Pander Society Newsletter Number 46

Welcome to the 2014 edition of the Pander Society Newsletter, my fifth attempt at providing news and a list of conodont publications for the past year! Conodont research has continued to flourish; 2013 was a special year for the plethora of significant events mounted by enthusiastic colleagues eager to improve our discipline, where we enjoyed formal and informal meetings of the Pander Society. The main formal Pander Society meeting was ICOS-3, superbly organised by our Argentine friends in Mendoza. The participants experienced the thrill of the Andes altitude and the warm hospitality of the organizers Guillermo Albanesi, Gladys Ortega and their collaborators. The business meeting blossomed around the idea of generating an online database of holotypes, accessible to everyone. The second formal Pander Society meeting was held in Denver, Colorado, in association with the Geological Society of America; it formally celebrated 134 years since publication of G.J. Hinde’s landmark study “On conodonts from the Chazy and Cincinnatti group of the Cambro-Silurian and from the Hamilton and Genesee-shale divisions of the Devonian of Canada and the United States”. The field trip in Morocco co-organized by the Devonian and Carboniferous international subcommissions and IGCP 596, and the annual meeting in Lund of IGCP 591 in association with the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian international subcommissions brought together a large number of conodont specialists. In Denver and during these last informal meetings, four Pander Society medals were awarded: to Pierre Bultynck, Anita Löfgren, Charles A. Sandberg and Walter Youngquist. Maria Corriga was awarded the Hinde medal during the Pander Society Workshop held in Bologna in February 2014. The suggestion to let me know about even the smallest ‘get-togethers’ produced reports accompanied by photographs for each event of the year where conodonts were involved. Because I could not attend all meetings, I am grateful to each of you who provided information that I could insert in the newsletter. I thank Stig Bergstrom, Gil Klapper and Jeff Over for bestowing Pander Society medals on my behalf. A major blow to conodont studies was the passing of Richard Aldridge in early February 2014. He was Chief Panderer and was awarded the Pander Society Medal for his work on conodonts from the Silurian and the Late Ordovician. Dick had been one of the foremost palaeontologists globally having been chairman of the International Palaeontological Association. Other losses were Mario Hünicken who introduced the study of conodonts to his native land, Argentina, was President of the Argentine Paleontological Association and Vice-President of the International Palaeontological Association, and Heinz Kozur (Hungary), a renowned specialist on conodonts from the Cambrian to the Triassic, although he was primarily interested in those from the Permian and Triassic. The attempt to encourage the young generation of conodontologists to join the society generated more than a dozen new members from seven countries around the globe, assuring me that conodont research is still alive. I thank those who urged partners in work as well as masters and PhD students to join. I also thank all those who sent changes of addresses and e-mails of colleagues. Even such simple collaboration helps keep the group together. Thank you for sending in your contributions and excuse me for having been so insistent in requesting your reports! This pressure from me resulted in 150 documents about your research activities, including some from Pander people who had been silent for a few years! Thanks also to Susana Garcia-Lopez, John Repetski and Wang Cheng-Yuan for deliberating on nominations for the Society's medals. I am very grateful to webmaster Mark Purnell for renovating and updating the Society’s website.