International Subcommission on Jurassic Stratigraphy

s Volume for the Krakow Congress (in Volumina Jurassica no. 4, 2006). The Working Group members were then asked in a two-point ballot: (1) That the Flodigarry section, Staffin Bay, Isle of Skye, Scotland be proposed as the GSSP section; (2) Either that the Pictonia flodigarriense Horizon or the Pictonia densicostata Horizon should be the primary marker for recognition and correlation of the base of the Baylei Zone and the Kimmeridgian Stage. Of the members of the Working Group who voted (71%), a majority (78%) voted for selection of the Flodigarry section as the section for the GSSP, but a small majority, only 52%, voted for Pictonia flodigarriense Horizon as the primary marker. As a result, a final decision on the GSSP for the base of the Kimmeridgian Stage was deferred until further investigations could be undertaken as to whether the Pictonia flodigarriense Horizon could be recognised beyond the Flodigarry section. This was completed during the summer of 2007. The results will soon be submitted to the Working Group members for a new vote on the primary marker horizon. Tithonian. Progress in identifiying a possible GSSP for the base of the Tithonian is the least advanced of any of the Jurassic Stages. The Working Group faces difficulties of precise correlation between sections as a result of extreme provincialism of the ammonite faunas has caused problems and selecting potential candidate sections for the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian boundary. Only the Contrada Fornazzo section, Sicily (S. Italy) has been formally proposed as candidate GSSP, published in Revista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 110, 329-338, 2004 (Proceedings of 6th International Jurassic Symposium). Completion of work on other possible candidate sections, notably Canjuers, is urgent. Berriasian and Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary. Although this boundary is not technically the responsibility of the Jurassic Subcommission, it is reported here briefly because many members of the Jurassic Subcommission, including the Convenor William WIMBLEDON, are involved in this newly reformed group. The Convenor is also a Co-Leader of IGCP Project 506 and it was agreed that an augural meeting of the Working Group be held during the IGCP Project 506 symposium in Bristol (July 2007). This was a closed meeting (i.e. members only) during one evening and, although there are still ‘hangovers’ of entrenched views on "which ammonites should rule", there was enough new momentum for the group to be prepared to try to get somewhere, maybe even to abandon the ammonites and try other criteria. The Group decided to concentrate on the critical stratigraphical interval, effectively Jacobi/Grandis zones and equivalents and that various regional groups should urgently gather all the relevant biostratigraphical and other key data on the sections in their areas, preferably in a standard format (to be developed). These should be brought to the next meeting, which is planned for April 2008 in Marseilles, France. It was felt that it was unlikely that the August 2008 deadline, would be met but at least there should be some significant progress to show by then. Jurassic Newsletter no. 34 The International Subcommission on Jurassic Stratigraphy Newsletter is our principle organ of communication between the Subcommission and those with an interest in the Jurassic. Contributions are invited and edited carefully for content and language by Nicol MORTON, put into a standard format, emailed to Paul BOWN who checks them again and assembles them into a single document integrating figures with text. This year there have been exceptional circumstances with the presentation during the Krakow Congress in September 2006 of two new candidate sections for GSSP of the base of the Hettangian Stage and the Jurassic System. Detailed descriptions and discussions of neither of these had been published, so that it was decided to produce a special Newsletter devoted to the Triassic/Jurassic boundary GSSP, as Part 1 of Newsletter no. 34 for 2007. This would contain the details of the new candidate sections and updates of the proposals for the previously proposed sections. Interactive editing began in December 2006 and the Newsletter was published electronically as International Subcommission on Jurassic Stratigraphy Newsletter 34/1 in July 2007, edited by Paul BOWN, Nicol MORTON and Jackie LEES. There are 6 articles on the sections and proposals plus a list of the members of the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary Working Group, totalling 69 pages, with 46 figures (many in colour) and 4 plates. The size of the pdf file, at over 20 Mb, proved to be too large to distribute in the usual way; therefore, the email which was sent as the normal “cover” message gave details for free downloading from the Jurassic Subcommission website. Options were given to download the complete file with figures in colour, the complete file in black and white, or individual files for each of the articles. The editing and preparation of the “normal” Newsletter, this one No. 34/2, has been delayed by a combination of circumstances. Most of the contributions had been received by early summer, but our work on the TriassicJurassic Boundary issue took far longer than expected. My wife and I then had a horrendous summer and autumn with family problems in Britain, including two deaths and funerals, which necessitated four trips to Scotland, and one to England between June and October. It was not until November that my part of the work could be completed. One article on the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary, with an update of the proposal for St. Audries’ Bay (SWEngland), was not available for inclusion in Newsletter 34/1 of July 2007. This file is too large for inclusion in the “normal Newsletter” which will be Newsletter 34/2, so it will be published as International Subcommission on Jurassic Stratigraphy Newsletter 34/3 . ICS and IUGS This past year has proved to be a difficult one for relations between ICS and IUGS, more precisely ISJS NEWSLETTER 34/2: 4 between the respective Executives. There were two principle aspects of this. One concerned the status of the Quaternary. This was simply omitted from the 2004 Geological Time Scale book written by the Chairman and Secretary of ICS, with some members of ICS (but certainly not most), and others. However, there had been no discussion or vote within ICS on this question of the status of the Quaternary and strong (to put it mildly) reactions were caused within the Quaternary community and beyond. The second problem was that the GTS 2004 book had been published with the ICS and IUGS logos incorporated, implying that it represented official ICS and IUGS policy. Since the issue had not been discussed or approved by either ICS or IUGS, this could not be the case and the official ICS and IUGS logos should not have been incorporated. At one point the Executive of IUGS threatened to withold funding for ICS (and therefore all the Subcommissions). The situation was resolved to some extent, enabling funding to be restored but watch this space!!! Email address. The observant among you will have noticed that my email address above is different. My original email address is with France Telecom and this is [email protected] (I never understood why it was put in capitals!). Some years ago France Telecom bought Orange and decided to use the Orange name for all their mobile phone and internet business, but informed us that the wanadoo.fr address could continue to be used. Recently they advised us to transfer to the orange.fr address but indicated that all mail to the wanadoo.fr address would continue to be delivered. So, at present both addresses work fine and can be used, but for the future it would be preferable to change to [email protected] (now changed to lower case). NEWS ITEMS & MEETINGS REPORT ON 7TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON THE JURASSIC SYSTEM, KRAKOW, SEPTEMBER 2006 Andrzej WIERZBOWSKI, Chairman of Organising