Initial announcement

white_titleDear colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that our new International Geoscience Project IGCP 653 “The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event” has been accepted for five years from 2016 to 2020.

Following the International Geoscience Projects IGCP 410 “The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”, GOBE, (1997-2002), IGCP 503 “Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate” (2004-2009), and to some extend IGCP 591 “The Early to Middle Palaeozoic Revolution” (2011-2016), the new project IGCP 653 “The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event” focuses on the Ordovician Period, and has as its main objective to search for the triggers of the different biodiversification events that together constitute the GOBE.

All relevant information to the new project can be found on the website:

www.igcp653.org

The website includes a current list of participants, and the announcement of all future meetings, including those scheduled in this first year of the project: in 2016, we will be present at the Closing Meeting of IGCP 591 at Ghent, Belgium, July 6-9, at the Annual Meeting of the Micropalaeontological Societyat Lille, France, November 17-18, and at the Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association at Lyon, France, December 14-17.

Our Opening Meeting will take place at Van Mildert College, Durham University, UK, September 25th-30th, 2016. Information about this opening meeting, that will include dedicated workshops and a field excursion to the Ordovician successions of the Yorkshire Dales and the English Lake District, will be circulated soon.

Welcome to IGCP 653 “The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”!

With best wishes,

Thomas Servais
David A.T. Harper
Olga T. Obut
Christian M.Ø. Rasmussen
Alycia L. Stigall
Zhang Yuandong