Jurassic--climate and biodiversity： The 6th International IGCP 506 Symposium

August was an intense and busy month for many geologists as the large 33rd IGC meeting was held in Oslo, Norway, from 6 to 14 August. Over 6,000 scientists from 113 countries contributed talks, posters and discussions at the IGC on a broad range of geo- logical topics. The congress was preceded and followed by as many as 30 fieldtrips coveting Scandinavian geology.     

Linking land and sea： Towards global reconstructions of the Jurassic world

The Jurassic is traditionally famous for shallow marine sediments that are often very fossiliferous, notably in Europe, where the standard chronostratigraphic subdivisions were established and defined. However, widespread marginal and non-marine Jurassic sediments are also known, and are of great importance for the wellpreserved terrestrial biotas they contain, as well as for their hydrocarbon and coal reserves. IGCP Project 506 is directed towards finding means of correlation between marine and non-marine Jurassic rocks, as a foundation for a better understanding of the evolution of the Earth during the Jurassic Period.     

The Tyrrhenian back－arc basin and subduction of the Ionian lithosphere

A deep, narrow, and distorted Benioff zone, plunging from the Ionian Sea towards the southern Tyrrhenian basin, is the remnant of a long and eastward migrating subduction of eastern Mediterranean lithosphere. From Oligocene to Recent, subduction generated the Western Mediterranean and the Tyrrhenian back-arc basins, as well as an accretionary wedge constituting the SouthernAoenninic Arc.In the Tyrrhenian Sea, stretching started in late Miocene and eventually produced two small oceanic areas: the Vavilov Plain during Pliocene (in the centralsector) and the Marsili Plain during Quaternary (in the southeastern sector). They are separated by a thicker crustal sector, called the Issel Bridge. Back-arc exten-sion was rapid and discontinuous, and affected a land locked area where continental elements of various sizesoccurred. Discontinuities in extension were mirrored bychanges in nature of the lithosphere scraped off to form the Southern Apenninic Arc. Part of the tectonic units of the southern Apennines, accreted into the wedge from late Miocene to Pliocene, had originally been laid down on thinned conti-nental lithosphere, which should constitute the deep portion of the present slab. After Plio-cene, only Ionian oceanic lithosphere wassubducted, because the large buoyancy of thewide and not thinned continental lithosphere of Apulia and Africa (Sicily) preserved the seelements from roll back of subduction. After Pliocene, the passively retreating oceanic slabhad to adjust and distort according to the geometry of these continental elements.The late onset of arc volcanism in respect to the duration of extension in the Tyrrhenian-Ionian system may find an expla-nation considering an initial stage of subduc-tion of thinned continental lithosphere. The strong Pleistocene vertical movements that occurred in the whole southeastern system(subsidence in the back-arc basin and upliftin the orogenic arc) may instead be related to the distortion of the oceanic slab.     

Notes from the first workshop of the IGCP 543 Low temperature thermochronology： applications and interlaboratory calibration

Quantification of geological processes is a demanding task of primary importance in many Earth science studies. One valuable tool is low-temperature thermochronology （mainly fission-track and U-Th/He analyses） which finds many applications in the oil industry, in the exploration and sustainable management of water and mineral resources and in the analysis of the relationships between tectonics and climate change. The IGCP 543 project has two primary aims：     

The large-wavelength deformations of the lithosphere： materials for a history of the evolution of thought from the earliest times to plate tectonics

The notable authority on tectonics and the history of geosciences, Professor Celal Sengor from Istanbul, has produced another remarkable book-which, as he tells the reader, grew rapidly from an initial paper into a massive tome. Just as Georges Cuvier liked the idea of ‘bursting the limits of time‘, so Professor Sengor has again ‘burst the limits of a paper‘!     

The Earlier Spreading of South China Sea Basin due to the Late Mesozoic to Early Cenozoic Extension of South China Block： Structural Styles and Chronological Evidence from the Dulong-Song Chay Metamorphic Dome, Southwest China

INTRODUCTION Whatmechanismresultedinthespreadingof SouthChinaSeabasin(SCSB)?Wasitreallypro ducedbytheinteractionofperipheralplatesofthe SCSBorAilaoshan RedRiversinistralfault(Fig.1)? Figure1.AnoutlinetectonicmapofSouthChinablockandIndochinablock(modified…     

The International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences （INHIGEO） Symposium on the historical relationship between geology and religion

The 32nd INHIGEO Symposium was held between 28 July and 5 August 2007 in Eichstatt, northeast Bavaria. This part of Bavaria is celebrated for many things, not least its diverse Jurassic fossils. Amongst the latter, the most famous is one of the great ＂missing links＂ in paleontology, the feathered Archaeopteryx with its reptilian teeth. Equally renowned is the lithographic limestone from Solnhofen that was used to produce the early illustrations of Archaeopteryx along with other countless maps and figures in publications well known to historians of geology. It was fitting that the symposium theme was ＂The Historical Relationship of Geology and Religion＂.     

Oil-source correlation of the pre-Tertiary in the Huanghua Depression： Insights from stable carbon isotopes and molecular markers

Stable carbon isotopes were used together with molecular markers to constrain genetic relationships between sandstone extracts and potential source rocks in the pre-Tertiary in the Huanghua Depression, North China. Comparison of the extracts from Permo-Carboniferous terrigenous mudstones and Ordovician marine carbonates indicated that their prominent differences are in stable carbon isotopes, molecular markers and thermal maturity. Although the extracts of the Mesozoic and Lower Permian Xiashihezi Formation sandstones have some similar iso-topic characteristics, molecular markers data provide a good correlation between the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous oils and the Upper Carboniferous Taiyuan Formation mudstones, and between the Lower Permian Xiashihezi Formation oils and the Lower Permian mudstones. The results showed that the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous sandstone oils were derived chiefly from the Upper Carboniferous Taiyuan Formation terrigenous mudstones and that the Lower Permian Xiashihezi Formation oils were sourced from the Lower Permian Shanxi Formation and Xiashihezi Formation terrigenous mudstones.     

The Association of Geoscientists for International Development （AGID） ： Adapting to a changing world

It is just two years since a profile of AGID appeared in Episodes ( Vol 25, No 3, p. 218).At that time we recounted the many achievements of the organization, first established in 1974, but also noted that ‘an awareness of the relevance of geoscience to many aid projects, and the proliferation of NGO‘s, both large and small, working in the environmental and resource sectors has radically changed the world in which AGID seeks to operate‘. We also noted that the change has happened to such an extent that AG1D has ‘to address the question as to whether the time has come either for it to wind up its operations and retire gracefully from the international scene or to continue‘.     

The Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Turonian Stage of the Cretaceous： Pueblo, Colorado, U.S.A.

Following the recommendation of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (16 votes Yes [94%], 1 abstention, 2 votes not received), the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Turonian Stage of the Cretaceous System is defined as the base of bed 86 of the Bridge Creek Limestone Member of the Greenhorn Limestone Formation at the western end of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad cut near the north boundary of the Pueblo Reservoir State Park Recreation Area, west of Pueblo, Colorado, USA. This GSSP horizon is also exposed and protected in the adjacent state recreation area. It coincides with the first occurrence of the ammonite Watinoceras devonense, is in the middle of a global positive excursion in Carbon-13 isotopes, and is bracketed by widespread bentonites that have yield edages of 93 to 93.5 Ma.     

Characteristics and influencing factors of runoff changes in the upper Shule River basin from 1954 to 2016北大核心CSCD

River runoff is an important water resource in the arid region of northwest China. Under the back⁃ ground of climate change,the exploration on change characteristics and influencing factors of river runoff is of great significance for understanding the law of river hydrological change. Based on the daily discharge of Chang⁃ mabao hydrological station,the observation materials from meteorological stations and radiosonde stations,and the first and second Chinese glacier inventory,the variation characteristics and possible influencing factors of runoff in the upper Shule River were systematically analyzed by using the linear trend,empirical mode decompo⁃ sition and hierarchical multiple regression. The results show that the annual runoff of the upper Shule River showed a significant increasing trend during 1954-2016,with a rate of 1. 00×108 m3·（10a）-1. Both runoff in flood period and non-flood period also showed a similar increasing trend. The runoff suddenly changed in 1999 and had two oscillation periods of about 15a and 7a,among them the 15a oscillation period was the most signifi⁃ cant. Both cumulative positive temperature and precipitation were the main climatic factors affecting the runoff in the upper Shule River,which can explain more than 80% of the runoff change. There was a significant posi⁃ tive correlation between the summer runoff in the upper Shule River and the height of 0 ℃ layer. It means that the height changes of 0 ℃ layer can be used to predict the runoff change of the river in flood period,which provides an important reference for evaluating the runoff change of glacial melt recharge rivers in the arid re⁃ gion of northwest China. From 1966 to 2006,the ice volume in the upper Shule River basin decreased by about 5. 77 km3,indicating that glacier changes play a crucial role in the change and regulation of runoff in the basin. © Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology 2022.     

Geothermal structure of the eastern Pontides orogenic belt： Implications oceanic lithosphere Black Sea basin and the eastern for subduction polarity of Tethys

The numerical results of thermal modeling studies indicate that the lithosphere is cold and strong beneath the Black Sea basin.The thermal lithospheric thickness increases southward from the eastern Pontides orogenic belt（49.4 km） to Black Sea basin（152.2 km）.The Moho temperature increases from 367℃in the trench to 978℃in the arc region.The heat flow values for the Moho surface change between 16.4 mW m^-2 in the Black Sea basin and 56.9 mW m^-2 in the eastern Pontides orogenic belt. Along the southern Black Sea coast,the trench region has a relatively low geothermal potential with respect to the arc and back-arc region.The numerical studies support the existence of southward subduction beneath the Pontides during the late Mesozoic-Cenozoic.