The XVI International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian (ICCP 2007)—Nanjing, China, June 21-24, 2007

The XVI International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian (ICCP2007), sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MST), the National Commission of China (NCC), the International Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy (SCCS) and the International Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy (SPS), was successfully held at the Dongjiao State Guesthouse in Nanjing, China between June 21st and June 24th. It was organized by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGP), the State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy (LPS), Institute of Geology of Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, China University of Geosciences, and Nanjing University. The congress included four-days of oral and poster presentations, two pre-congress field excursions and three post-congress excursions.

One hundred and forty-three colleagues from 29 different countries (Algeria, Ireland, Estonia, Australia, Brazil, Belarus, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Russia, France, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Kirghiz, Canada, Czech Republic, Romania, USA, Norway, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Iran, Israel, Italy, England and China)attended the congress. One hundred and sixty-nine papers were presented in 12 different sessions. Opening and closing ceremonies were chaired by Xiangdong Wang and Shuzhong Shen. The congress was also honoured by the presence of Dr. James G. Ogg (ICS), Drs. Yucheng Chai and Yu Liu (NSFC), Drs. Shaoping Zhou and Shijie Li (CAS) and Dr. Qun Yang (NIGP). After a welcoming address by Dr. Qun Yang, deputy-director of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Drs. Yucheng Chai (NSFC), James Ogg (ICS), Henk Pagnier (Chairman of the last ICCP in Utrecht, Netherlands), Charles Henderson (SPS Chair) and Xiangdong Wang (co-chair of ICCP2007) gave important congratulatory and opening addresses. The closing ceremony was addressed by Drs. Philip Heckel (SCCS chair) and Shuzhong Shen (co-chair of ICCP2007).

Following the opening ceremony on the first day of the congress, nine plenary talks respectively on Earthtime (Sam Bowring), PT extinction (Yin Hongfu), C-P pteridosperms (Hans Kerp), C-P glaciation and aridification based on oxygen isotopic record (Ethan Grossman), Pennsylvanian glacial-eustatic cyclothems (Philip Heckel), impact of icehouse on tropical vegetation and plant evolution (Hermann Pfefferkon), Lopingian correlation and GSSPs (Charles Henderson), PT rapid deforestation in South China (Shuzhong Shen) and Early Triassic biotic recovery strategies (Doug Erwin) were presented.

The next three days featured sessions on a wide range of topics, including “End-Permian biotic mass extinction and early Triassic recovery convened by Doug Erwin and Shuzhong Shen”, “Earthtime-Carboniferous and Permian geochronology convened by Sam Bowring”, “Carboniferous and Permian macro- and microfossils; integrative stratigraphy and high resolution biostratigraphy convened by Ian Somerville, John Groves and Lucia Angiolini”, “Late Paleozoic floras as proxies for climate change convened by Hermann Pfefferkorn and Jun Wang”, “Stratotypes, boundaries and global correlations convened by Barry Richards and Charles Henderson”, “Carboniferous and Permian reefs, biofacies, and basin analysis convened by Aretz Markus”, “Evolutionary palaeogeography and palaeoclimatology, Pangea formation and breakup convened by Richard Lane and Walter Snyder”, “Isotopic geochemistry and geobiology in the Permo-Carboniferous convened by Ethan Grossman and Horng-sheng Mii”, “Gondwana and peri-Gondwana faunas, stratigraphy, and geology (In cooperation with IGCP 516: Geological anatomy of East and South Asia) by Xiaochi Jin and Katsumi Ueno”, “Bio-diversity patterns and quantitative analysis of biotic databases, computerized palaeontology convened by Yue Wang”, “Cyclothems and sequence-stratigraphy convened by Philip Heckel”, and “Carboniferous-Permian non-marine–marine correlations convened by Joerg Schneider”. In addition, two sessions in honour of two distinguished Chinese paleontologists, were held. One celebrated the 90th birthday of Prof. Xingxue Li, who has made great contributions to paleobotany in China, and the other was in memory of the late Prof. Yugan Jin, who was the main organizer of the XI International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian held in Beijing 20 years ago and who made significant contributions to Permian stratigraphy and the end-Permian mass extinction.

During the four-day congress, our colleagues intensively discussed various aspects of stratigraphy, paleontology, sedimentology, paleoclimatology, and coal geology. It is remarkable that many hot issues of broad interest were discussed during this congress. These included isotope geochemistry, the end-Permian mass extinction and subsequent recovery, geobiology, computer-based biodiversity, Earthtime and geochronology, GSSPs, evolution of terrestrial ecosystems, correlation between marine and non-marine sequences etc. In addition, Dr. Vladimir Davydov (vice-chair of SPS) gave a short course on PaleoStrat and Drs. Walter Snyder and Rich Lane organized a meeting on Geosystems.

The abstract volume was published before the congress as a printed volume of a supplementary issue of Journal of Stratigraphy (Wang et al., eds., 2007) and includes a total of 185 abstracts. In addition, a special issue of Palaeoworld in memory of late Professor Yugan Jin was published shortly after the congress. All the papers are already available online at Elsevier ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/1871174X). This special issue includes a memorial paper and 17 scientific papers to explore a number of research areas that are either directly or indirectly related to Prof. Jin’s research interests. Thus, they obviously reflect Prof. Jin’s profound influence in the field (Shen et al., eds, 2007).

Five field trips were offered before and after the congress. These trips were designed to show participants some of most important Carboniferous and Permian sequences in China, all of them were heavily booked. The pre-congress excursions were “GSSPs of the Permian-Triassic boundary and the base-Changhsingian at the Meishan sections (leaders: Shuzhong Shen, Charles Henderson and Changqun Cao)” and “Pennsylvanian to Lower Triassic continental sequences in Hebei and Inner Mongolia (leaders: Jun Wang and Lujun Liu)”. Three post-congress excursions included “Peri-Gondwanan Carboniferous to Permian sequences in West Yunnan (leaders Xiangdong Wang, Tetsuo Sugiyama and Changqun Cao)”, “Stratigraphy and lithofacies of the Tournaisian and Visean in the Guilin-Liuzhou area, Guangxi, South China (leaders: Xiaochi Jin, F.X. Devuyst, L. Hance, E. Poty, Baoan Yin, Xianghu Wu, Hongfei Hou)” and “Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian carbonate succession from shallow marine to slope in southern Guizhou (leaders: Yue Wang, K. Ueno, Yiping Qi)”.

Proceedings of the congress will be published in two different journals “Geological Journal” and “Palaeoworld”; both are peer-reviewed international journals. The organizing Committee of ICCP 2007 hopes all of the participants will submit papers to the proceedings. We will put your papers into publications as soon as possible, with several volumes to come out before the opening of the next congress.

During the congress, the international Permanent Committee of ICCP held a business meeting with several important decisions being adopted. For the next congress, three countries, USA, Russia and Australia, offered applications. The committee decided that the next congress in 2011 will be at Perth, Australia, a country where the Gondwanan Carboniferous and Permian strata are well-preserved.

References

Wang Yue, Zhang Hua, Wang Xiaojuan (eds.). 2007. XVI International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian, abstracts. Journal of Stratigraphy, vol. 31, supp. 1, 242 p.

Shen Shuzhong, Wang Xiangdong, Erwin, D.H. (eds.). 2007. Contributions to Permian and Carboniferous Stratigraphy, Brachiopod Palaeontology and End-Permian Mass Extinctions: In Memory of Professor Yugan Jin. Palaeoworld, vol. 16, nos. 1-2.

Shuzhong Shen, Xiangdong Wang and Yue Wang
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
30 East Beijing Road
Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008, China
E-mail: szshen@nigpas.ac.cn