CHAIRMAN´S REPORT

This is the eighth report I have written as chair of the Ordovician Subcommission, and it is my last. I am amazed at how quickly the time has passed since I was selected as subcommission chair in Las Vegas in 1995. The last few months have been busy with inspecting candidate stratotype sections, recruiting and reviewing GSSP proposals, and setting up the Subcommission web site for online discussions of the proposals. Yet, the work has also been satisfying and rewarding. When my term began in 1996, only the Darriwilian Stage was formally defined with a GSSP. Now, GSSPs have been approved and ratified for the Ordovician System (and the Tremadocian Stage), the Second Stage, and the Upper Ordovician Series (and its lower stage). Serious GSSP proposals are being evaluated for the Middle Ordovician Series (and its lower stage) and the Hirnantian Stage, and a GSSP proposal will soon be submitted for the middle stage of the Upper Ordovician Series. It is possible that GSSPs for all stages and series of the Ordovician will be approved by the Subcommission by the end of my term as chair in August 2004. Whether or not that is the case, I have enjoyed the process very much, and I take satisfaction in knowing that the new, global Ordovician chronostratigraphic classification will be completed and in use in the near future. Even more so, I have enjoyed working with colleagues worldwide.

Another current Subcommission activity is the session “global Ordovician Earth system” at the 32nd International Geological Congress in Florence in August 2004. The session includes 22 papers with such titles as Ordovician Paleoceanography; Caradocian Global Paleobiogeography and Ocean-Climate System: Integrating Data with Models; Ordovician Eustasy; Temporal Variation in Marine Carbonate Carbon Isotope Ratios during the Ordovician; The Ordovician Black Shale-Mudstone Lithofacies; Paleogeographic, Paleoceanographic, and Tectonic Controls on Early Late Ordovician Graptolite Diversity Patterns; The Higher-Taxa Paleogeographical Segregation as a Major Feature of the Ordovician Radiation: Evidence from Brachiopods; The Late Ordovician Glaciation of North African Gondwana: The Present State of Knowledge. With its GOES Program, the Subcommission has been promoting integrated, multi-disciplinary investigations of the Earth systems during the Ordovician. The program for Florence is a wonderful response. It reflects the future of Ordovician research, and much of this research requires a chronostratigraphic foundation for high-resolution global correlation, which the new Ordovician Time Scale provides.

The International Commission on Stratigraphy will hold a special business meeting at Florence to continue the discussion that began at the Urbino meeting in 2002. The Commission is both promoting the completion of selection of GSSPs for all Phanerozoic stages by 2008 and developing its future, long-term objective of using the greatly refined, modern Geologic Time Scale to address geologic issues, in particular process-oriented stratigraphy. For detailed information on activities of the ICS and of its many individual subcommissions, I direct you to the ICS website at http://www.stratigraphy.org. There you can also view and download an up-to-date version of the Geologic Time Scale, including the latest version for the Ordovician System, and connect with links to descriptions of most GSSPs.

As reported below, IGCP Project 503 “The impact of the changing palaeogeography and palaeoclimate on the major biotic changes through the Ordovician (Ordovician biodiversification, end-Ordovician extinction, Silurian radiation)” led by Tom Servais and colleagues was awarded funding and kicks off this year immediately after the Florence Congress with a meeting in Erlangen and a field excursion to Sweden. Over the next five years, this project will fund several meetings and field excursions and greatly stimulate research on the Ordovician Earth system, and like its predecessor IGCP 410 it will support the participation of many young workers from developing countries.

In concluding this report, my last, I thank those who have made my tenure enjoyable: the voting members of the Subcommission who elected me and participated diligently in Subcommission business, especially discussions and votes on GSSPs; my predecessor Barry Webby who developed the strategy for selection of Ordovician stages, series, and their boundaries that has proved successful; secretaries Henry Williams and Guillermo Albanesi and vice-chair Chen Xu for their dedicated work on Subcommission business; and the organizers of the many memorable Subcommission activities, in particular the Prague and San Juan symposia. The generous travel support provided by the administrators of California State University at Long Beach was essential for me to carry out my duties as Subcommission chair. I look forward to continuing with my service to the Subcommission as a voting member and to working with the new officers, Chen Xu (chair), Juan Carlos Gutierrez-Marco (vice chair), and Guillermo Albanesi (secretary), the other continuing members, and the new voting members Dave Harper, Li Jun, Godfrey Nowlan, Ian Percival, and Matthew Saltzmann. Finally, in my continuing service as vice chair of ICS, I will always have a most favorable opinion of the activities and success of the Ordovician Subcommission.

Stan Finney