LETHAIA PROJECT PRESENTATIONS

LETHAIA 10 (1977) 58

Mid-Cretaceous Events (MCE) is one of the 35 key

projects of the International Geological Correlation
Programme (IGCP) of IUGS/Unesco. This project
aims at establishing a workable global biostratigraphic
zonation for the middle part of the Cretaceous, informally agreed as comprising the Albian to Coniacian
stages. Based upon this stratigraphic framework, the
geological, geophysical, biological, and climatic events
of the mid-Cretaceous are studied and correlated in
time and space.
MCE is directed from Uppsala, Sweden, by R. A.
Reyment (Project Leader) and P. Bengtson (Project
Secretary). A French secretariat is run by P. Y .
Berthou, Paris, and a North American secretariat by
D. E. Hattin, Bloomington, Indiana. T h e project newsletter, M C E News. was presented in Lethaia 9(4),
p. 376.
After a constituent meeting in Paris, in November
1974, the first meeting of the official Project Working
Group (comprising 21 persons from 14 countries) was
held in Uppsala, in September 1975. On this occasion,
the project leader and secretaries were elected. A
number of previously submitted regional reports were
discussed, and guidelines were drawn for the publication of these and future regional reports, eventually
intended to cover all the mid-Cretaceous areas of the
world. The Project Working Group decided to initiate
the following special projects: (1) Turonian Palaeogeographical Map, (2) Integration of Global Macrofossil Zonation, (3) Integration of Global Microfossil
Zonation, and (4) Deep-sea Mid-Cretaceous.
The third international MCE meeting was held in
August 1976 in Hokkaido, Japan, as a specialists field
meeting for the study of the Upper Turonian. T h e
eighteen papers presented will be published in 1977 in
the Paleonrol. SOC. Jap., Spec. Pap. In September 1976,
the fourth international meeting was held, this time
in Nice, France. This was also the Second Meeting of
the Project Working Group. The Nice meeting, attended by 5 2 participants, consisted of: (1) a micropalaeontological section, ( 2 ) a deep-sea section, (3) formation of working groups for the study of events, and
(4) field studies in the mid-Cretaceous of the AlpesMaritimes.
After two years of existence, MCE has now over
200 participants, representing nearly 40 countries. As
a result of the initial inventory of the mid-Cretaceous
of the world, 35 regional reports are in the press for
the A n n . Mus. H i s t . Nat. Nice, 17 reports are in a n
advanced stage of preparation, and another 10 reports
have been promised. T h e integration of global macroand microfossil zonations and the work on the Turonian map are expected to be completed by 1977.

With the large number of specialists in different

fields of geology participating in MCE, it is now possible to put more emphasis into the principal aims of
the project, i.e. the study of the events of the middle
Cretaceous. These include: major transgressions and
regressions, changes in continental configurations and
positions (e.g. the opening of the South Atlantic and
the Mozambique Channel and the separation of India
from Gondwanaland), sedimentational events (e.g.
evaporite and chalk formation and oceanic anoxic
events), climatic events, biological events (e.g. evolution of angiosperms, teleosts, and gastropods and the
disjunct distribution of heteromorphic ammonites), geomagnetic reversals, sea-floor spreading events, orogenies, and epeirogenies. A t the Nice meeting, 20
working groups on selected, especially important events
were constituted.
The following regional groups and subgroups are
working within MCE, or are in the process of formation: the British, Central European, French, Romanian,
Scandinavian, and West German regional groups and
the North American Micropaleontologic Subgroup. In
addition t o the special projects initiated in 1975, there
are a number of more loosely constituted working
groups or special projects, such as: the history of the
geosynclines, migration of sedimentary basins, biotic
provincialism, relations of magnetostratigraphy to biostratigraphy, and dating of the South Atlantic salts.
Some of these projects are acting within the newly
formed working groups on the study of events.
MCE is collaborating with the Interunion Commission on Geodynamics and the recently reconstituted
IUGS Subcommission on Cretaceous Stratigraphy.
For 1977 two project meetings are being planned:
the Third Meeting of the Project Working Group, to
be held in conjunction with the Second North American Paleontological Convention, Lawrence, Kansas, in
August, and a field meeting in the Iberian Peninsula,
in September. The Lawrence meeting will h e the last
general meeting of MCE, after which specialists meetings and meetings of the various working groups,
regional groups and subgroups will be held throughout
the duration of the project. MCE is expected to have
reached its main objectives by 1981, and the project
will then be re-evaluated.
Further information on Mid-Cretaceous Events, including the newsletter M C E News, is available from
the Project Leader or Project Secretariat at: Paleontologiska institutionen, Box 558, S-751 2 2 Uppsala, Sweden.