Ordovician-silurian biostratigraphy and paleogeography of the Gorny Altay / Ордовикско-силурийская биостратиграфия и палеонтология Горного Алтая

This book is an expanded guidebook for a field excursion to the OrdovicianSilurian sections of the Gorny Altai being shown to participants in the International Symposium "Development of Early Paleozoic Biodiversity: Role of Biotic and Abiotic Factors, and Event Correlation", Moscow, 2008. The Symposium is another event in IGCP 503 "Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate" (2004--08) which follows the International Symposium "Palaeogeography and Global Correlation of Ordovician Events" held as part of the same project in 2006 in Novosibirsk, and the accompanying field excursion to the Cambrian-Ordovician section along the Kulyumbe River on the S iberian P latform organized by the Russian team (Palaeogeography, 2006; Kanygin et al., 2006).

The present guidebook concerns Ordovician and Silurian stratigraphy, paleogeography, lithology, and facies in reference sections in the Gorny Altai,described bed-by-bed.

These data were previously published in part, mainly scattered through various books and papers. This book is a synthesis of present-day knowledge with revisions of the paleontology and age implications. Updating has become possible due to discoveries of graptolite and conodont assemblages of zonal significance; these are presented within the framework of modifications of the International Stratigraphic Chart brought about by introduction of new stages and new boundary definitions of stages, series, and systems. The book is based on abundant biostratigraphic and geological data accumulated over the past 25 years about Ordovician and Silurian deposition in the Gorny Altai. Publication of these data is a necessary step toward broad public discussion of new ideas, a prerequisite for updating the Gorny Altai Ordovician-Silurian stratigraphic charts. Such a discussion is urgent in the context of preparing a new Paleozoic stratigraphic chart of the Altai-Sayan Folded Area <...>