Icehouse. In: Early Palaeozoic Palaeobiogeography and Palaeogeography (Harper, D. A. T. and Servais, T., eds.). Geological Society, London, Memoirs, 38, 391–397. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/M38.24Wenhui Wang, Hongzhen Feng, Vandenbroucke, T. R. A., Lixia Li & Verniers, J. 2013. Chitinozoans from the Tremadocian graptolite shales of the Jiangnan Slope in South China. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 98, 45–61 Doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2012.02.003Wenhui Wang, Vecoli, M., Vandenbroucke, T. R. A., Hongzhen Feng, Lixia Li & Verniers, J. 2013. Late Tremadocian – early Floian acritarchs from graptolite shales of the Yinzhubu and Ningkuo formations of Yiyang, South China. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 193, 1–14, doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2013.01.005 Yan, Kui, Li, Jun, Servais, T., 2013. An Early–Middle Ordovician acritarch and prasinophyte assemblage from Houping, Chongqing City, South China: Biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental implications. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 198, 110–133.

Contact for members of the distribution list

Following the update of our e-mail lists last year, this is the list of people the newsletter and calls went out to. During this update, we hope not to have accidentally left some-one out. If you do know of a colleague who should have received this message but has not, please feel free to forward, or let us know.

Achab Aicha: [email protected] Chloe: [email protected]



Anthony Butcher: [email protected] Shen: [email protected] V. Rubinstein: [email protected] Asselin: [email protected] PARIS: [email protected] L. Mullins: [email protected] Machado: [email protected] C. Miller: [email protected] N Sinha: [email protected] Priewalder: [email protected] Nowak: [email protected] Troth: [email protected] Nõlvak: [email protected] Verniers: [email protected] hennissen: [email protected] Mortier: [email protected] Vanmeirhaeghe: [email protected] Marshall: [email protected] Richardson: [email protected] J. Dorning: [email protected] Olaru: [email protected] Vecoli: [email protected] Streel: [email protected] di Pasquo: [email protected] Miller: [email protected] Ghavidel-syooki: [email protected] Vaz: [email protected] Hints: [email protected] Tang: [email protected] Steemans: [email protected] Wicander: [email protected] Llewellyn: [email protected] Yakupov: [email protected] M. Wrona: [email protected]

Saïd Al-Hajri: [email protected] Noetinger: [email protected] G. Molyneux: [email protected] Sutherland: [email protected] de la Puente: [email protected] Lorena: [email protected] Vandenbroucke: [email protected] Servais: [email protected] Steeman: [email protected] Collart: [email protected] Challands: [email protected] Nestor: [email protected] Wang: [email protected] Salenbien: [email protected] Liang: [email protected] Grahn: [email protected]



Chitinozoan newsletter 31 has been edited by:

Thijs Vandenbroucke

Université Lille 1 - Sciences et TechnologiesFRE 3298 du CNRS: Géosystèmes

Avenue Paul Langevinbâtiment SN5

59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq cedex (France)

Tel. + 33 (0)3 20 43 69 00Fax. + 33 (0)3 20 43 49 10

Chitinozoan Newsletter 31

chitinozoan 31cimp.weebly.com/uploads/6/4/0/5/6405206/cimp_chit_31_2014...commission internationale...

Documents