IGCP608 / UNESCO/IUGS International Geoscience Programme Project 608

ANNUAL REPORTS & PROPOSALS

・Annual Reports (2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013)

・Proposals (accepted on 11 March 2013 after submission on 15 October 2012)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2018

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

The current state-of-the-art knowledge of Cretaceous land, ocean, biosphere and ecosystems in each participating country has been gathered in addition to regular research results at seven meetings listed in the next section. In the Sixfth International Symposium we overviewed such the topics as Cretaceous 1) biodiversity of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, 2) paleogeography and paleobiogeography, 3) climate and environmental changes, 4) stratigraphy and sedimentology of South and East Asia. We understood the further and comprehensive studies through integrated approach are necessary for the better understandings of the Cretaceous paleoenvironments and the paleoecosystems in Asia.

During a pre-symposium field excursion, we observed some Cretaceous strata and their exposures in the Khorat Plateau, northeastern Thailand, bearing several interesting dinosaur bone beds and footprint/trackway sites as well as characteristic terrestrial deposits including fluvial to eolian dune deposits. Recent active scientific results by several Thailand earth scientists collaborated with French and Japanese co-workers have enhanced the public awareness for the geological heritage. They have also provided useful information for utilizing in geoparks and dinosaur museums exemplified by indoor and outdoor facilities of Phu Wiang Fossil Research Center and Dinosaur Museum, and Sirindhorn Museum. It suffices to understand the significance of the Cretaceous strata in reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems in Southeast Asia including Thailand.

The proceedings volume of the first and second meetings has been finally published as a Virtual Issue "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Wiley Online journal, Island Arc. Other many related research results are published in several international and domestic journals listed as Appendices 1 and 2 (BIBLIOGRAPHY on this website), showing very fruitful efforts individually or with elaborated domestic and multi-national cooperation.

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

1) Sixth International Symposium of IGCP608

Date: November 15-16, 2018

Place: Charoen Thani Hotel, Khon Kaen Province, Thailand

Venue and organizers:Our symposium was held at Charoen Thani Hotel, Khon Kaen Province in northeastern Thailand. The province is situated near two scientifically important and famous dinosaur sites and well-organized museums operated by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), namely Phu Wiang Fossil Research Center and Dinosaur Museum, and Sirindhorn Museum. The Organizing Committee is chaired by the executives of DMR, and is consisting of several geologists, paleontologists and some officers of DMR, including the director and several museum staffs of the museums. They had made kind and appropriate efforts for the nicely organized and fruitful meeting as well as the excited excursion. Furthermore, the Geological Society of Thailand and CCOP (Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia, Thailand) much supported the 6th International Symposium of IGCP608.

Attendance:The symposium brought together a total of 142 participants from 11 countries of the world. The countries and numbers of participants are as follows: China: 6; India: 4; Japan: 8; Korea: 8; Malaysia: 1; Mongolia: 3; Philippines: 1; Russia: 3; France: 2; Spain: 1; Thailand: 105 including DMR staffs, students from Khon Kaen University and Mahasarakham University near the venue, and some journalists. This number includes 7 students from oversea (China, India, Japan and Korea).

Presentations:Five keynotes and 27 oral talks were presented in two days scientific sessions, and 14 posters in the poster session from 16:00-17:15 on November 15. As those posters had been putting on boards for all the two days, participants could discuss even during coffee breaks individually.

An abstract volume with 49 contributions including posters was produced in advance of the meeting:

Proceedings for the Sixth International Symposium of International Geoscience Programme IGCP Project 608, “Cretaceous Ecosystems and Their Responses to Paleoenvironmental Changes in Asia and the Western Pacific” edited by the 6th IGCP608 Organizing Committee.

In the closing session, the leader, Hisao Ando summarized the 6-year project activities of IGCP608, including meeting history, participants statistics, other related meetings, publications, and some noteworthy topics. Furthermore, the next new project proposal submitted to UNESCO-IGCP Office mid-October, this year was briefly introduced by Prof. Gang Li, the leading co-leader. He explained the co-leadership, concepts and objects of the new proposal, meeting plan and so on.

Anyway, the symposium properly provided a unique opportunity for discussions and overview on the Asian Cretaceous sciences.

Business Meeting:We held a business meeting after the closing of the sessions.

Discussion agenda was below:

1. Overview of project activities in 2018

2. Participants statistics of this meeting and the previous meetings

3. Publication plan of the proceeding for the Sixth International Symposium

4. Annual report of national working groups in 2018

5. Project summary of IGCP608Project

6. Next new project proposal

In addition to the issues above, the opening schedule of evaluation results for our 2018 activities and the new proposal will be informed. Then, we briefly discussed the re-submission of the new proposal if the first proposal was not approved next mid-March.

Field Excursion:A pre-symposium three-days field excursion was undertaken during 12 to 14 November with a total of 65 participants (China: 6; India: 4; Japan: 7; Malaysia: 1; Mongolia: 3; Russia: 3; France: 2; Spain: 1 and Thailand: 30 including excursion staffs).

We visited the Early to Late Cretaceous Khorat Group in northeastern Thailand, represented by several formations: Sao Khu, Phu Phan, Khok Kruat, Phu Thok formations, some of which include dinosaur bone beds and footprints layers. The two big dinosaur museum, Phu Wiang Fossil Research Center and Dinosaur Museum, and Sirindhorn Museum were the remarkable highlight of the excursion. Especially Sirindhorn Museum constitutes the largest natural history museum in Thailand and outdoor geologic and sightseeting facilities concerned with Cretaceous dinosaur and ecosystems. Especially both museums and regions are in action toward national geoparks related to well-studied Cretaceous non-marine sedimentary successions abundantly with a variety of dinosaur, crocodile, turtles, shark, fish and freshwater molluscs. We could realize that the Thailand Cretaceous scientists have well investigated paleontologically and utilized their results for earth science education and public awareness.

The colorful Excursion Guidebook was published in advance:

Guide Book for the Sixth International Symposium of International Geoscience Programme IGCP Project 608, “Cretaceous Ecosystems and Their Responses to Paleoenvironmental Changes in Asia and the Western Pacific” edited by the 6th IGCP608 Organizing Committee.

Outcome of Meeting:

Our Sixth International Symposium was held for overviewing the current state of the Cretaceous geological sciences on paleoclimate, paleoenvironments, paleoecosystems and related geological sciences, as well as faunal and floral diversity and evolution, etc. We became aware that further comprehensive studies, through integrated approach, are necessary for the better understanding of the Cretaceous paleo-environments and paleo-ecosystems in Asia including Thailand. We also realized the necessity for a synthesized paleogeographic and paleoecologic reconstruction based on detailed and precise stratigraphic works. We had a nice opportunity for the promotion scientific exchange and communication between scientists from different countries and institutions. The proceeding publication of the Sixth IGCP608 Meetings is considered to publish as a special volume on Journal of the Geological Society of Thailand organized by Mr. Naramase Teerarungsigul and other DMR colleagues.

2) 13th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biota (MTE13). July 21-23, University of Bonn, Germany

3) IPC5: Fifth International Palaeontological Congress, July 9 – 13 2018, Paris, France

4) 7th Symposium of IGCP 632 (Continental Crisis of the Jurassic,): Nov. 27 - Dec. 6, Napier, New Zealand

5) 8th International Conference on UNESCO Global Geoparks 2018, 8 -14 Sept, Trentino, Italy

6) GEOSEA 2018: 15th Regional Congress on Geology, Mineral and Energy Resources of Southeast Asia, Oct. 16 – 17, Hanoi, Vietnam

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

Several PhD, M.Sc. and Bachelor programs have been attended by members from universities and research institutes of several countries having subjects on the research and education of Cretaceous geology and palaeontology. Several students obtained PhD and M.Sc. degrees through cooperative inter-college and international researches. Some of those students attended the Sixth Meeting to present their researches. Furthermore, several ones successfully published their scientific papers on the international or domestic refereed journals (Appendices 1, 2). Someone got academic jobs in research institutions and museums. For example, Tsuyoshi Ito (Japan) and Xin Li (China) took up their academic jobs through exchange graduate studies between China and Japan, related to this project (Ito et al. 2018, Ito and Matsuoka, 2018; Li et al., 2018 a, b). Genya Masukawa, a master course student published his study that was presented at 5th IGCP Meeting in Korea and IGCP608 session of 10th ISC, Vienna (Masukawa and Ando, 2018: Appendix 11)

Cretaceous related excursions, Geopark-tours, and outreach events were organised by several universities, museums and academic societies in several countries (China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, Thailand, and Australia; Appendix 3) thanks to concerned efforts by our IGCP members. Some members contributed in lectures for children and public.

In Korea, Min Huh took much effort to establish Geoconvergence Center at Chonnam National University (Gwangju, South Korea) for geotourism and geoeducation of Mudeungsan Area National Geopark. Furthermore, the Geopark consisting of the Cretaceous volcanic rocks and fossil sites has been approved as UNESCO Global Geopark on 20 May 2018 thanks to his effort.

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on RECENT PUBLICATIONS of BIBLIOGRAPHY on IGCP608 website.

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO programmes, IUGS Commissions or Task Groups or others (3.7)

Two IGCP608 members from Japan, T. Hasegawa and F. Kawabe are in active as voting members of International Subcommission of Cretaceous Stratigraphy (ISCS). A. Matsuoka is also a member of International Subcommission of Jurassic Stratigraphy (ISJS). They have been concerned with current discussions on the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary and possible GSSP definition.

In Japan a total of six Japanese National Geoparks highlighting Cretaceous strata such as “Dinosaur Valley Fukui Katsuyama”, “Hakusan Tedorigawa”, “Amakusa”, “Choshi”, “Sanriku” and “Mikasa” Geoparks have been certificated by Japanese Geopark Network. Also in Korea, the “Mudeungsan”, “Jeonbuk West Coast” and “Busan” National Geoparks are utilizing the Cretaceous geoheritage, as observed in our pre-symposium excursion this year. Members in Japan and Korea have been also much involved in several activities as well as scientific advice.

6. What tangible improvements has your project obtained? (Besides publications, we are interested to hear about improvements to research, scientific contacts, policy implications, etc.) (3.9)

The project provides a valuable role in promoting communication at the level of Cretaceous geoscience among the various Asian countries, including some countries outside Asia. Young scientists and students as well as newly involved scientists are expected to have significant experiences to join the international symposium, field surveys and laboratory works. We can share the current status of the Cretaceous studies and their background for research condition in each country through cooperative researches especially during the international meetings as well as field excursions and museum visits. Through our IGCP608 project, the opportunities for joint field surveys, collaborative experimental studies and exchange research programs including phD students has been increased as shown in 3.3 and Appendices 1, 2 and 11. Dinosaur-oriented researches are easily supported from museums, research grant agencies and public sectors, bur basic sciences as stratigraphy and paleoenvironmental studies in remote areas of Asia are rather difficult to promote without any relation with natural resources. However, some members are successful for such researches in Mongolia (Hasegawa et al., 2018; Appendix 10) and southwestern China (Li et al., 2018a, b, etc.).

7. What kinds of activities in respect to the benefit of society and science outreach has your project undertaken? (3.10)

As several members of IGCP608 in China, Japan and Korea, and now Thailand and Russia have been much involved in several activities of Geoparks for enhancing public awareness of geosciences and geological significance of Cretaceous-related geosites, by providing scientific advice, excursion guide, lecture, symposium keynote, etc.

Several members working for museums and universities have been taken some efforts to enhance public awareness of the significance of Cretaceous geology and paleontology, by providing public lectures, study tours, excursions, specimens, etc. in local field survey and excavation areas, as Cretaceous biota and strata generally attract public and school children.

8. What kind of public information (media reports, etc.) has your project generated? And how do you evaluate their impact? (3.11)

Our project information including meetings and publication lists has been frequently updated on the project website with links to IGCP609 and 632, as well as Geoparks Network (Global and Japanese), some scientific organization and societies. This website acts as a platform to recognize our IGCP608 activities for public as well as members.

At personal or institutional levels, some members provide their scientific research information to public, but their impact remains be informed to the leader. As to the 6th International Symposium, although some journalists came to the meeting in Thailand to gather information on our activities, their reports to some news media are not still informed from the Organizing Committee.

9. Project highlight: (3.12)

Our proceedings volume contributing to Island Arc, Wiley Online journal was finally finished this year as a Virtual Issue "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific". It includes a total of 14 papers written by 60 co-authors from 10 countries. Because most of senior authors are non-native for English, this issue provided the worthy occasion to enhance the scientific result publication for several Asian geoscientists.

Furthermore, the special volume of Palaeo-3 entitled “The Late Cretaceous Nemegt ecosystem: Diversity, ecology, and geological signature” was published as Volume 494, 1-174 (13 articles). Several IGCP608 members including graduate students and young scientists as well as Mongolian scientists, have been involved in several important papers on the basis of a few different multi-national collaboration expedition teams among Mongolia, Japan, Korea, USA and Canada, Italy, Australia and Argentina working in the Gobi Desert. They newly discovered dinosaur species as Ornithomimosaurs with specific manus morphology (Tsogtbaatar et al., 2018), and dinosaur track study by graduate students (Nakajima et al., 2018).

↑Page Top

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2017

ACTIVITIES IN 2017 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

During a pre-symposium field excursion, we observed several Cretaceous strata and their exposures in the western, southwestern to southeastern coast of Korean Peninsula, bearing several interesting sedimentary structures as well as dinosaur, pterosaur and bird footprints and trackways. Recent active scientific results by several Korean earth scientists have enhanced the public awareness for the geological heritage and provided useful information for utilizing in geoparks and dinosaur museums exemplified by indoor and outdoor facilities of Uhanri Dino Fossil Site and Haenam Dinosaur Museum. It suffices to understand the significance of the Cretaceous strata in reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems in East Asia.

Though the IGCP608 session held during the 10th ISC (international Symposium on the Cretaceous) at Vienna, Austria was small, we, several Asian Cretaceous scientists had a nice opportunity to communicate each other within the world-wide scale Cretaceous science community, and share their ongoing scientific knowledge and information.

The proceedings volume of the first and second meetings has been mostly published (now a total of 10 online, two accepted and two in review) as a virtual issue for Thematic Section "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Wiley Online journal, Island Arc. Other many related research results are published in several international and domestic journals listed as Appendices 1 and 2, showing very fruitful efforts individually or with elaborated domestic and multi-national cooperation.

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

1) Fifth International Symposium of IGCP608

Date: October 23-27, 2017

Place: International Convention Center (ICC) Jeju, Korea

Venue and organizers: Our symposium was jointly held with “International Symposium Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Geological Society of Korea and 2017 Annual Fall Joint Geology Meeting” in the International Convention Center (ICC) Jeju on the second day of the main meeting. Thus, there were several scientific sessions, exhibitions, posters of Geological Society of Korea (GSK) and related sectors in the large and wide floors with several rooms and halls. Several participants of GSK could join our oral sessions as well as the poster session from the neighboring poster place. Therefore, we had very good chance to communicate with several Korean earth scientists. As three Korean IGCP leaders have acted as presidents of GSK, namely Lee Yong Il during 2010-2011 (leader of IGCP507: 2006-2011), Cheong Daekyo during 2014-2015 (co-leader of IGCP608 and host of this symposium) and Min Huh during 2016-2017 (present president of GSK and host of MTE-11 in 2012), our activities and roles including this symposium have been well recognized in Korean earth science community.

Attendance: The symposium brought together 45 registered earth scientists from 9 countries of the world. This number included 15 women. The countries and numbers of registered participants are as follows: China: 1; India: 5; Japan: 11; Mongolia: 2; Philippines: 5; Thailand: 4; Russia: 4; Vietnam: 1; France: 2; Korea: 10. Furthermore, several not-registered Korean scientists of GSK members attended our sessions.

Presentations: Within one day symposium, a total of 24 talks were presented in two parallel oral scientific sessions, and 11 posters in the poster session from 14:00-16:00 on 26 October. As those posters had been putting on boards for all day, participants could discuss even during coffee and lunch times individually.

An abstract volume with 42 contributions including posters was produced in advance of the meeting:

Proceedings and Field Guidebook for the Fifth International Symposium of International Geoscience Programme IGCP Project 608, October 22-28, 2017, Jeju Island, Korea, 203p., edited by Cheong Daekyo, Yong-Il Lee and Daewoo Kim.

In the closing of the sessions, after we confirmed the one-year extension (OET) proposal to IGCP office in 2017 Annual Report of IGCP608, the host-country Thailand colleagues introduced their planning Sixth International Symposium in 2018, an expected schedule and outline.

Anyway, the symposium properly provided a unique opportunity for discussions and overview on the Asian Cretaceous sciences.

Business Meeting: We held a short business meeting after the closing of the sessions. Discussion agenda was below:

Discussion agenda was below:

1. Overview of project activities in 2017

2. Participants statistics and the proceeding publication of Fifth International Symposium

3. Annual report of national working groups in 2017

4. Project meetings for the year 2018: OET proposal and Sixth International Symposium in Thailand

5. Possibility on the next new proposal

In addition to the next year extension (OET) proposal to IGCP office, we briefly discussed the next new IGCP proposal, but it still remains no candidate of proponents.

Field Excursion: A pre-symposium three-days field excursion was undertaken during 23 to 25 October with a total of 26 overseas participants (China: 1; India: 5; Japan: 9; Mongolia: 2; Russia: 2; Thailand: 4; Vietnam: 1; France: 2) and 7 Korean participants.

We visited two Korean national geoparks closely related to well-studied Cretaceous non-marine sedimentary and volcanic successions: Jeonbuk West Coast National Geopark (Stops 1-3) and Busan National Geopark (Stop 5). Stop 4 that we visited in the morning of Day 2, is the Uhanri Dino Fossil Site and Haenam Dinosaur Museum. This institution constitutes the largest natural history museum in Korea and outdoor geologic and sightseeing facilities concerned with Cretaceous dinosaur, pterosaur and bird footprint and trackway sites. We could realize that the Korean Cretaceous scientists have well investigated sedimentologically and paleontologically, and utilized their results for geoparks, earth science education and public awareness.

In Jeju Island designated as Natural World Heritage and Global Geopark, we visited five geosites also as major sightseeing attractions in the post-symposium one-day excursion. Though there are no Cretaceous strata, Quaternary volcano and associated volcanic and sedimentary rocks are well exposed along sea coast and form spectacular geologic scenery.

Outcome of Meeting:: Our Fifth International Symposium was held for overviewing the current state of the Cretaceous geological sciences on paleoclimate, paleoenvironments, paleoecosystems and related geological sciences, as well as faunal and floral diversity and evolution, etc. We became aware that further comprehensive studies, through integrated approach, are necessary for the better understanding of the Cretaceous paleo-environments and paleo-ecosystems in Asia. We also realized the necessity for a synthesized paleogeographic and paleoecologic reconstruction based on detailed and precise stratigraphic works. We had a nice opportunity for the promotion scientific exchange and communication between scientists from different countries and institutions. The proceeding publication of the Fourth to Fifth IGCP608 Meetings is planned to publish as a joint volume on the appropriate international journal such as Geoscience Journal, etc. organized by Daekyo Cheong, one of co-leaders.

2) IGCP608 Session “T4. C06 Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems (IGCP608)” on 23 Aug. during 10th International Symposium on Cretaceous, Vienna, Austria.

Conveners: Ando, H., Li, Guobiao and Xi, Dangpeng (China Univ. Geol. Sci.).

Four oral talks and one poster were presented, but about 40 people gathered in the session. Several members of IGCP608 also presented their researches in some other sessions depending on their specialty.

3) 10th International Symposium on Cretaceous (10th ISC 2017) during 21 to 24 August, at UZA (University Center Althanstraße)-II, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Organizers: Michael Wagreich (IGCP609 leader) and Benjamin Sames, University of Vienna (secretary of IGCP609).

A total of 20 IGCP608 members at least attended from five countries.

Over 220 participants gathered from 65 countries in the world, and a total of 193 oral talks were presented with plenary invited lectures by Maria Rose Petrizzo, Helmut Weissert (IGCP608 member) and Marina Suarez. Brief meeting report is uploaded on our website.

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

Cretaceous related excursions and Geopark-tours took place, organized by universities, museums and academic societies in some countries (China, India, Japan and Korea) thanks to concerned efforts by our IGCP members. Some members contributed in lectures for children and public, e.g. Siberian Summer School in 2017 and 2018 (Novosibirsk State University)

A total of 9 comprehensive review papers were published in the special issues of numbers 100 (Sep. 2016) to 102 (Sep. 2017), the domestic journal, Fossils (bi-annual official Japanese journal of the Palaeontological Society of Japan), for sharing the up-to-date knowledge of Cretaceous geosciences in Japan and the world. These are based on the Cretaceous Symposium “Current status of Cretaceous stratigraphy, paleontology and studies on environmental changes in Japan” at the 165th Meeting of the Palaeontological Society of Japan organized by IGCP608 members (H. Ando, T. Hasegawa and H. Nishi).

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on RECENT PUBLICATIONS of BIBLIOGRAPHY on IGCP608 website.

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO programmes, IUGS Commissions or Task Groups or others (3.7)

1) Other IGCPs

As several members of IGCP608 have also joined two IGCP609 and 632 owing to closely related scientific scopes and targets, their information on meetings and others is shared and circulated among members. Therefore, several members of three IGCPs attended their meetings mutually. As 10th ISC was jointly held with IGCP609 meeting, participants from IGCP608 could join also one-day IGCP609 session on 24 Aug. share the research information.

2) IUGS International Subcommission of Cretaceous Stratigraphy (ISCS)

During 10th ISC, some meeting of International Subcommission of Cretaceous Stratigraphy (ISCS) and sessions of several stage boundary working groups were held. For example, T. Hasegawa, a voting member of ISCS, presented about Campanian paleothermometry using cold seep carbonate and joined current discussion on the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary and possible GSSP definition.

3) Geoparks activities

In Japan a total of six Japanese National Geoparks highlighting Cretaceous strata such as “Dinosaur Valley Fukui Katsuyama, “Hakusan Tedorigawa”, “Amakusa”, “Choshi”, “Sanriku” and “Mikasa” Geoparks have been certificated by Japanese Geopark Network. Also in Korea, the “Jeonbuk West Coast” and “Busan” National Geoparks are utilizing the Cretaceous geoheritage, as observed in our pre-symposium excursion this year. Members in Japan and Korea have been also much involved in several activities as well as scientific advice.

6. What tangible improvements has your project obtained? (Besides publications, we are interested to hear about improvements to research, scientific contacts, policy implications, etc.) (3.9)

7. What kinds of activities in respect to the benefit of society and science outreach has your project undertaken? (3.10)

As several members of IGCP608 in China, Japan and Korea, and now Thailand and Russia have been much involved in several activities of Geoparks for enhancing public awareness of geosciences and geological significance of geosites, by providing scientific advice, excursion guide, lecture, symposium keynote, etc.

8. What kind of public information (media reports, etc.) has your project generated? And how do you evaluate their impact? (3.11)

At personal or institutional levels, some provide their scientific research information to public as Malaysia and France, but their impact remains be informed the leader.

9. Project highlight (3.12)

Co-leader, Sunil Bajpai and his two colleagues published a thick volume of comprehensive geohistory reconstruction of Indian Continent from Permian (300Ma) to the Present through Cretaceous as a Special Paper of the Geological Society of America (Chatterjee et al., 2017). This will be a historic publication in Indian geoscience.

This year several important papers appeared in international journals as Science Report, PNAS, Palaeo-3 and International Journal of Plant Sciences on the basis of a few different multi-national collaboration teams among Mongolia, Japan, Korea, USA and Canada for the Cretaceous terrestrial strata in Gobi Desert. They include newly discovered dinosaur species as Ornithomimosaurs　with specific manus morphology (Tsogtbaatar et al., 2017a, b), and dinosaur track　study by graduate student (Nakajima et al., 2017), and very well-preserved plant fossils as conifers and ginkgophyte having seeds structure (Herrera et l., 2017a).

Brief report (Fifth Meeting, 10thISC) and Photo page.

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 **(4. Activities planned)**

1. General goals (4.1)

Following the previous five meetings from 2013 to 2017, the spatio-temporal paleo-environmental and paleo-ecosystem changes during the Cretaceous in the South to East Asia and Western Pacific region will be delineated on the basis of paleo-proxy data and a diversified fossil record. As participants from East to Southeast Asia may not be adequately familiar with Thailand geology and paleontology, we will focus on the Thailand Cretaceous sedimentary basins and their tectonic paleogeographic aspects as well as other continental basins nearby. The field excursion will visit the Jurassic-Cretaceous terrestrial strata in south Korat Plateau bearing many dinosaur bone beds and footprint horizons, being important for reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems in Southeast Asia and the surrounding regions. Now, we are planning to make our next scientific publication covering our research results.

2. Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

1) Sixth International Symposium, Nov. 11-17, 2018, Khon Kaen, Thailand. Three-days pre-symposium Filed Excursion will go around Jurassic-Cretaceous non-marine sedimentary deposits (Khorat Group) in Northeastern, Thailand during 12-14 Nov. Organizing Committee will be chaired by Naramase Teerarungsigul (Department of Mineral Resources, Bangkok, Thailand) with secrtary Orn-uma Summart (Sirindhorn Museum, Kalasin).

2) 13th Symposium Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biota (MTE13) at University of Bonn, Germany, July 21-23, 2018. A field trip (July 16-20) will visit classical and new Mesozoic localities and fossillagerstätten, as well as major museums in Germany. Organizers: Thomas Martin and Rico Schellhorn, Steinmann-Institut (Paläontologie), Universität Bonn.

3) 7th Symposium of IGCP 632 (Continental Crisis of the Jurassic) in association with 2018 Geoscience Society of New Zealand Annual Conference in Napier, New Zealand during 26 Nov. to 7 Dec. 2018 with seven-day field trip. Convener: Hamish Campbell (GNS Science)

4) 8th International Conference on Global Geoparks 2018, Adamello-Brenta UNESCO Global Geopark, Italy in September 2018.

↑Page Top

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2016

ACTIVITIES IN 2016 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

During a post-symposium field excursion, we visited Kemerovo Regional Museum of Local Lore and Shestakovo dinosaur localities of the Lower Cretaceous Ilek Formation. Newly reconstructed skeletons of Psittacosaurus sibiricus as well as fragmentary and smaller-sized mammarian bones such as tricodont and tritylodont recentrly exhibited in the museum are very crucial to reconstruct the vertebrate fauna in Early Cretaceous Siberia and Asia. We observed a few dinosaur bone bed horizons within red-colored flood-plain mudstone, showing the fluvial taphonomic processes forming the dinosaur bone beds. It suffices to understand the significance of the Ilek Formation as one of the important dinosaur fossil sites in Russia and the value of the Shestakovo fauna in representing Cretaceous ecosystems in West Siberia.

In the firstly held Joint Symposium of IGCP608, IGCP609 and ICDP Songliao Basin, “Cretaceous sea-level changes and Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems” during 35th IGC. We communicated each other and shared scientific knowledge and information ongoing in each researcher and research group.

The proceedings volume of the first and second meetings has been published as a virtual issue for the Thematic Section "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Island Arc. Other many related research results by our members are published in several international and domestic journals listed as Appendices 1 and 2 greater than last year in number of pages, showing very active scientific efforts individually or with elaborated domestic and international cooperation.

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

1) Fourth International Symposium of IGCP608

Date: August 15-20, 2016

Place: Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, Russia

Attendance: The symposium brought together 60 earth scientists from 8 countries of the world. This number included 28 women. The countries and numbers of registered participants are as follows: China: 3; India: 7; Japan: 3; Kazakhstan: 2; Mongolia: 3; Thailand: 2; Russia: 38; France: 2

Presentations: During three-days symposium a total of 28 oral talks were presented in five scientific sessions, and 7 posters in a poster session from 11:40-12:40 on 17 August. As those posters had been putting on boards for three days, participants could discussed during coffee times individually.

An abstract volume with 45 contributions was produced in advance of the meeting:

Abstracts: The Fourth International Symposium of International Geoscience Programme IGCP Project 608 “Cretaceous ecosystems and their responses to paleoenvironmental changes in Asia and the Western Pacific”, Short Papers, August 15-20, 2016, Novosibirsk, Russia, 134p., edited by Dzyuba, O. S., Pestchevitskaya, E. B. and Shurygin, B. N.

Anyway, the symposium properly provided a unique opportunity for discussions and overview of the Asian Cretaceous sciences.

Museum Visit: In the early afternoon of the first day, 15 August, we visited the Central Siberian Geological Museum (2nd floor of the same institute building) guided by a museum staff. A large amount of valuable and magnificent mineral, rock and fossil collections attract participants and demonstrate much accumulated geological and resources researches for long years.

Business Meeting of MTE-12: We held the business meeting as the closing session in the early afternoon of the third day, 17 August.

Discussion agenda was below:

1. Overview of project activities in 2016

2. Participants statistics and proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium

3. Annual report of national working groups in 2016

4. Project meetings for the year 2017: Fifth International Symposium of IGCP608

5. Other activities in 2017

6. Activities after 2017

After we approved the Fifth International Symposium of IGCP608 in 2017 hosted by Korean colleagues, an expected schedule, plan and outline was introduced, using ppt slides sent to the leader in advance.

Field Excursion: A post-symposium three-days field excursion was undertaken after the symposium with a total of 18 overseas participants (China: 3; India: 6; Japan: 3; Mongolia: 2; Thailand: 2; France: 2) and 16 Russian participants.

We visited firstly Kemerovo Regional Museum of Local Lore, east of 250 km from Novosibirsk, now having a cooperative local research laboratory with Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Russia, Moscow on Early Cretaceous dinosaur fauna. The museum is recently emphasizing paleontology exhibitions including dinosaurs represented by newly reconstructed skeletons of Psittacosaurus sibiricus as well as natural history of the Kemerovo province. In addition, mammalian bones such as tricodont and tritylodont are observed, though fragmentary and their sizes smaller. Their occurrence is very crucial to reconstruct the vertebrate fauna in Early Cretaceous Siberia and Asia.

On the second day we visited the fossil sites (Shestakovo localities 1 and 3) of Lower Cretaceous Ilek Formation exposed along the Kiya River in 150 km further east of Kemerovo City. We observed a fluvial succession (Shestakovo 3) bearing a few dinosaur bone bed horizons within red-colored flood-plain mudstone, showing the fluvial taphonomic processes forming the dinosaur bone beds. It suffices to understand the significance of the Ilek Formation as one of the important dinosaur fossil sites in Russia and the value of the Shestakovo fauna in representing Cretaceous ecosystems in West Siberia.

Outcome of Meeting:

Our fourth International Symposium and Excursion was held for overviewing the current state of the Cretaceous geological sciences on paleoclimate, paleoenvironments, paleoecosystems and related geological sciences, as well as faunal and floral diversity and evolution, etc. We became aware that further comprehensive studies, through integrated approach, are necessary for the better understanding of the Cretaceous paleo-environments and paleo-ecosystems in Asia. We also realized the necessity for a synthesized paleogeographic and paleoecologic reconstruction based on detailed and precise stratigraphic works. We had a nice opportunity for the promotion scientific exchange and communication between scientists from different countries and institutions.

The proceedings of the fourth IGCP608 meetings will be planned to publish after the fifth meeting as a joint volume. Each of us confirmed the promise to prepare manuscripts for publications until the next meeting in Korea. Following the invitaion by Korean collegues, Dr. Daekyo Cheong, one of co-leaders, we decided the International Convention Center Jeju, Jeju Island, Korea, to be the next meeting venue, and that the schedule would be from 22-27 October 2017 (Symposium: 25-27 Oct.; Excursion: 22-24 Oct.).

2) Joint Symposium of IGCP608, IGCP609 and ICDP Songliao Basin, “Cretaceous sea-level changes and Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems (IGCP 609, IGCP 608, ICDP Songliao basin)”, 31 August and 1 September in 35th IGC, Cape Town, South Africa. A total of about 50 people gathered including three projects from 14 countries at least.

3) International Symposium on “Dinosaur Reproduction”, 24 June during Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Society of Japan at Institute of Dinosaur Research, Fukui Prefectural University, Fukui, Japan. Five invited guest speakers (five countries) and about 100 Japanese participants.

4) Cretaceous symposium “Current status of Cretaceous stratigraphy, paleontology and studies on environmental changes in Japan” at 165th Meeting of Palaeontological Society of Japan, 29 January 2016, Kyoto University, Japan. About 100 Japanese participants.

5) Topic session (mini-symposium) “Earth System during Greenhouse Earth Era”, during 2nd Annual Meeting of the Paleosciences Society, 26 November, 2016, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. About 50 Japanese participants.

6) JpGU-AGU Joint Session in Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2016 (Appendix 16), M-IS02 “IGGP (International Geosciences and Geoparks Programme) of the future”, 24 May, 2016, Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan. About 40 persons mostly Japanese including H. Ando and four invited foreign speakers (three countries) including Dr. P. J. McKeever.

7) 8th All-Russian meeting “Cretaceous System of Russia and CIS countries: problems of stratigraphy and paleogeography”, 28 Sep.-3 Oct., Republic Crimea, Russia (Appendix ??). About 150 participants from Russian and some CIS countries.

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

Several PhD, M.Sc. and Bachelor programs are attended by members from universities and research institutes of several countries having for subject the research and education of Cretaceous geology and palaeontology. Several students obtained PhD and M.Sc. degrees through cooperative inter-college and international research.

Cretaceous related excursions and Geopark-tours took place, organised by universities, museums and academic societies in some countries (China, India, Japan and Korea) thanks to concerned efforts by our IGCP members. Especially in Japan, a session entitled “IGGP (International Geosciences and Geoparks Programme) of the future” was held during Japan Geoscience Union Meeting (), and Dr. P. J. McKeever and H. Ando provided an introductory talk about UNESCO Global Geoparks and IGCP608 activities, respectively. Furthermore, two IGCP608 members (A. Matsuoka, Japan and E. V. Bagdaeva, Russia) and Dr. McKeever presented keynote speeches in Geoparks Niigata International Forum on 27 July.

In Cretaceous symposium “Current status of Cretaceous stratigraphy, paleontology and studies on environmental changes in Japan” at the 165th Meeting of the Palaeontological Society of Japan organized by IGCP608 members (H. Ando, T. Hasegawa and H. Nishi), seven comprehensive research review talks were presented by IGCP608 members for sharing the up-to-date knowledge of Cretaceous geosciences in Japan.

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on RECENT PUBLICATIONS of BIBLIOGRAPHY on IGCP608 website.

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

1) Other IGCPs

As several members of IGCP608 have also joined two IGCP609 and 632 due to closely related scientific scopes and targets, their information on meetings and others is shared and circulated among members. We have several chances to attend a wide-range of meetings. During the 35 IGC, we held Joint Symposium of IGCP608, IGCP609 and ICDP Songliao Basin, “Cretaceous sea-level changes and Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems (IGCP 609, IGCP 608, ICDP Songliao basin)”, 31 August and 1 September in 35th IGC, Cape Town, South Africa. As IGCP632 also held its own sessions separately, several members of three IGCPs joined the sessions mutually and shared our scientific information and development.

2) Geoparks activities

6. IGCP608 Website and Mailing List

Since the approval of our project proposal in March 2013, we have shared the project information and our activities through the website and e-mail in correspondences (mailing list). Brief meeting reports, photos taken in the meetings and publication lists as well as meeting announcements, and project annual reports have been uploaded relatively frequently. Our site is linked with two related sister project of IGCP609 and 632, other related institutions, etc.

ACTIVITIES IN 2017 (4. Activities planned)

1. General goals (4.1)

Following the previous meetings in India (2013), Japan (2014), China (2015) and Russia (2016), the spatio-temporal paleo-environmental and paleo-ecosystem changes during the Cretaceous in the South to East Asia and Western Pacific region will be delineated on the basis of paleo-proxy data and a diversified fossil record. As participants from East to Southeast Asia may not be adequately familiar with Korean geology and paleontology, we will focus on the Korean Cretaceous sedimentary basins and their tectonic paleogeographic aspects as well as other continental basins nearby. The field excursion will visit the Lower Cretaceous lake and terrestrial strata in south coast of Korean Peninsula bearing many dinosaur footprint and eggshell horizons, being important for reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems in Korea and the surrounding regions as Japanese Islands and NE China. On the other hand, during an IGCP608 session in 10th International Symposium in Vienna this August, we, mainly Asian geoscientists will learn about the current status of Cretaceous geosciences in the world.

After publishing Thematic Sections of Island Arc as proceedings volumes, we will plan to make our next scientific publication covering our research results.

2. Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

1) Fifth International Symposium, October 25-27, 2017 at ICC (International Convention Center) Jeju, South Korea (Republic of Korea). Filed excursion will go around Cretaceous Sedimentary Basins (Kyopo and Gyeongsang basins) in western and southern Korea, during 22-24 October. Some places of Jeju Island Global Geopark will be included in the course. Organizing Committee will be chaired by Daekyo Cheong (co-leader, previous president of GSK) and Geological Society of Korea (as 70th Anniversary Memorial Symposium of GSK; President: Prof. Min Huh, member of IGCP608).

2) Session of IGCP608 “Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems (IGCP608)” during 10th International Symposium on the Cretaceous (10th ISC 2017), August 21–26, 2017, Vienna, Austria. As IGCP609 as well al ICDP Songliao basin will hold their sessions, we may exchange scientific knowledge each other.

3) Fifth Symposium of IGCP632 “Continental Crises of the Jurassic: Major Extinction Events and Environmental Changes within Lacustrine Ecosystems: Jurassic Tropical to Polar Biotic and Climatic Transects”, hosted by the Museum of Northern Arizona and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, September 30 – October 1, 2017

4) 8th International Conference on Global Geoparks 2018, Adamello-Brenta UNESCO Global Geopark, Italy in September 2018.

↑Page Top

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2015

ACTIVITIES IN 2015 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1) General scientific achievements (3.1)

              The current state-of-the-art knowledge of Cretaceous Land, Ocean, Biosphere and Ecosystems in each participating country has been gathered in addition to regular research results at seven meetings listed in the next section. In the Third International Symposium overviewed such the topics as 1) biodiversity of Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems, 2) Cretaceous evolution of vertebrates and origin of Aves, 3) Cretaceous plants and their diversity, and 4) Cretaceous climatic and environmental changes. We understood the further and comprehensive studies through integrated approach are necessary for the better understandings of the Cretaceous paleoenvironments and the paleoecosystems in Asia.
              In a post-symposium field excursion, we observed the Lower Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic lacustrine deposits in the western Liaoning Province. We visited the Lower Cretaceous fossil sites (Sihetun and Huanbanjigou, Beipiao) of feathered dinosaurs, Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor, etc. and the earliest angiosperms. We also studied the well-laminated shale lithology, often intercalated by thin acidic tuff layers that suggest the taphonomic processes of the extraordinary well-preserved fossils, even with traces of soft tissues. We realized the significance of the Jehol Group as one of the great Fossil Lagerstaetten and the value of the Jehol Biota in representing Cretaceous ecosystems in Northeast Asia. We also visited the locality of the recently discovered Middle Jurassic feathered dinosaur Anchiornis huxlei. This Middle Jurassic fauna, named the "Yanliao Biota", differs from the "Jehol Biota", though lithology of the fossiliferous beds is very similar.
              The proceedings volume of the first and second meetings is now under review and editing processes as the Thematic Section "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Island Arc. Four co-leaders and two regional leaders act as guest editors. Other many related research results by our members are published in several international and domestic journals listed as Appendices 1 and 2.

2) IGCP project meetings/symposia and IGCP related meetings/symposia (3.2)

(1) Third International Symposium of IGCP608
The Third International Symposium of IGCP608 jointly with 12th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems (MTE-12), August 16-18, Liaoning Mansion Hotel, Shenyang, China. The Organizing Committee of MTE-12 was chaired by Prof. Sun Ge, Director, Paleontological Museum of Liaoning, China.

Attendance: The symposium and post-symposium field trip brought together more than 146 Earth Scientists. This number included 48 women. 31 participants were PhD/master course students. The total figure included graduate students, representatives of petroleum and resources companies, and participants from 16 countries of the world.
The countries of origin of the 146 registered participants and the number of delegates are as follows: China: 69; India: 10; Japan: 13; Malaysia: 1; Mongolia: 2; Pakistan: 1; Philippines: 3; Russia: 23; South Korea: 9; Austria: 1; Belgium: 2; France: 1; Germany: 3; New Zealand: 1; U.K.: 4; U.S.A.: 3
Nearly one third (47) of the participants were IGCP608 members. These members contributed much to the successful MTE-12, by their scientific presentations/discussions.

Presentations: A total of 81 oral talks and 35 posters were presented during three days of scientific sessions.
An abstract volume with 135 contributions was produced in advance of the meeting:
Abstracts: 12th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems, August 16-20, 2015, Shenyang, China, 337p, edited by Zhang Y., Wu S. Z. and Sun G.

Poster Session: During the MTE-12, our IGCP608 session, M-7 itself was held in the morning of 18 August, third day. Though M-7 was a small session, many of our members contributed to the other six related sessions and presented their talks depending on their areas of specialty.

M-7 Session: During one and a half days of poster sessions from 8:30-18:00 on 17 August and from 8:30-12:00 on 18 August, a total of 9 graduate students from China, Japan, Malaysia, Korea and Belgium presented their posters and discussed with many participants vigorously.
Anyway, the symposium properly provided a unique opportunity for discussion and overview of the Asian Cretaceous sciences.

Museum Visit: In the afternoon of the third day, 16 August, we visited Paleontological Museum of Liaoning (PMOL) guided by the Director, Prof. Sun Ge. Through the comprehensive and advanced exhibitions we learned a lot about the development of Chinese paleontology and the scientific significance of the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group and of the Jehol Biota. A large amount of well-preserved fossils from Liaoning Province and Northeast China, some of which sensational, and publicised in issued of Nature, Science and other international journals also definitely attracted all visitors even the professional palaeontologist from abroad. We understood the museum is really acting a major research center for reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems and related sciences.

Business Meeting of MTE-12: After visiting the PMOL, the conference business meeting of MTE-12 was held to discuss the Best Oral and Poster Awards for student presentations in scientific sessions, the host country for next MTE in 2018 and the future system of MTE organization.

Field Excursion: A two-day field excursion was undertaken after the symposium with a total of 54 overseas participants (India: 8; Japan: 8; Malaysia: 1; Mongolia: 2; Pakistan: 1; Philippines: 3; Russia: 13; South Korea: 5; Austria: 1; Belgium: 2; France: 1; Germany: 3; New Zealand: 1; U.K.: 3; U.S.A.: 2) and 24 Chinese participants.
              We looked at Early Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic lacustrine deposits exposed in the western Liaoning Province, 300 to 350 km west from Shenyang. We visited the fossil sites (Sihetun and Huanbanjigou, Beipiao) of feathered dinosaurs, Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor, etc. and the earliest angiosperms. We also studied the well-laminated shale lithology, often intercalated by thin acidic tuff layers that suggest the taphonomic processes of the extraordinary well-preserved fossils, even with traces of soft tissues. We realized the importance of the Sihetun Paleontological Museum as the facility that exhibits and reveals the meaning of these fossils to the public as well as protects the fossil sites as a geo-heritage.
              The National Geo-park for Bird Fossils in Chaoyang is a huge fossil-oriented museum complex, composed of 1) a large fossil museum of Jehol Biota, 2) a huge excavation site showing the succession of beds and bedding surfaces that contain fossils, and 3) an artificially reconstructed petrified forest using a large amount of fossil wood trunks taken from several nearby localities. All first-time visitors were impressed by the large-scale of the exhibitions and the enormous amount of specimens. It suffices to understand the significance of the Jehol Group as one of the great Fossil Lagerstaetten and the value of the Jehol Biota in representing Cretaceous ecosystems in Northeast Asia.
              Furthermore, we visited a local and excellent private museum, Jizantang Fossil Museum exhibiting well-preserved fossil specimens of diversified Jehol Biota: feathered dinosaurs, non-feathered dinosaurs, turtles, choristoderids, crocodiles, early birds, amphibians, fish, several insects, ostracods, conchostracans, several kinds of plants including angiosperms.
              We also visited the locality of the recently discovered Middle Jurassic feathered dinosaur Anchiornis huxlei Hu et al. (2009) in Jianchang County ca. 80 km southwest of Chaoyang. We could observe the long trench section recently excavated for detailed lithostratigraphic and sedimentological surveys. Dr. Hu himself guided us along the section and tought us about its discovery and subsequent research. This Middle Jurassic fauna, named the "Yanliao Biota", differs from the "Jehol Biota", though lithology of the fossiliferous beds lithology is very similar.
              Through this excursion we learned that there are two horizons of very thick lacustrine shale/mudstone sequences bearing well-preserved fossils and continuous environmental evidence during Jurassic and Cretaceous in Northeast China.

Workshop Discussion agenda (10:20-12:00, August 18) is below:
              1. Overview of project activities in 2015
              2. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium
              3. Annual report of national working groups in 2015
              4. Discussion of the project meetings for the year 2016
              5. Other activities in 2016
              6. Activities in 2017 and after 2017

Outcome of Meeting:
              Our third International Symposium and Excursion held as a part of MTE-12 overviewed the current state of the Cretaceous geological sciences on paleoclimate, paleoenvironments, paleoecosystems and related geological sciences, as well as faunal and floral diversity and evolution, etc. We became aware that further comprehensive studies, through integrated approach, are necessary for the better understanding of the Cretaceous paleo-environments and paleo-ecosystems in Asia. We also realized the necessity for a synthesized paleogeographic and paleoecologic reconstruction based on detailed and precise stratigraphic work as well as the study of both the Triassic and Jurassic. We had a nice opportunity for the promotion scientific exchange and communication between scientists from different countries and institutions.
              As mentioned in the Workshop Discussion, the proceedings of the third IGCP608 meetings will be planned to publish after the fourth meeting as a joint volume. Each of us confirmed the promise to prepare manuscripts for publications until the next meeting in Russia. If the proceedings volume was proposed from the MTE-12 Committee side, participants can submit their manuscripts at the personal base.
              Following the proposal by Dr. Boris Shurygin, we decided the Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology, Nobosibirsk, Russia, to be the next meeting venue, and that the schedule would be from 15-20 August 2016 (Symposium: 15-17 Aug.; Excursion: 18-20 Aug.).

(2) International Workshop on Climate and Environmental Evolution in the Mesozoic Greenhouse World and 3rd IGCP 609 Workshop on Cretaceous Sea-Level Change, September 5-11, 2015, Nanjing, China (Meeting September 6-7 plus 4 days field excursion). 5 members including IGCP 608 (H. Ando) and 632 (J. Sha) project leaders from 2 countries.

(3) 2nd Symposium of IGCP 632 “Geologic and Biotic Events on the Continent during the Jurassic/Cretaceous Transition”, September 12-13, 2015, in Northeastern University, Shenyang, China (Meeting September 12-13 plus 6 days field excursion). 10 members at least from 4 countries among a total of 152 participants from 18 countries.

(4) International symposium on “Crust-mantle Evolution in Active Arcs” (CMEAA2015), 12-13 February 2015 in Quezon City, Philippines, organized by Dr. Carla B. Dimalanta (Univ. of the Philippines). 38 oral and 7 poster presentations from Taiwan, Japan and Philippines.

(5)2nd International Symposium on Asian Dinosaurs in Thailand 2015 (ISAD2015), Nov. 19-24, 2015 (19-20: Symposium; 21-24: Excursion), Bangkok, Thailand. 15 members at least from 5 countries among 10 keynote, 28 oral and 21 poster presentations by dinosaur/dinosaur related paleontologists from eight counties.

(6) Session T6, entitled “Bridging Two Continents: Mid-Latitude Climate during Cretaceous Greenhouse States: Comparison between East Asia and North America” organized by Stephan A. Graham and Xiaoqiao Wan in the Second Joint Scientific Meeting of the Geological Society of America and the Geological Society of China. 1-2 November 2015, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Wan X. (co-leader of IGCP608) and a few members from China.

3) Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

(1) Several PhD, M.Sc. and Bachelor programs are attended by members from universities and research institutes of several countries having for subject the research and education of Cretaceous geology and palaeontology. Several students obtained PhD and M.Sc. degrees through cooperative inter-college and international research: 6 students from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and India presented their results in the third symposium in China.

(2) Cretaceous related excursions and Geopark-tours took place, organised by universities, museums and academic societies in some countries (China, India, Japan and Korea) thanks to concerned efforts by our IGCP members. For example, as a geological excursion of the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association of Petroleum Technology (June 12), H. Ando guided Izura coast, one of highlights of "North Ibaraki (Japanese National) Geopark", showing geologically striking features characterized by a large amount of calcareous concretions of various sizes and shapes in the late Early Miocene shallow-marine strata exposed along the Pacific Coast.

(3) An educational public lecture on the early evolution of birds based on the Early Cretaceous Jehol Group in NE China was provided by Prof. Zhou Z. (IVPP: Chinese member of IGCP608) on 23 August at the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum as an event of the special exhibition “The Dinosaur Age of the Southern Asia”.

4) Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on RECENT PUBLICATIONS of BIBLIOGRAPHY on IGCP608 website.

5) Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

(1) Other IGCPs
As several members of IGCP608 have also joined two IGCP609 and 632 due to closely related scientific scopes and targets, their information on meetings and others is shared and circulated among members. We have several chances to attend a wide-range of meetings. All of the three projects separately held their own meeting in China during August to September this year. For instance, Li Gang (Nanjing Inst. Geol. Palaeont., China) attended all of three and contributed so much. H. Ando (leader of 608 and member of both 609 and 632) and J. Sha (leader of 632 and member of 632) attended IGCP609 (leader: M. Wagreich) for the first session of IGCP Project introduction where three leaders (608, 609 and 632) gave a brief introduction on their own scientific perspectives. Ando and Wagreich discussed the possibility of the next year joint session in 35th IGC and negotiated how to propose the plan during the 609 meeting.

(2) Geoparks activities
              As several members of IGCP608 in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Canada have been much involved in several activities of Geoparks for enhancing public awareness of geosciences and geological significance of geosites. In Japan a total of six Japanese National Geoparks highlighting Cretaceous strata such as
                  “Dinosaur Valley Fukui Katsuyama” Geopark
                  “Hakusan Tedorigawa” Geopark
                  “Amakusa” Geopark
                  “Choshi” Geopark
                  “Sanriku” Geopark
                  “Mikasa” Geopark
have been certificated by Japanese Geopark Network. IGCP608 members have been also much involved in several activities as well as scientific advice.
              During the field excursion of 2) of 3.2, we visited "National Geopark for Bird Fossils in Cahoyang, Liaoning", China and realized the Chinese scientists have much contributed to geopark activities to utilize the valuable fossils and geo-heritage with strong support from local governmental agencies.

6) IGCP608 Website and Mailing List

Since the approval of our project proposal in March 2013, we started to exchange and share the project information and our activities through the website above and e-mail in correspondences (mailing list). Brief meeting reports, photos taken in the meetings and publication lists as well as meeting announcements, and project annual reports are uploaded relatively frequently. Now our site is linked with two related sister project of IGCP609 and 632.

ACTIVITIES IN 2016 (4. Activities planned)

1) General goals (4.1)

              Following the previous meetings in India (2013), Japan (2014) and China (2015), the spatio-temporal paleo-environmental and paleo-ecosystem changes during the Cretaceous in the South to East Asia and Western Pacific region will be delineated on the basis of paleo-proxy data and a diversified fossil record. As participants from East to Southeast Asia may not be adequately familiar with East Russia, we will focus on the West Siberian to Far East sedimentary basins as well as other continental basins in Central Asia. The field excursion will visit the upper Lower Cretaceous continental strata in the Kemerovo region near Novosibirsk bearing dinosaur fauna important for reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems in Siberia.
              We will hold the Joint Session in 35th IGC titled "Cretaceous sea-level changes and Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems" with IGCP 609 and ICDP Songliao basin for comprehensive discussion and communication.
              Thematic Sections of Island Arc as proceedings volumes for the first and second meetings will be published in early half of 2016 after careful editing processes.

2) Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

(1) Fourth International Symposium of IGCP608, August 15-17, 2016, Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology, Novosibirsk, western Siberia, Russia. Filed excursion will go around upper Lower Cretaceous sections of Kemerovo region near Novosibirsk, during 18-20 August. Hosted by Prof. Boris Shurygin, Russian regional leader.

(2) Joint Session in 35th IGC “Cretaceous sea-level changes and Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems (IGCP 609, IGCP 608, ICDP Songliao basin)”, Cape Town, South Africa, 27 Aug. to 4 Sept., 2016. Under Theme of "Phanerozoic Earth History, Stratigraphy and the Geologic Time Scale" in Fundamental geoscience of Core Topics.
Convener: Michael Wagreich, Hisao Ando and Chengshan Wang.

(3) Fourth Meeting of IGCP609, University of Plymouth, U.K. in summer, 2016

(4) Third Symposium of IGCP632, Cape Town, South Africa during 27 Aug. to 4 Sept., 2016

(5) 7th International Conference on Global Geoparks 2016, English Riviera Global Geopark, UK, on 27-30 September 2016.

(6) Symposium “Current status of Cretaceous stratigraphy, paleontology and studies on environmental changes in Japan” during 165th Meeting of Palaeontological Society of Japan, 29 January, 2016, Kyoto University, Japan.

↑Page Top

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2014

ACTIVITIES IN 2014 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1) General scientific achievements (3.1)

              The current state-of-the-art knowledge of Cretaceous Land, Ocean, Biosphere and Ecosystems in each participating country has been gathered in addition to regular research results at seven meetings listed the next section. The Second International Symposium and Excursion overviewed such the topics as OAE, land-ocean linkage, biotic and tectonic evolution, and Asian geoparks highlighting Cretaceous. We understood the further and comprehensive studies through integrated approach are necessary for the better understandings of the Cretaceous paleoenvironments and the paleoecosystems in Asia.
              The proceedings volume of the second and first year meetings was decided to submit to Thematic Section "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Island Arc (Wiley Online Journal). Four co-leaders and two regional leaders will act as guest editors.
              In a post-symposium field excursion, we observed the Cretaceous forearc basin siliciclastic successions exposed along the Pacific coast, alternating marine (deep to shallow) and terrestrial (fluvial) deposits and their transitions in sedimentary facies and biofacies laterally and stratigraphically, as overviewed in Field Guide published this time.
              Peter Crane (Yale Univ.), a co-worker of Masamichi Takahashi (Niigata Univ.), timely received the 30th International Prize for Biology (Japan Society of Promotion of Science) for the great contribution to plant systematics and evolutionary history, especially on the origin of angiosperm during the Cretaceous. Their Cretaceous paleobotanical studies in Japan and Mongolia were based on our Asian IGCP projects including previous IGCP507 and 434.

2) IGCP project meetings/symposia and IGCP related meetings/symposia (3.2)

(1) 2nd International Symposium of IGCP608
              The Symposium and post-symposium field trip brought together more than 92 Earth Scientists including graduate students and representatives of petroleum and resources companies, from 13 countries of the world. A total of 44 oral talks and 37 posters were presented during three days scientific sessions. Countries of 92 registrated participants and number of delegates are as follows: China: 1; India: 10; Japan: 45; Malaysia: 1; Mongolia: 6; Myanmar: 2; Pakistan: 1; Philippines: 4; Russia: 6; South Korea: 5; Canada: 1; U.K.: 1; France: 1. There are 22 women and 22 PhD/master course students. Furthermore, 20 undergraduate students of Waseda University helped the meeting as support staff members.
              An abstract volume with 81 contributions was produced in advance of the meeting:
Abstracts Volume: 2nd IGCP608 Waseda, Japan “Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asian and Western Pacific”, September 4-10, 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, 206p.
              In the sessions on 4 Sept. titled “OAE phenomena contributed from Asian and Western Pacific Records”, Japanese and Philippines scientists presented the recent research results on Hokkaido in Japan, France, Northwest Coast of America, Persian Gulf and New Zealand. All participants including the presenters dedicated the memorial thought to the late Professor Hiromichi Hirano (IGCP434 leader, died in May, 2014) who had much contributed to the pioneer works on OAE events during 90’s based on the Cretaceous Yezo Group in Hokkaido.
              The session “Land-ocean linkage: Correlation, sedimentology and paleoenvironments” covers several active scientific topics on the paleoenvirontments, paleoclimate and paleoecosystems during the Cretaceous in Asia.
              The symposium also held the session “Asian geoparks highlighting Cretaceous”, though a small-sized session of three orals and 5 posters, introducing our members’ recent contributions to Cretaceous geopark activities in Japan, Korea and Canada. Prof. Takagi (Waseda Univ.) introduced the recently announced UNESCO’s plan called IGGP (International Geosciences and Geoparks Programme) unifying IGCP and Geoparks, as well as overviewed the recent JGN (Japanese Geopark Networks) activities and results. The Tumbler Ridge Aspiring Geopark reported by Dr. Haggart in this session was accepted as the first Canadian Global Geopark at the 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks just after our meeting (19-22 Sept., 2014).
              In poster sessions with one-hour core times at 13:00-14:00 on 5 and 6 September, a total of 16 Japanese and Korean graduate students presented their posters and discussed with many participants vigorously.
              Anyway, the symposium properly provided a unique opportunity for discussion and overview of the Asian Cretaceous sciences.

              A post-symposium four-day Field Excursion was undertaken after the scientific meeting at Waseda University with a total of 16 oversea participants (Canada: 1; France: 1; India: 3; Mongolia: 6; Pakistan: 1; Russia: 4) and 18 Japanese participants. A field guide was produced outlining the current state of knowledge regarding the Choshi, Nakaminato and Futaba Groups representing the Barremian to Maatrichtian forearc sediments.
              We observed forearc basin siliciclastic successions exposed along the Pacific coast 100 to 250 km east to northeast from Tokyo, Central Honshu Island: Choshi Group (storm-dominated shallow-marine sandstone and mudstone facies: Barremian-Aptian), Nakaminato Group (Campanian turbidite and offshore mudstone facies: Campanian-Maastrichtion) and Futaba Group (fluvial to shallow-marine sandstone and mudstone facies: Coniacian-Santonian). We can see the alternating marine (deep to shallow) and terrestrial (fluvial) deposits and their transitions in sedimentary facies and biofacies laterally and stratigraphically. The Choshi and Nakaminato groups are adopted as geosites of Choshi Geopark and North Ibaraki Geopark, respectively. We also observed the Miocene methane seepage carbonates deposited shallow-marine (possibly inner shelf) environments at Izura coast, Kita-ibaraki City, one of geosites of North Ibaraki Geopark.
              Furthermore, we visited a few excellent museums and observed their exhibition facilities highlighting the Cretaceous fossils and geology: Geological Museum of Geological Survey of Japan, Iwaki Coal and Fossil Museum and Iwaki Ammonite Center.

Meeting announcements and information, and meeting brief results were provided on IGCP608 website below:
http://igcp608.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/index.php?id=5
http://igcp608.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/index.php?id=33

Business Meeting during the Second International Symposium (September 5, 2014)
              In the Business Meeting held on September 5, the second day of the symposium, the leader (H. Ando), co-leader (S. Bajpai) and regional coordinators/national representatives from nine countries, discussed the several kinds of our activities listed below:
              1. Overview of project activities in 2014
              2. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium
              3. Annual report of national working groups in 2014
              4. Discussion of the project meetings for the year 2015
              5. Other activities in 2015
              6. Activities in 2016

(2) 4th International Palaeontological Congress in Mendoza, Argentina (Sept. 28 to Oct. 3) and a session as an opening symposium (2014) of IGCP632 “Continental Crises of the Jurassic: Major Extinction Events and Environmental Changes within Lacustrine Ecosystems”
About less than ten members from 5 countries including IGCP632 project leader, Sha Jingeng (China) attended this symposium.

(3) 9th International Symposium “Cephalopods - Present and Past” (ISCPP9) in combination with the “International Coleoid Symposium” Universität Zu?rich, September 04-14, 2014 in Zürich, Switzerland.
About eight members at least from 3 countries joined this quadrennial meeting.

(4) 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks (19-22 Sept., 2014, Saint John Brunswick, Canada)
Three members from 3 countries at least attended the large-scale conference after our small Geoparks session (5 Sept.).

(5) International Symposium on Asian Dinosaurs in Fukui, March, 21-23, 2014, Fukui Prefectural University and Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, Fukui, Japan
Over fifteen members from 5 countries among 54 dinosaur paleontologists from the world joined this specific dinosaur symposium.

(6) Symposium on “Earth History of Asia-II (EHA-II)”, October 31-November 1, Niigata University, Japan.
Over fifteen members including two project co-leaders (H. And. X. Wan) and several Chinese and Japanese students presented their researches in oral and poster sessions.

3) Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on RECENT PUBLICATIONS of BIBLIOGRAPHY on IGCP608 website.
The proceedings volume of the second and first year meetings was decided to submit to Thematic Section "Land-Ocean Linkages and Biotic Evolution during the Cretaceous: Contribution from Asia and Western Pacific" of Island Arc (Wiley Online official journal of Geological Society of Japan and others). Four co-leaders and two regional leaders will act as guest editors. This expected proceedings volume will be great opportunities for non-native English speaking Asian scientists, to contribute their scientific endeavour to international journals.

4) Educational, training or capacity-building activities (3.3)

(1) Several PhD, M.Sc. and Bachelor programs are attended by members from universities and research institutes of several countries having for subject the research and education of Cretaceous geology and palaeontology. Several students obtained PhD and M.Sc. degrees through cooperative inter-college and international research: 22 students from Japan, South Korea and India presented their results in the second symposium.

(2) Dual Degree Program between Niigata University, Japan and China University of Geosciences (Beijing, Wuhan)
Three Japanese and two Chinese PhD students have studied the Cretaceous strata in China: e.g. Mr. Yoshino has been working on palynology of SK-1 core in Songliao Basin.

(3) Oral and poster sessions mainly for students in international symposium
In the Symposium on “Earth History of Asia-II”, a half day oral and two day poster sessions were organized mainly for graduate and bachelor students. Three of 12 oral and 9 of 31 posters were presented by Chinese and Japanese students, concerning with Cretaceous articles related to IGCP608.

(4) 7th China-Japan-Korea Graduate Student Forum - Environment, Resources and Life
The “7th China-Japan-Korea Graduate Student Forum - Environment, Resources and Life” were held on September 26-28, 2014, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China. Wan, X. (co-leader) and Chinese IGCP members helped this meeting as committee members. Especially, Wan provided a keynote talk on the Cretaceous lake deposits of Songliao Basin in NE China concerned with Cretaceous paleoecosystem and paleoenvironments. This meeting itself covers agriculture, environmental and life sciences in scope. Among about 160 attending students from 13 universities of three countries, some (five or more) students from Japan and China presented their researches on Cretaceous geosciences related to IGCP608.

(5) Editorial supports on weekly Japanese magazine “The 4.6 billion Journey of Earth”
The weekly Japanese magazine “The 4.6 billion Journey of Earth” (a total of 50 issues) has been recently published by a Japanese publisher, Asahi Shimbun Publications, with the leader’s (H. Ando) help as a supervising editor. As the 25th to 32nd issues out of 50 deal with the Cretaceous period, several members (geologists and paleontologists) have contributed to the editorial works as supervisors depending on their own special themes under Ando’s guidance. In the two issues of 25th and 29th as appendices to the shipped original annual report, our scientific results dealing with the Cretaceous environments for theme were briefly introduced to the public. We also have much contributed to public awareness on the dynamic ecosystems of the Cretaceous Earth as the past analogy of modern greenhouse Earth.

5) Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

(1) Other IGCPs
As several members of IGCP608 have also joined two IGCP609 and 632 due to closely related scientific scopes and targets, their information on meetings and others is shared and circulated among members. We have several chances to attend wide-range of meetings.

(2) Geoparks activities
              As several members of IGCP608 in China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Canada have been much involved in several activities of Geoparks for enhancing public awareness of geosciences and geological significance of geosites.
              In Japan a total of seven Japanese National Geoparks highlighting Cretaceous strata as below:
                  Hakusan-Tedorigawa Geopark
                  Dinosaur Valley Fukui Katsuyama Geopark
                  Choshi Geopark (visited in the field excursion of 2nd Meeting)
                  Mikasa Geopark
                  Amakusa (former Amakusa-Goshoura) Geopark
                  North Ibaraki Geopark (visited in the field excursion of 2nd Meeting)
                  Sanriku Geopark
have been certificated by Japanese Geopark Network for the last a few years. Several Japanese IGCP608 members of universities, museums and research institutes have much involved in such the Geoparks activities by providing scientific information on Cretaceous geosites in lectures, article writings and geo-tour guidance.
              Some of their aspects were introduced and discussed in the Cretaceous Geoparks session of our second meeting. H. Takagi, a Japanese Geopark Committee member briefly introduced the ongoing trend of IGGP (International Geosciences and Geoparks Programme) in UNESCO as well as the general review of Japanese Geopark Network activities a few years. The Tumbler Ridge Aspiring Geopark, northeast British Columbia (Canada) reported by Dr. Haggart in this session was approved as the first Canadian Global Geopark at the 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks (19-22 Sept., 2014) just after our meeting.
              During the field excursion of the second meeting, we visited three and two geosites of the “Choshi” and “North Ibaraki” Japanese Geoparks, respectively, to observe how geologic features are utilized in geo-tours and sightseeing, with support from some local peoples as geopark interpreters.

6) Joint international researches

Several joint reaches such as China-Japan, China-Russia, China-USA, Japan-Philippines, Japan-Malaysia, Japan-Mongolia, Japan-Canada, Korea-India, Korea-USA and other teams were actively carried out in each the certain/specific field of the Cretaceous strata.
For example, Japan-Mongolia research project organized by Hisao Ando (Ibaraki Univ.) had success in drilling about 240 meter cores of Cretaceous lacustrine beds in Southeast Gobi Basin for reconstructing a terrestrial environmental changes during mid-Cretaceous, following 150 m cores in 2013. The Malaysia-Japan joint research team discovered the first Cretaceous dinosaur fossils from Malaysia and held two press conferences to local and international (e.g. AFP) media. Several newspapers and some TV programs picked up this topic.

7) IGCP608 Website and Mailing List,

We have operated the project website under the following address (http://igcp608.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/) as a platform to announce and share the information of our project activities in 2014, including download site of abstracts and field guides, publication lists of members since 2013, meeting photos and other related meeting information. By using mailing list, some kinds of information such as meetings, website updates and other announcements have been circulated.

ACTIVITIES IN 2015

1) General goals (4.1)

              Following the previous meetings in India, 2013 and Japan, 2014, the spatio-temporal paleo-environmental and paleo-ecosystem changes during the Cretaceous in the South to East Asia and Western Pacific region, especially in SW and NE China next year will be delineated on the basis of paleo-proxy data and a diversified fossil record.
              We will focus on the ICDP Songliao basin drilling-surveys including the previous SK-1 holes as well as other lacustrine basins in East Asia from the viewpoint of long-ranging paleoenvironmental changes for Cretaceous greenhouse Earth. As three similar meetings (IGCP608, 609 and 632) will be separately held during August to September, our meeting will place emphasis also on paleo-ecosystem changes and their responses to environmental changes during the Cretaceous. The field excursion will visit the Lower Cretaceous lacustrine strata in Liaoning Province, NE China, which are known for well-preserved prolific vertebrate, invertebrate and plant fossils crucially important for reconstructing Cretaceous ecosystems.
              Thematic Sections of Island Arc as proceedings volumes for the first and second meetings will be in review and published as the last issue of 2015 and the first issue of 2016.

2) International Meeting (4.2)

(1) Third International Symposium jointly with 12th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems (MTE-12), August 16-20, 2015, Shenyang, NE China
              Organized by Prof. Sun Ge, Chinese IGCP608 leaders (Li Guobiao: China University of Geosciences) and other principal members with host organizations as Shenyang Normal University, Paleontological Museum of Liaoning (PMOL), Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaentology (NIGPAS), China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Jilin University.
              Symposium: 16-18 August at Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province
              Filed excursion: 19-20 August to Beipiao, Changyang and Jianchang of western Liaoning
              Scientific sessions
                  M-1 Biodiversity of the Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems
                  M-2 Mesozoic stratigraphy and its geological background
                  M-3 Mesozoic tectonics and sedimentary mineral resources
                  M-4 Evolution of dinosaurs and origin birds
                  M-5 Origin and early evolution of angiosperms
                  M-6 Mesozoic climatic and environmental changes
                  M-7 Cretaceous Ecosystem in Asia and Pacific (Workshop of IGCP 608)
                  M-8 Protections of Mesozoic geological heritages
(The First Circular was distributed on 10 January)

(2) International Workshop on Climate and Environmental Evolution in the Mesozoic Greenhouse World and 3rd IGCP 609 Workshop on Cretaceous Sea-Level Change, September 5–11, 2015, Nanjing, SE China
              Organized by Xiumian Hu and his colleagues, Nanjing University
              Symposium: 6-7 September at Nanjing University, Nanjing
              Field excursion: 8-11 September to Jiangsu to Zhejiang provinces, SE China
The First Circular

(3) Second Symposium of IGCP632 (Continental Crisis of the Jurassic), September 12-13, 2015, Shenyang, NE China
              Organized by Jingeng Sha (IGCP632 leader: Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaentology), Enpu Gong (Northeastern University) and their colleagues
              Symposium: 12-13 September at Northeastern University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province
              Field excursion: 14-19 September to North Hebei, western Liaoning Province, NE. China
The First Circular

(4) International Symposium on Asian Dinosaurs in Thailand, 2015

↑Page Top

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2013

ACTIVITIES IN 2013

1) 1st International Symposium of IGCP608

              This first meeting within a 5-year program was held at Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany (BSIP), Lucknow, India, from December 20-22, 2013. A total of 45 scientists, students and representatives of the petroleum companies gathered from India, Japan (6), Korea (6), Vietnam (1) and Mongolia (2). During 2 and a half days symposium, a total of 34 oral and 4 poster presentation were presented and discussed actively. The current state-of-the-art knowledge of Cretaceous geology and paleontology in Asia, especially south Asia was reviewed in this symposium. The large Indian basins of Narmada and Cauvery, as well as the well-known Kutch area and the sediment intercalated within the Deccan Trap Basalt, including the recently controversial K/Pg Boundary extinction events, were presented as active scientific topics. The symposium provided a unique opportunity for discussion and overview of the Indian Cretaceous geological sciences.
              The Meeting Program is downloadable on the IGCP608 website.
              The first International Symposium in Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh State and the eleventh largest city in India, was commented as the articles in several local newspapers, one English and five Hindi.

A post-symposium four-day field excursion (December 23-27, 2013) was undertaken after the scientific meeting at BSIP with a total of 12 oversea and 14 Indian participants. We observed the Cretaceous Bagh-Lameta sequences in the western part of the Narmada basin of Central and Western India. These sequences consist of the famous Bagh Group/Formation (Turonian-Coniacian) with a prolific marine fauna and the overlying dinosaur-bearing Lameta Formation (latest Cretaceous; Maastrichtian). The overlying Deccan Trap succession with sedimentary intertrappean beds and Red Bole succession were also visited. We discussed the necessity for a synthesized paleogeographic and paleoecological reconstruction based on detailed and precise stratigraphic work.

2) Business Meeting during the First International Symposium (December 20, 2013)

In the Business Meeting held on December 20, the first day of the First International Symposium, the leader (H. Ando), two co-leaders (S. Bajpai and D. Cheong) and regional coordinators/national representatives from five countries, discussed the several kinds of our activities listed below:
                  1. Overview of project activities in 2013
                  2. Proceedings of the First International Symposium
                  3. Annual report of national working groups
                  4. Discussion of the project meetings for the year 2014
                  5. Other activities in 2014
                  6. Activities in 2015

3) 9th International Symposium on the Cretaceous System (ISC9)

This quadrennial meeting was held at Middle East University, Ankara, Turkey on September 1-5, 2013. A total of 154 oral and 96 poster presentations submitted are included in the Abstract Book. Ten persons from six countries (Korea, Russia, Japan, England, Switzerland and India) of our IGCP608 members attended this meeting and pre-/mid-/post-symposium excursions. The leaders, H. Ando presented the outline of IGCP608 in the first day session. Several attendances of IGCP608 members participated in the kick-off IGCP609 (Climate-environmental deteriorations during greenhouse phases: Causes and consequences of short-term Cretaceous sea-level changes) workshop and session, and communicated with the leader Michael Wagreich (Univ. Wien) and other major members of the project.

4) Creation of IGCP608 Website

We opened the project website under the address: http://igcp608.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/ on April 5 within the month following reception of the notification mail of our project’s acceptance on March11, 2013. We have used this site as a platform to announce and share the information of our project activities.

5) Publications by IGCP 608 members

Scientific papers written by IGCP608 members as principle authors or junior co-authors are listed on BIBLIOGRAPHY of IGCP608 website

ACTIVITIES IN 2014

1) International Meeting

(1) Second International Symposium and Field Excursion of IGCP608 at Okuma Auditorium, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan (Sept. 4-6, 2014)
              Topic sessions expected
                  a) Land-ocean linkage: Correlation, sedimentology and paleo-environments
                  b) OAE Phenomena contributed from Asian and Western Pacific Records
                  c) Biotic Evolution: Asian and Western Pacific Fauna and Flora
                  d) Asian Cretaceous Geoparks
              Post-Symposium Field Excursion (September 7-10)
                  Forearc basin siliciclastics along the Pacific coast 100 to 200 km east to northeast of Tokyo; Choshi Group (storm-dominated shallow-marine sandstone and mudstone: Barremian-Aptian), Nakaminato Group (Campanian turbidite and offshore mudstone facies: Campanian-Maastrichtion) and Futaba Group (fluvial to shallow-marine sandstone and mudstone: Coniacian-Santonian).
              We are preparing for the meeting through the Organizing Committee of the Second International Symposium of IGCP608 (Chairman: H. Ando; Secretary: Dr. Toru Ohta, Waseda Univ.). The First Circular will be distributed in end of January.

(2) 4th International Palaeontological Congress in Mendoza, Argentina (Sept. 28 to Oct. 3)

(3) 9th International Symposium “Cephalopods - Present and Past” (ISCPP9) in Zürich, Switzerland (7-10 Sept.)

(4) 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks (19-22 Sept., 2014)1) International Workshop on Climate and Environmental Evolution in the Mesozoic

↑Page Top

PROPOSALS

1. Theme of particular interest to IGCP

Global Change: Evidence from the geological record (Global Change and Life Evolution)

2. Full title

Cretaceous ecosystems and their responses to paleoenvironmental changes in Asia and the Western Pacific

3. Short title

Asia-Pacific Cretaceous Ecosystems

4. Estimated duration of the project

Five years (2013-2017)

5. Brief outline of the project

The Cretaceous “greenhouse” period is known for elevated atmospheric CO₂ levels and much higher global sea levels than today. The Cretaceous period is thus an ideal study-object for the unravelling and understanding the development of ecosystems due to modern and future climatic changes. A great variety of well-preserved environments and ecosystems of the past can be found in the Cretaceous geological records of Asia and the Western Pacific rim. From these we can obtain abundant significant information.
The proposed projects’ aim is to delineate such Cretaceous ecosystems and how they responded to the paleo-environmental changes that affected the South-East Asian and adjacent Western Pacific region. This will be based on the multitude of the adequate information gathered from terrestrial and marine strata. We will depict how the types of ecosystems that were established during the Cretaceous evolved in Asia and the Western Pacific. Doing so, we will try to ascertain links between global and local environmental changes in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
This project comprises two groups of major topics to be discussed over five years.

1. Variations of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine environments in Asia and the Western Pacific

The terrestrial strata that are widely distributed in South and East Asia yield abundant indicators, both biotic and lithologic, that are essential for deciphering how the ecosystems, under which life developed, were affected by paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental changes. We look thus forward to obtain important results such as the establishment of close links between atmospheric CO₂ levels, global temperature and precipitation, climatic zonation patterns, paleo-weathering conditions and orbital-scale paleoclimatic fluctuations.
Marine sediment records in the Western Pacific rim and Eastern Tethys region provide several significant information on the Cretaceous marine paleoenvironmental changes, including paleooceanographic conditions, temperature fluctuations, latitudinal temperature gradients, OAEs (oceanic anoxic events), ORBs (oceanic red beds), ocean acidification, etc. We will also reconstruct each of those phenomena and their relationships in more detail over more expanded areas during five years.

2. Evolution of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Asia and the Western Pacific

A diversified fossil record witnesses terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Paleo-Asia and the Pacific. This project, complementing basic paleontological and biostratigraphical studies, will plot the paleobiogeographic distribution of life on the largest continent and in the ocean, correlating the several faunas and floras in time and space. We will further investigate the structures and processes of evolution for terrestrial and marine ecosystems, while discussing important topics such as faunal and floral diversity and their turnover, patterns of extinctions and subsequent recoveries. We also expect important results such as newly discovered terrestrial vertebrate faunas, the oldest angiosperm, their origin and evolutionary trend, as well as their role during changes of the ecosystem.
While during this project we will comprehensively investigate both terrestrial and marine biotic responses to Cretaceous paleoenvironmental changes in Asia and the Western Pacific, we expect to be able to discuss the several kinds of linkage existing between their macro- and micro-biotic ecosystems.

The project has an important role in promoting communication at the level of geoscience among the various Asian countries, including some countries outside Asia, following the pattern of previous East Asian Cretaceous IGCPs (245, 350, 434 and 507).
The results of this project will increase and enhance our knowledge and understanding of present and future climatic changes using past global warming and the effects on the ecosystem as an example. Our results are expected also to promote scientific interest and public awareness in the dynamic ecosystems of the Cretaceous Earth as the past analogy of modern greenhouse Earth.

6. Full Description of the Proposed Project

Back<< >>Next

1) Aims and Background

The Cretaceous Period is one of the greenhouse periods in the Earth’s history, well known for elevated atmospheric CO₂ levels and much higher global sea levels than today. The Cretaceous is thus very important for understanding modern and future climatic and ecosystem changes. Variety of geological records of the Cretaceous are reasonably well preserved in Asia and the adjacent Western Pacific rim, and thus many significant types of information about Cretaceous paleoenvironments and paleoecosystems can be obtained.
The proposed project aims to delineate the "Cretaceous ecosystems and their responses to paleoenvironmental changes in South to East Asia and the Western Pacific”,　on the basis of gathered paleoenvironmental information from terrestrial and marine strata, through studies on many types of proxy data such as lithological and biotic indicators, geochemical properties of marine and terrestrial sediments/fossils. We will depict what types of the ecosystems became established during the Cretaceous and how these systems evolved in Asia and the Western Pacific throughout the Cretaceous.

This project comprises two major topic groups to be explored over five years:

1. Variations of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine environments in Asia and the Western Pacific

Cretaceous terrestrial strata widely distributed in South to East Asia contain many biotic and lithologic indicators for deciphering paleoclimate and paleoenvironments.
Intensive studies on Lower Cretaceous paleosols and pedogenic carbonates often included in red beds will be conducted to ascertain the paleoclimatic conditions as well as the close link between atmospheric CO₂ levels and global temperature, adopting the successful works in the preceding IGCPs (e.g. Hong and Lee, 2012; Hong et al., 2012).
Recent studies on the Cretaceous desert deposits in the Asian interior regions (Mongolia, China, and Thailand) revealed the dramatic changes in climatic zonation pattern in Asia (Hasegawa H., et al., 2012). Their results suggest the shrinkage of the Hadley circulation during the mid-Cretaceous “supergreenhouse” period, which imply the existence of a threshold in atmospheric CO₂ level and/or global temperature, beyond which the Hadley cell shrinks drastically (this research is chosen as Research Highlights in Nature Geoscience and introduced by Hay and Floegel, in press). The possibility of such a drastic switch in terrestrial climatic zonation and the atmospheric circulation system with increasing atmospheric CO₂ should be explored in more detail to better understand the modern and future climatic changes.
Regarding the Jehol Biota in Northeast China, which includes abundant feathered dinosaurs, early birds and the earliest flowering plant, geochemical studies were conducted to reconstruct the paleo-weathering conditions during the time of Jehol Biota (Ohta et al., 2011). Using the newly established chemical weathering index, they revealed that the enhanced paleo-weathering in northern China that can indicate temperature and humidity increases. The timing of this paleoclimatic change closely coincides with a shift to an evolved phase in the Jehol Biota, which suggest a possible link between the paleoclimate change and the development of the Jehol Biota. These kinds of investigations can be applied in more detail and in expanded areas during this project in order to unravel the linkage between paleoenvironmental changes and ecosystem responses in Asia.
Long-standing lacustrine sediments in southeast Mongolia and northeast China record long and continuous paleoenvironmental information such as orbital-scale paleoclimatic fluctuations and paleoweathering changes during the Cretaceous. Several joint researches between participating countries have been also conducted (e.g. Ando et al., 2011: Mongolia-Japan), and will be newly started in this project.
Recently, a team of French members in collaboration with scientists from Japan, China and Thailand (Amiot et al., 2011) also reconstructed Cretaceous paleoclimatic variations (air temperatures and precipitation amounts) in Asia by analyzing the oxygen and carbon isotope compositions of apatite in vertebrate. Their results suggested a cool climate for Lower Cretaceous deposits in Northeast China (Jehol Biota), which brought up some reconsideration of the conventional explanation on warm Early Cretaceous climate tackled during our project.
A deep continental drilling will be started this year in the Songliao Basin, Northeast China as an ICDP project, to take Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous cores including the J-K boundary, following the preceding SK-I and SK-II boreholes into the Paleogene and Upper Cretaceous. One of the co-leaders of our IGCP proposal, Wan will lead a research group as one of the principal members of that ICDP, to reconstruct the entire Cretaceous paleoenvironmental changes in Northeast China by using long ranging core successions (Wang et al., 2012).

Marine sediment records in the Western Pacific rim (Japan, Korea, NE China, Russia, etc) provide several significant information on the Cretaceous marine paleoenvironmental changes since IGCP 350, 434 and 507. In Japan and Russian Far East, the paleo-Pacific ocean-plate sediments form an accretional wedge along the continental margins. The wide geographic dispersion of these marine successions revealed latitudinal differences in paleoenvironments during the Cretaceous ocean. Late Cretaceous oceanic temperature rises and falls in mid- to high-latitude of NW Pacific to Boreal regions were reconstructed by using isotopic data from micro- and macrofossils (e.g. Moriya, 2011; Zakharov et al., 2011). Also, marine Cretaceous sediments in the Tibetan region, Southwest China also record environments in Eastern Tethys region of high to low southern paleolatitudes due to the rifting of the Indian subcontinent from Gondwana and its northward drift (Wan et al., 2011).
With regard to the paleoenvironment of the Cretaceous ocean, paleoceanographic conditions of Western Pacific region during Ocean Anoxic Events (OAEs; e.g., Takashima et al., 2010; Nemoto and Hasegawa, 2011) and intervals of Ocean Red Beds (ORBs; e.g., Wang et al., 2011) are also important. In our project, we try to reconstruct the relationship between OAEs and ORBs, and process and causes of ocean acidification in the Western Pacific rim during the Cretaceous, in cooperation with several scientists involved in IODP, IGCP555, 609, etc.

2. Evolution of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Asia and the Western Pacific

A diversified fossil record witnesses terrestrial and marine life forms and ecosystems in Paleo-Asia and the Western Pacific. This project, complementing basic paleontological and biostratigraphical studies, will plot the paleobiogeographic distribution of life of the largest continent and ocean, correlating the several faunas and floras in time and space. The project will further investigate the structures and evolutionary processes for terrestrial and marine ecosystems, while discussing important topics such as faunal and floral diversity and their turnover, patterns of extinctions and subsequent recoveries.

The paleobiogeographic relations between Pacific, Tethys and Boreal realms in Cretaceous times are inferred, while taking into account oceanic and terrestrial climatic conditions as well as marine biotic distribution. Compositional changes during the Cretaceous in feeding habits of marine macrofauna reveal the marine ecosystem changes of the so-called Mesozoic marine revolution, which means the fundamental restructuring was caused by increased predation pressure.
From the spatio-temporal distributions of the Cretaceous carbonate platform biota (rudists, corals, orbitolinids, Neithea and belemnites) in the Pacific, Atlantic and Western Interior Seaway, a new type of biological event was proposed to have taken place in the North Pacific during the mid-Cretaceous by Iba et al. (2011) and their preceding works. Their results revealed that stepwise demises of the carbonate platform biota in the Pacific regions started from the Aptian-Albian period, while an identical fauna expanded widely in the Atlantic and Western Interior Seaway. The extinction of the warm-water species in the Pacific shows a counter tendency to general global warming in the Cretaceous.
Other marine elements, exemplified as several kinds of microfossils, ammonites, belemnites, some other molluscs, vertebrates including fish and reptiles, are also studied to reconstruct the structure of marine ecosystems.

Newly discovered terrestrial vertebrate faunas (e.g. feathered dinosaurs) from Northeast China are year-by-year revolutionizing our understanding of the Cretaceous vertebrate evolution (e. g. Xu et al., 2012). Also the Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast witnesses the presence of diversified dinosaur and associated vertebrate faunas based on trackways and egg sites (e. g. Paik et al., 2012), found abundantly along the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula.
Since Archeofructus, one of the oldest angiosperms occurs also in Northeast China is one among the suitable fields to investigate the origin and early evolution of flowering plants (e.g. Sun et al., 2008). The actual change in relation between terrestrial vertebrates and vegetation since the appearance of angiosperms makes it an exciting research topic of our project, worth to be undertaken.
A rich and diverse fauna of dinosaurs and associated vertebrates including mammals, invertebrates and plants flourished during late Cretaceous around the Deccan volcanic province of central India. The decline and eventual extinction of this Deccan intertrappean biota around the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) transition may now be evaluated in the context of the recently found major trans-Deccan seaway (Bajpai et al. 2012).

We will comprehensively investigate terrestrial and marine biotic responses to Cretaceous paleoenvironmental changes in Asia and the Western Pacific. Several kinds of linkage such as between land and ocean, marine and terrestrial ecosystems and macro- and micro-biota are conceivable as next issues in this project.

2) Significance

Back<< >>Next

1. Scientific advancement

In this project, the spatio-temporal paleoenvironmental and paleoecosystem changes during the Cretaceous in the South to East Asia and Western Pacific region will be delineated on the basis of paleoproxy data and a diversified fossil record from wider areas and different locations.
Over a hundred scientists from a dozen Asian countries and half a dozen countries outside Asia will tackle a widely various paleoecosystems according to their specialties and period studied, following the preceding successful East Asian Cretaceous IGCPs (IGCP 245, 350, 434 and 507). However, we will add global significance to even local phenomena by taking all global events and phenomena into consideration, through international cooperative geoscience communications and projects.
During the activities of the preceding IGCPs, especially 434 and 507, scientific results have been published progressively in several journals. Two special issues of Island Arc (Vol. 19, Issue 4 and Vol. 20, Issue 1) are recent examples of our scientific outputs (Lee and Weissert, 2010; Hasegawa and Ando, 2011). In this project we will make efforts to publish several internationally peer-reviewed symposium volumes. These volumes will certainly provide good opportunities for non-native English speaking Asian scientists, regardless senior as well as younger scientists, to contribute their scientific endeavour to international journals, in addition to abstract volumes and excursion guidebooks of annual meeting.
In IGCP 434 and 507, the target region of researches covered the already larger area of South to East Asia. However, the present project, by adding the Western Pacific responds not only to the fact that several members of our project already study this area. Thus, in order to facilitate the evaluation of causal linkages between land and ocean, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems during the Cretaceous in South to East Asia, we are much in need of information from the Western Pacific region.
In conducting our project, we will be attentive in understanding the situation surrounding geoscience in each developing country in Asia. Scientific themes themselves should be somewhat comprehensive in order to render it possible for many participants to join the project.
During the activities of the preceding IGCPs, especially 434 and 507, scientific results have been published progressively in several journals. Two special issues of Island Arc (Vol. 19, Issue 4 and Vol. 20, Issue 1) are recent examples of our scientific outputs (Lee and Weissert, 2010; Hasegawa and Ando, 2011). In this project we will make efforts to publish several internationally peer-reviewed symposium volumes. These volumes will certainly provide good opportunities for non-native English speaking Asian scientists, regardless senior as well as younger scientists, to contribute their scientific endeavour to international journals, in addition to abstract volumes and excursion guidebooks of annual meeting.
In IGCP 434 and 507, the target region of researches covered the already larger area of South to East Asia. However, the present project, by adding the Western Pacific responds not only to the fact that several members of our project already study this area. Thus, in order to facilitate the evaluation of causal linkages between land and ocean, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems during the Cretaceous in South to East Asia, we are much in need of information from the Western Pacific region.
In conducting our project, we will be attentive in understanding the situation surrounding geoscience in each developing country in Asia. Scientific themes themselves should be somewhat comprehensive in order to render it possible for many participants to join the project.

2. International cooperation

This project has an important role in promoting and activating the geoscience communication for scientists concerned with Cretaceous studies mainly among Asian countries. We shall share the current status of the Cretaceous studies in each country through cooperative researches especially during the international meetings held every year.
Organizing international meetings itself is a hard but honorable work and is significant for sharing up-to-date research information. The host country can enhance the science information exchange both domestically and internationally. It will be an important opportunity to sum up the current status of geological science in the host country. It also offers a great opportunity to enhance the perspective, scope and knowledge of science for participating scientists and even students as well as host scientists. Field excursions are unique opportunities to brush up on field techniques, hone observation skills, exchange local but significant geologic information and discuss important outcrop features. In all, annual international meetings of our project play a significant role in promoting scientific activities in Asian countries where activities similar to the larger international geoscience unions such as EGU and AGU are unavailable.
International cooperative research projects among participating member countries have been conducted in the previous four IGCPs during the past twenty years on many themes, researches and field areas. These countries are listed as follows: China, India, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Fareast Russia, Russia, Thailand, VietNam, New Zealand and others. Several joint researches are now being conducted in China–Japan (Ohta et al., 2011), China-Rusia (Sha et al., 2009), India-Japan (Wani et al., 2011), India–USA-Korea (Keller et al., 2009), Korea–Japan (Horiuchi et al., 2009), Mongolia-Japan (Ando et al., 2011), Mongolia-Thailand-China-Japan (Hasegawa et al., 2012), Mongolia-Korea, New Zealand-Japan, Russia-Japan (Zakharov et al., 2011), Thailand-Japan, Thailand-Korea and French-China-Japan-Korea-Thailand (Amiot et al., 2011), although some of them started in the duration of IGCP434.
The spirit of these international collaborations will be continued and encouraged in the successor project. Therefore, meaningful and fruitful cooperative researches are expected to be further initiated based on the discussion within this project. Through these collaborations scientific data will be shared and integrated regionally to improve our understanding of Cretaceous paleoenvironments in Asia and the Western Pacific.
The participation of young scientists and students in trainings at international symposia and field excursions are of immense significance and added values. Not only participating scientists but also participating students will benefit such international collaborations in the successor project.
Several scientists concerned with international cooperative projects may make efforts to get research funds from several agencies, domestic and overseas. Such the projects conducted under the UNESCO-authorized program are highly expected to succeed.

3. Transfer of technology and knowledge

Only the leading countries can afford to apply high-technology measuring instruments and techniques for studying several paleoenvironmental proxies such as carbon/oxygen isotopes, radiometric age dating, mineralogy, geochemical proxy (e.g., Weathering Index; Ohta and Arai, 2007), biomarker, etc. However, through many collaborated researches several students and scientists from developing countries will have an opportunity to master how to measure several types of paleoenvironmental proxies using advanced techniques and handling various instruments in several institutes of the leading countries. They will also learn the theoretical background of those analyses in carrying out the collaborative researches. These collaborations will improve quality of our science, and enhance efficiency of methods and techniques in measuring paleoenvironmental proxies. Participating students from overseas are expected to attempt Ph. D. from universities of the leading countries and transfer the geological knowledge and technical skill to the their own countries.
Some members of IGCP507 and the successor projects will also contribute to some programs and projects for the transfer and exchange of academic knowledge, operated by leading universities (e.g. Nagoya and Kyoto universities in Japan) by offering their results and experience of collaborative researches in IGCP.

4. Technological advancement

When we obtain paleoenvironmental indicators and proxy data from sediment/rock/fossil samples, we usually adopt the appropriate methods and techniques, using state of the art measuring equipment. The availability of adequate machinery, laboratories, as well as skilled personal, will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of measurement and the reliability of measured paleoenvironmental proxies. It is important to evaluate the characteristics of the samples from outcrops and cores, since fresh and non-weathered material is best suitable. The quality of measured proxies should be checked from multiple viewpoints and statistically evaluated during our cooperative researches.

3) Present State of Activities in the Field of the Proposed Project

First<<Back<< >>Next

Studies on the Cretaceous paleoenvironments in East Asia have been carried out continuously through the IGCP 245 (1987-1991), 350 (1993-1997+O.E.T 1998), 434 (1999-2003+2004) and 507 (2006-2010+2011). The IGCP 245 "Nonmarine Cretaceous Correlation" mainly concentrated on the non-marine stratigraphical correlation of Cretaceous bioevents across the globe. In the following IGCP 350 "Cretaceous Environmental Change in E. and S. Asia", depositional systems of Cretaceous sediments and their tectonic implications were the main subjects of study. Through these two IGCP projects much information about the distribution and tectonic configuration of Cretaceous sedimentary basins in South to East Asia has been gathered. The following IGCP 434 "Land-Ocean Interactions of Carbon Cycle and Bio-Diversity Change during the Cretaceous in Asia", aimed at gathering Cretaceous geochemical data, especially carbon isotope curves, for understanding the carbon cycle through the land-ocean interactions. The newest IGCP507 “Paleoclimates in Asia during the Cretaceous: their variations, causes, and biotic and environmental responses”, concentrated in gathering extensively climatic information, focusing research directions on paleoclimatic implications of existing and on-going research results, and integrated the available data for synthesis. Through six international symposia with field excursions a significant progress in understanding Cretaceous climate systems in Asia has been achieved. The basic knowledge for the Cretaceous paleoclimates in the project study area is mature enough to propose this successor project.
Before making the first proposal form in 2011, co-leaders and regional coordinators of IGCP 507 and the successor project, who were in attendance at the sixth International Meeting of IGCP 507 at China University of Geoscience, Beijing, discussed the scientific themes undertaken during the next project as well as project titles and meeting venues in the business meeting held on 15 August 2012.
This year, three co-leaders and about a half regional coordinators gathered in the business meeting on 15 August held during the international symposium "11th Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems (MTE)" at Gwangju, Korea (15-18, August 2012), in which the joint scientific session of the New IGCP was planned if our first proposal were accepted. Following our discussions on how to revise the proposal in the business meeting, Ando presented the outline of the modified second IGCP proposal 608 in the next day session to several IGCP 507 members and other attendances. Some attendances of MTE symposium from France and China agreed to join in with our project.
Regarding a combined proposal with IGCP 609 recommended by the IGCP Scientific Board, Ando contacted Prof. M. Wagreich, senior co-leader of IGCP 609 and discussed about the combination and collaboration (Refer to the attached IGCP608-Mail_communications, pp. 5-7). After exchanging the last proposal forms each other, we checked our scientific themes and directions. Though two proposals widely deal with the Cretaceous, their topics and research areas are rather diverse. Two research groups stem from a longer line of the preceding successful IGCPs, respectively. We confirmed the separate proposals but some collaboration each other in some possible joint sessions/symposiums if successful (e.g. 9th International Symposium on Cretaceous System in 2013 and 35th IGC in 2016).
All of four co-leaders participated in the IGCP 507 as principal members. Ando (Japan) has attended all international symposia and field excursions during IGCP434 and 507 including the O.E.T. Wan (China) and Cheong (Korea) also have attended most of the meetings of both IGCPs, and have organized each own home country as regional coordinators from the beginning of the IGCP507. Bajpai (India) also attended three meetings of IGCP507. Therefore, the co-leaders became to know well all regional coordinators and many members of participating countries each other.
All co-leaders are looking forward to hearing the acceptance of our new proposal as an official IGCP project, succeeding the successful earlier ones. They are now eager to get involved in international activities, and feel that they need an opportunity for promoting scientific growth and enhancing chances of discussion and collaboration with eminent scientists.

4) Work Plan

First<<Back<< >>Next

Year 1 (2013)

Create web site of the new IGCP Project
The First International Symposium is planned to hold in the central/southern part of India in late August/late December organized by an Indian co-leader Bajpai and a regional coordinator of India, Prof. Prasad in collaboration with the Geological Survey of India and Oil and Natural Gas Commission. In this meeting, the state-of-the-art knowledge of Cretaceous Land, Ocean, Biosphere and Ecosystems in each participating country will be presented in addition to regular research results.
Also, planned is a special symposium session dealing with a few selected sedimentary basins in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh fundamentally important for reconstructing the Cretaceous Ecosystem of South Asia, because many of participants from East Asia are not familiar with basins in South Asia.
Our meeting itself should be prepared for fruitful discussions and encouraging students and young scientists to participate. An abstract volume and field excursion guidebook will be published for participants as in our previous IGCP meetings. Also, the first business meeting will be held at the same time to determine the detailed project plan to be undertaken over the next four years of our research.
The results of this information will be published as a proposed edited volume of a peer-reviewed, international scientific journal.
A four-day field excursion for the Cretaceous non-marine to shallow-marine sequences distributed in the central and western peninsular India. These sequences consist of the famous Bagh Beds (Turonian) with a prolific marine fauna and the overlying dinosaur-bearing Lameta Formation.
International collaborative researches based on Asian Cretaceous fields; e. g.
1) δ¹³C stratigraphy of the non-marine and partly marine Lower Cretaceous sequences in NE China to compare and correlate with those of European, Western China (Tibet and Xinjiang) and mid-Pacific and Japanese sections; sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and National Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
2) Lower Cretaceous sequences in Mongolia by collaborated scientists from Japan, China and Mongolia focusing on intercontinental lacustrine deposits, paleoenvironmental changes and their causal mechanisms; sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
3) Paleoichnology of prolific dinosaur trackways and egg sites in the southern coast of Korean Peninsula long studied during two decades will be continued further in collaboration with scientists from USA and Japan.
4) Deccan intertrappean sequences in India are being under study by Indian and Korean scientists. This project intends to reveal paleoclimatological signals prior to the end-Cretaceous extinction; cosponsored by Indian Academy of Sciences and Korea Research Foundation. Cretaceous sequences in the Cauvery Basin located in the southernmost India have been also continuously studied by Indian and Korean scientists since 2005.
5) (1) Late Cretaceous terrestrial records and climatic changes in Northeast China to compare and correlate with the data of East Asia, and (2) Cretaceous marine records and relating OAEs, oceanic oxygen-rich events, LIPs and climatic changes in Eastern Tethys (southern Tibet, China), has been conducted by a Chinese group, both supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
6) Cretaceous sequence stratigraphy of the Sanjiang (NE China) - Middle Amur (SE Russia) basins; sponsored by Jilin University, China, and Institute of Tectonics & Geophysics, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Attending the 9th International Symposium on the Cretaceous System in Ankara, Turkey (1-5 Sept.) and presenting papers. The representative attendances will introduce the current status of our IGCP sciences as well as their own scientific results. We will plan to hold a joint session with a related IGCP (e.g. IGCP609) project.

Year 2 (2014)

Second International Symposium and a business meeting in Tsukuba (near Tokyo), Japan. At this meeting, in addition to the presentation of regular research results, the current status of Cretaceous ecosystem studies in Asia will be reviewed and their issues worth pursuing during the project will be pointed out by some delegates from different countries.
As a special session of the symposium, the linkage of land, ocean and biosphere are to be discussed from the Asia and Western Pacific perspectives. Some participants may provide the paleogeographic and paleoceanographic information of the Western Pacific Ocean including southwest region. By the end of the year, several results of IODP drilling the Cretaceous sediments and igneous rocks of LIPs will further released and published. We will invite scientists concerned with such projects and share the state-of-art results and knowledge for improving and stimulating our science. The marine linkage between Northwest and Southwest Pacific connection will be presented by Prof. T. Hasegawa (Japan) and Dr. J. Crampton (NZ) based on their collaborative works.
A two- to three-day after-conference field excursion is planned to hold in the sedimentary basins in central Japan where the various aspects of research had been carried out over a decade. We can see the alternating marine (deep to shallow) and terrestrial (fluvial) deposits and their transitions in sedimentary facies and biofacies laterally and stratigraphically.
Publication of papers presented at the Second International Meeting in a peer-reviewed, international scientific journal.
Continued International collaborative researches in some groups; e. g. Lower Cretaceous sequences in Mongolia by collaborating scientists from Japan, China and Mongolia. A few holes of a hundred meter drilling will be conducted to take continuous core samples of Lower Cretaceous lacustrine mudstone deposits in the southeast Gobi desert if it is granted. High-resolution cyclostratigraphy as well as carbon-isotope and conchostracan stratigraphy enable us precise correlation of the terrestrial paleoenvironmental changes with the specific global events (such as OAEs)
Attending the 4th International Palaeontological Congress in Mendoza, Argentina (28 Sept. to 3 Oct.) and presenting papers.

Year 3 (2015)

Third International Symposium and a business meeting in China in late August, organized by a Chinese co-leader, Wan and a regional coordinator of China, Prof. Li, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Science and China Natural Science Foundation. This meeting will be held jointly with “12th Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems” at Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, organized by Prof. Sun Ge who found the oldest angiosperm fossils from the Lower Cretaceous deposits in China.
The associated field excursion of three to four days duration will visit the Lower Cretaceous lacustrine strata in Liaoning Province, Northeast China, which are known to contain well-preserved prolific vertebrate, invertebrate and plant fossils crucially important for reconstructing Cretaceous biota and ecosystems.
Publication of papers presented at the Second International Meeting in a peer-reviewed, international scientific journal.
Continued International collaborative researches in some groups.

Year 4 (2016)

Fourth International Symposium and a business meeting in Novosibirsk, Russia in August to September organized by Russian members. As well as regular research papers, research results dealing with the Cretaceous in central Russia will be presented as a special symposium session, because many of participants from East Asia are not familiar with Cretaceous basins in central Russia.
Field excursion of three to four days duration in somewhere to study marine/non-marine Cretaceous sections near Altai Mountains/ the eastern slope of the Polar Urals, Russia. As a special session of the symposium, overviewing the Cretaceous terrestrial and marine sedimentary basins in East Asia and their research outcome in ICDP of the Songliao Basin, Mongolian lacustrine deposits in Gobi Basin, Sichuan Basin in South China, Khorat Basin in Thailand, and eastern Tethys marine deposits in Southwest China (Tibet) etc. We also plan to make an overview of the linkage between land, ocean and biosphere from the Asia and Western Pacific perspectives.
Publication of the Fourth International Meeting in a peer-reviewed, international scientific journal.
Continued International collaborative researches in some groups.
Attending the 35th International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa and presenting papers. We will plan to hold a special session in collaboration with other related IGCP (e.g. IGCP609)/ICDP (Songliao Basin) projects if available.

Year 5 (2017)

Fifth International Symposium and a business meeting in Seoul, Korea in late August organized by a co-leader D.K. Cheong and his colleagues. This meeting will summarize results of the present IGCP Project.
As a special session of the symposium, overviewing the terrestrial and marine ecosystem studies in South to East Asia and the Western Pacific.
A four-day field workshop for the Cretaceous non-marine sequences distributed in the southern coastal areas of Korean Peninsula will be held under the guidance of Prof. Min Huh of Chongnam National University and his colleagues. Several on-going research aspects such as the sedimentary environments, taphonomy, paleosols and paleoclimates as well as the paleoichnology of prolific dinosaur trackways will be discussed by participating scientists. The current status of social benefit and application of dinosaur trackway sites as well as social application of science results will be introduced by the involved persons.
Attending the 10th International Symposium on the Cretaceous System and presenting papers.
Publication of a synthesis of the outcome of the present IGCP Project in an international scientific journal.
Final report for the IGCP Project.

5) Result expected

First<<Back<< >>Next

a) Basic sciences

By reconstructing Cretaceous paleoenvironments, the range of climatic variability on different time scales can be determined. These studies help us learn how the climate system behaves, what controls it, and how it is likely to change in the future. We know it will change, but we lack a clear view of how and at what rate. The results of the project will enhance our understanding of these questions. Furthermore, we can clarify the causal relation between the global environmental changes and the biological response of land animals and plants as well as marine ones in more detail than our understanding at present.
The recent discovery of several dinosaurs including feathered dinosaurs and some early birds in Northeast China, add great diversity to the vertebrate faunas. Their remains, such as footprints in non-marine Cretaceous deposits in East Asia, especially in the south coastal areas of Korea, increase our knowledge of this East Asian terrestrial ecosystem. Flowering plant fossils, as mega-floras or pollen will refresh our understanding of the origin and early evolution of angiosperms. Ecosystems controlling the relations between vertebrate faunas and flowering plants will be further uncovered and reviewed during this five years of our project, coupled with the expected forthcoming new findings of fossils and their researches.
Cretaceous thick lacustrine deposits, widely distributed within the East Asian Continent, will provide basic data for inferring long-ranging climatic changes (precipitation and temperature changes), and orbital-scale paleoclimatic and paleoweathering fluctuations as well as for reconstructing the changing local lake environments.
Marine sediments recording marine biota and paleoceanographic proxies in the surface outcrops and ocean drill holes along the Western Pacific provide continuous data enabling investigation of the paleobiogeographic and paleoenvironmental changes of the Cretaceous largest ocean in connection with the paleo-Asian continent, as well as the relationship between OAEs and ORBs, and process and causes of ocean acidification, etc.
Terrestrial and marine stratigraphic correlation within the transition from mostly terrestrial (China and Korea) to intercalating terrestrial and marine (Japan) successions establish a basic premise for reconstructing paleoenvironments and ecosystems. The development of radiometric dating and biostratigraphy based on several different taxa, regardless of terrestrial or marine ones, and their data accumulation will enhance the accuracy and plausibility of our reconstructed results. (e.g. Sha et al., 2009; Kirillova et al., 2011)
Through basic geological studies of the Cretaceous, some members will provide the significant results of igneous rocks in active margins and ophiolites in suture zones of East to South Asia, flood basalts of the Deccan and the Western Pacific ocean plateaus known as LIPs (Large Igneous Provinces). Their results will explain well the volcanic/tectonic activities affecting paleoenvironmental changes by carbon dioxide emissions in the Cretaceous Asian and Western Pacific region (e.g. Keller et al., 2009; Kuroda et al., 2011).
Our project can maintain the strong and valuable network of the Asian community in geosciences, which has been active for over 20 years through IGCP 245, 350, 434 and 507. During our project several joint research projects will be initiated between scientists of the participating countries as hitherto being conducted (e.g. China–Japan, China-Korea, India- Japan, India–Korea, Korea–Japan, Korea–Thailand, Mongolia-Japan, Mongolia-Korea, Russia–Japan, Thailand-Japan, Thailand-Korea, etc.). Therefore, more meaningful and fruitful results are expected from the on-going joint projects by contributing to international journals. New collaborative research projects will be further initiated based on the discussion within this project. Young scientists and students as well as newly involved scientists are expected to have good opportunities to join the field surveys and laboratory works.
Our project can share comprehensive knowledge of dynamic ecosystems during the Cretaceous with the cooperation of ICDP, IODP and other on-going related projects (e.g. IGCP 609).

b) Applied sciences and technology

We can increase our knowledge of the relationship between paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic patterns and the distribution of various economic deposits including coal, hydrocarbon source rocks, and evaporites, which are widely distributed in the study areas of this project. In case of oil shale and mudstone rich in organic matters, isotopic and organic geochemistry data such as ¹³C, ¹⁸O, TOC, C/N ratios and Rock Eval results will be the basic data for characterization of hydrocarbon source rocks. Using this information, the petroleum potentials will be evaluated for exploration of these natural resources as economic deposits.
The our studies on Cretaceous geology of some countries rich in mineral and metallic resources, such as China, Mongolia and Myanmar provide fundamentally important knowledge for metallogeny, because the several kinds of mineralization had occurred during the Cretaceous relating to several igneous and tectonic activities.
Skillful scientists of leading universities will have chances to develop and improve the laboratory equipment and also technical skills. Newly installed high-technology equipment will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of measurement and the reliability of measured paleoenvironmental proxies. Other scientists may use research facilities having high-technology measuring instruments with a sharing system (e. g. KCC: Kochi Core Center in Japan). These efforts will also enhance standards of our science in technical aspects. Our collaborative research and scientific communications during this project will enhance the reliability of paleoenvironmental proxy data.

c) In respect of benefits to society

First<<Back<<

The results of this project will increase and enhance our knowledge and understanding about the future climatic changes exemplified by global warming and their effects. Our results in unravelling the dynamics of Cretaceous ecosystems will also raise the scientific interests and public awareness for its possible analogy with the modern greenhouse effects.
Our interest in Cretaceous climate stems from the current concern over modern global warming. Extreme warmth in the middle part of the Cretaceous represents one of the best examples of greenhouse climate conditions in the geologic record. Some of the most important questions of our time relate to understanding how human activities may be modifying current and future climates. Will Earth enter another warm climate state due to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations? Will a future warm Earth system exhibit ecosystem stability or abrupt change and extreme states? How do climate extremes and rapid climate fluctuations affect ecosystem stability? Cretaceous paleoenvironmental studies may be the best key we have to answer these questions. Cretaceous paleoenvironmental data can help inform the public about the near- and long-term possible effects of anthropogenic climate change, whose perspective is simply not available in modern and historical records. Because land-sea configuration during the Cretaceous was very different from today, the Cretaceous cannot serve as a direct analogue for a future greenhouse Earth. However, Cretaceous sediments may hold the best record with which to improve our understanding of paleoenvironmental variability and biotic responses to change for a warmer Earth.
The recent discovery of several dinosaurs, including feathered theropods, diversified the vertebrate fauna such as early birds and primitive mammals, and their remains, like several footprints and trackways from non-marine Cretaceous deposits in East Asia, strongly attract public interest. Some researches have introduced the public in newspapers by referring to state-of-the art and ground-breaking articles in Nature, Science, etc. These discoveries often have been picked up in the exhibition of natural history museums and expositions in Japan, China, Korea, Mongolia, Thailand and other countries including Euro-American countries. Our studies of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine ecosystems in East to South Asia, exemplified by dinosaurs, birds, mammals, marine reptiles, ammonites and associated biota will continue to attract public attention worldwide. In addition, the project will kindle the interest in the evolution of flowering plants that dominate the world today. The floral response to the paleoenvironments of the period may also be interpreted.
Preservation of important fossil and heritage sites encompassing all natural resources is the recent trend and effort of every national andlocal government. Our science results will provide valuable scientific explanations of those natural resources and will be used in Geoparks and natural parks in some cases.
Especially, Danxiashan Global Geopark in South China and some National Geoparks in Japan are mainly based on the Cretaceous geologic resources such as topography, rocks, strata, dinosaur and other fossils. For instance, four Japanese Geoparks (Dinosaur Valley Fukui Katsuyama Geopark, Amakusa-Goshoura Geopark, Hakusan Tedorigawa Geopark and Choshi Geopark), certified within a few years by Japanese Geoparks Network (JGN), emphasize several geosites composed of Cretaceous strata commonly bearing fossils such as dinosaur bones and footprints, plant leaves and petrified woods, and ammonites and shallow-marine molluscan faunas. From these areas, much valuable fossils for reconstructing the Cretaceous Ecosystems have occurred. Several scientists involved in our Cretaceous IGCPs have provided valuable information and research results relating to geology and paleontology of these areas to the public. In case of Amakusa-Goshoura Geopark, the Field Excursion of the 4th International Symposium of IGCP507 was held around Goshoura Island just after the certification for a national geopark by JGN. Our excursion scientifically supported the geopark and its operating organization.
On the other hand, Korean scientists represented by Min Huh (Korean Dinosaur Research Center, Chonnam National University) and his colleagues have played a leading role for nominating the Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast (KCDC) as a candidate of UNESCO World Natural Heritage. Since the dinosaur footprint discovery on 1982 along the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, their researches undertaken during the previous four IGCPs directly provide the scientific background and significance on a large amount of dinosaur trackways and associated bird, pterosaurid footprints and egg sites, etc. (Lockley et al., 2012). In four excursions held during our IGCPs, the participants also had memorable experiences on diversity of terrestrial ecosystem records and their significance. These results attained the nation-wide awareness of the heritage and developed geotourisms and geoscience education in addition to several facilities construction such as dinosaur museums, exhibition halls and nature trails.
Our forthcoming researches on Cretaceous geology, paleontology and ecosystems will surely enhance the quality of the scientific explanations for those geoparks and heritages. Furthermore, as some local sectors have been trying to make the new national and global geoparks closely related to the Cretaceous, our activities will scientifically support those trends.
Furthermore, in our international meetings we will introduce some major geoparks in a few leading countries where our members have contributed to their activities in several aspects. The exchange of the information on geoparks during our meeting will enhance our members the awareness of significance and current status of geoparks. This will activate the geopark movements in our participating countries, as well as in such non-geopark countries as India, Thailand and Russia.

6) Location of Major Field Activities

From west to east, Pakistan, India (Deccan Trap; Cauvery Basin, Southern India), Thailand (Khorat Plateau), Vietnam (Yenchou Basin, Northern Vietnam), China (Tibet and NE China), Philippines, Mongolia (Gobi Desert), Korea (Gyeonsang Basin and southern coast of Korean Peninsula), Far East Russia (Middle Amur Basin, Altai Mountains) and Japan (Yezo Basin, Northern Japan; West Kyushu; Tetori Group, Central Japan). Furthermore, West Pacific IODP drilling hole sites.

UNESCO/IUGS International Geoscience Programme Project 608

ANNUAL REPORTS & PROPOSALS

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2018

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO programmes, IUGS Commissions or Task Groups or others (3.7)

6. What tangible improvements has your project obtained? (Besides publications, we are interested to hear about improvements to research, scientific contacts, policy implications, etc.) (3.9)

7. What kinds of activities in respect to the benefit of society and science outreach has your project undertaken? (3.10)

8. What kind of public information (media reports, etc.) has your project generated? And how do you evaluate their impact? (3.11)

9. Project highlight: (3.12)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2017

ACTIVITIES IN 2017 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO programmes, IUGS Commissions or Task Groups or others (3.7)

6. What tangible improvements has your project obtained? (Besides publications, we are interested to hear about improvements to research, scientific contacts, policy implications, etc.) (3.9)

7. What kinds of activities in respect to the benefit of society and science outreach has your project undertaken? (3.10)

8. What kind of public information (media reports, etc.) has your project generated? And how do you evaluate their impact? (3.11)

9. Project highlight (3.12)

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 (4. Activities planned)

1. General goals (4.1)

2. Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2016

ACTIVITIES IN 2016 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1. General scientific achievements (3.1)

2. IGCP608 project meetings/symposia and IGCP608 related meetings/symposia (3.2)

3. Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

4. Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

5. Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

ACTIVITIES IN 2017 (4. Activities planned)

1. General goals (4.1)

2. Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2015

ACTIVITIES IN 2015 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1) General scientific achievements (3.1)

2) IGCP project meetings/symposia and IGCP related meetings/symposia (3.2)

3) Educational, training or capacity building activities related to the IGCP project and IGCP project participants (3.3)

4) Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

5) Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

6) IGCP608 Website and Mailing List

ACTIVITIES IN 2016 (4. Activities planned)

1) General goals (4.1)

2) Meeting (4.2 Tentative list of specific meetings and field trips)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2014

ACTIVITIES IN 2014 (3. Achievements of the project this year only)

1) General scientific achievements (3.1)

2) IGCP project meetings/symposia and IGCP related meetings/symposia (3.2)

3) Publications by IGCP 608 members (3.6)

4) Educational, training or capacity-building activities (3.3)

5) Activities involving other IGCP projects, UNESCO, IUGS or others (3.7)

6) Joint international researches

7) IGCP608 Website and Mailing List,

ACTIVITIES IN 2015

1) General goals (4.1)

2) International Meeting (4.2)

ANNUAL REPORTS IN 2013

ACTIVITIES IN 2013

1) 1st International Symposium of IGCP608

2) Business Meeting during the First International Symposium (December 20, 2013)

3) 9th International Symposium on the Cretaceous System (ISC9)

4) Creation of IGCP608 Website

5) Publications by IGCP 608 members

ACTIVITIES IN 2014

1) International Meeting

PROPOSALS

1. Theme of particular interest to IGCP

2. Full title

3. Short title

4. Estimated duration of the project

5. Brief outline of the project

1. Variations of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine environments in Asia and the Western Pacific

2. Evolution of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Asia and the Western Pacific

6. Full Description of the Proposed Project

1) Aims and Background

1. Variations of Cretaceous terrestrial and marine environments in Asia and the Western Pacific

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**

ACTIVITIES IN 2017 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**

ACTIVITIES IN 2018 **(4. Activities planned)**

ACTIVITIES IN 2016 **(3. Achievements of the project this year only)**