Minutes of the meeting of the Geological Society Stratigraphy Commission, 18 th May 2016, at Burlington House, London, in the Council Room.

Transcription

1 GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, STRATIGRAPHY COMMISSION Minutes of the meeting of the Geological Society Stratigraphy Commission, 18 th May 2016, at Burlington House, London, in the Council Room. Present Prof J Cope [JC] Prof. A Gale (Chairman) [AG] Prof. P Gibbard [PG] Dr J Marshall [JM] Prof. P Pearson [PP] Dr A Smith [AS] Dr O Sutcliffe [OS] Dr C Waters (Secretary) [CW] Apologies Dr T Barry [TB] Dr P Bown [PBo] Dr A Coe [AC] Dr D Condon [DC] Dr J Gregory [JG] Prof. S Hesselbo [SH] Dr M Hounslow [MH] Dr D Kemp [DK] Dr A Kerr [AK] Dr K McNamara [KM] Dr M Oates [MO] Dr J Powell [JP] Prof. P Rawson [PR] Prof. M Williams [MW] Prof. J Zalasiewicz [JZ] Item 1 Apologies After Craig Storey tended his resignation, no formal approach has been made to recruit a new member. Given that David Harper is elected to become the next President of the International Committee on Stratigraphy, he should be approached. Graham Shields, who had been mentioned at the previous meeting, was also considered a potential new member. Action (new): CW to contact David Harper and Graham Shields to see if they would wish to join the Commission. Item 2 Minutes of the previous meeting held on 24th February 2016 The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted with one minor modification. Item 3 Matters Arising 1) All to look at MH s proposed additions to the Commission website related to the section on British GSSPs, stratotypes and auxiliary stratotypes and propose contributions. Action ongoing. Given MH absence from the meeting, discussion to be deferred. 2) JZ to raise proposal with History of Geology Group for a meeting on History of Stratigraphy. Action ongoing. As JZ was not present at the meeting it was agreed to defer discussion to the next meeting. 1

2 3) PB/PP to send to Angharad Hills and Commission results of discussions at Strati2015 on use of Lower, Middle and Upper and sub-epochs. Action ongoing. See item 8a of the agenda. 4) AG and TB to come up with ideas for amended Guide to Stratigraphic Procedure for the May meeting. Action ongoing. See item 6 of the agenda. 5) PP to circulate a draft document to be sent to the Science Committee along with the decision of the vote. Action closed. PP circulated a draft manuscript around the Commission and following modifications it was forwarded to Sally Thompson by CW on to be raised at Science Committee Item 4 Website Update Given MH absence from the meeting, discussion was deferred. AS, however, did comment that it is important that it keeps up-to-date and really needs someone from the Society to help MH with design and maintenance. Is this something the Society would fund? 5. Publications 5.1 Editorial report TB forwarded the progress report for the Special Reports in advance of the meeting. Geoff Warrington reports progress on the Permian SR and University of Leicester have agreed to help with drafting of figures; Triassic SR on hold until Permian report is completed. Rory Mortimore has agreed to contribute to the Cretaceous SR. It would be good to appraise progress by reviewing the outline of the report and see who is now contributing and who is leading on different sections. Action (new): PR to circulate to Commission, via TB, outline of Cretaceous SR content and lead authors for each chapter. CW should contact Jim Riding again to discuss involvement in Jurassic SR. Item 6 Stratigraphical Procedures handbook JC had drawn to the Commission s attention an article by John Callomon (2003) in the Proceedings of the Geologists Association, Vol. 114, p reviewing the Rawson et al. (2002) guidebook. AG has produced a single page rebuttal. AG identified a need for improved sections on chemostratigraphy (including carbon, strontium), Milankovitch cycles, and integrated stratigraphy (rather than holostratigraphy), which JM pointed out was the way GSSP definition was moving. AG indicated we would wish for this version to be in full colour. PG offered the new recently published version of the Quaternary Chart and suggested that new susceptibility curves for deep/loess for the Quaternary could be included. JZ and Felix Gradstein have already contributed to the biostratigraphy section and PP indicated he would be happy to revise this section. AS suggested he could act as editor rather than contribute to sections. OS offered to contribute to sequence stratigraphy with sedimentological/field/core scale 2

3 examples. PG indicated that he had a digital copy of the original manuscript. We need to get a proposal to Angharad Hills to commission a new version of the handbook. Action (new): PG to send digital copy of original handbook manuscript Action (new): TB to coordinate ideas for amended Guide to Stratigraphic Procedure. Action (new): AG to circulate Callomon rebuttal manuscript for comment. Item 7 History of Stratigraphy Meeting Given JZ absence from the meeting, discussion was deferred. Item 8 Stratigraphic procedures 8.1 Usage of Lower, Middle and Upper PP reported on issue of sub-epochs, e.g. Mid Eocene, are they both formalized and capitalized. This will be voted upon by IUGS later this year in Durban. PP is proposing the case for informal in Neogene. Action (ongoing): PB/PP to send to Angharad Hills and Commission results of ICS discussions on use of Lower, Middle and Upper and Cenozoic sub-epochs. 8.2 ae.v. e spelling revisited PP had drafted an article circulated to members on this topic. Following amendments it was submitted to the Science Committee for discussion at their May meeting, with potential subsequent inclusion in Geoscientist, if the decision is accepted. Item 9 Cenozoic stratotypes and chronozones PG had circulated an in press manuscript by Fritz Hilgen et al. entitled Should Unitstratotypes and Chronozones be formally defined? He outlined the content, particularly the approach of defining Milankovitch cycle chronozones in the Pliocene. The paper proposes the definition of unit stratotypes. PP indicated that GSSPs define bases of chronostratigraphic units and for more recent time intervals, such as the Pliocene, the succession is so complete that it is possible to define the entire succession between the unit base and top. He indicated that it was possible to define co-stratotype sections in deep sea core with a complete sequence, even if GSSP is defined onshore representing only the basal part of the sequence. A questionnaire is to be available with the paper when published. Item 10 Quaternary marine isotope stages PG had circulated for information a paper by Railsback et al (2015) in QSR Vol. 111, p , which he had coauthored. This represents an attempt to rationalize MIS into a single system for last million years. Item 11 Anthropocene CW provided a brief update on Anthropocene Working Group outputs/highlights. The Working Group had their third meeting on 22 nd and 23 rd April 2016 at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo. The focus of the meeting concerned: a) production of a paper outlining responses to various critical papers; b) contributions to a CUP book is being written by members of the group with the aim of completion by late 2016; c) discussions 3

4 to contribute to two presentations which have been accepted for IGC in Cape Town, one the formal statement of progress of the group (keynote) and one on the suitability of recognising a GSSP. An AWG paper on Earth System Science and the Anthropocene, led by Will Steffen, has been submitted. Item 12 AOB AG attended the Chris King My Paleogene and other times meeting held at Burlington House on Friday April 22 nd. He reported there was an excellent turnout, mostly of engineering geologists who reported the extent that Chris s work had made sense of the complexities of Tertiary stratigraphy. It is intended that there will be an account of the meeting in Geoscientist. OS mentioned that Neftex have monthly articles circulated to clients, particularly in the oil industry, in which Mike Simmons discusses the lives of famous geologists. There have been six so far and there is a possibility of producing one on Derek Ager. A request was made for any details. Ted Nield was his PhD student and JC was in the same department. PG suggested Arthur Holmes and T N George may be other good subjects. Action (new): All to send information concerning the life of Derek Ager to OS. Item 13 Date of next meeting Wednesday 23rd November 2016 in the Arthur Holmes Room. 4

5 ----- Summary of actions Action (ongoing): All to look at MH s proposed additions to the Commission website related to the section on British GSSPs, stratotypes and auxiliary stratotypes and propose contributions. Action (ongoing): JZ to raise proposal with History of Geology Group for a meeting on History of Stratigraphy. Action (ongoing): PB/PP to send to Angharad Hills and Commission results of ICS discussions on use of Lower, Middle and Upper and Cenozoic sub-epochs. Action (new): CW to contact David Harper and Graham Shields to see if they would wish to join the Commission. Action (new): PR to circulate to Commission, via TB, outline of Cretaceous SR content and lead authors for each chapter. Action (new): PG to send digital copy of original handbook manuscript Action (new): TB to coordinate ideas for amended Guide to Stratigraphic Procedure. Action (new): AG to circulate Callomon rebuttal manuscript for comment. Action (new): All to send information concerning the life of Derek Ager to OS. 5