Approaching deadline of conference registration and abstract submission (May 31st)- 14th International Fossil Coral and Reef Society 11.-16. Sep. 2023

2nd Online Early Career Research Symposium 2022

Don't miss the IFCRS 2022/2023 Autumn/Winter Lecture Series!

All lectures will be conducted via Zoom. If you would like to register for this event, please fill out this form. You will receive an email with more information on the exact timings and the titles of the talks in the near future..

2nd Online Early Career Research Symposium

After last year's success, we are happy to announce our 2nd Online Early Career Research Symposium on the 24th of November 2022! The symposium will take place on 24 November from 10:00 to 17:00 Central European Time on Zoom. Attached you will find the schedule of your talks and lab presentations. The invited talks are supposed to be for 12 minutes with additional 3 minutes for questions, while each lab has 10 minutes allocated for presentation and questions from the audience. If you would like to register for this event, please fill out this form.

Don't miss the IFCRS 2022 Spring Lecture Series!

All lectures will be delivered via Zoom. If you would like to register for this event, please fill out this form. You will receive an email with more information on the exact timings and the titles of the talks in the near future..

Meet the Lab - IFCRS ECR Symposium

Our young IFCRS members organized their own symposium.

Henri Milne Edwards Medal - 2019

In our last meeting in Modena (September 2019), Professor Dr. Ann (Nancy) Budd was awarded the Henri Milne Edwards Medal for their major contributions on the study of the fossil scleractinian corals. A new genus, Nancygyra, was recently described by our colleagues Francesca Bosellini and Jarek Stolarski and named after Nancy to celebrate her extraordinary career in our IFCRS community. This genus was discovered in Eocene outcrops from Monte Postale (NE Italy) and the publication can be read in the Proceedings of the 13th International Symposium on Fossil Cnidaria and Porifera, published in the special issue of the Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana

Paleo-archives of Cnidaria and Porifera in space and time

The Special Volume of the Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana (Vol.59, No. 3), entitled "Paleo-archives of Cnidaria and Porifera in space and time" and dedicated to the Proceedings of the Fossil Cnidaria Meeting in Modena 2019, is now published in open access.

Deep-Sea coral gardens and graveyards discovered in the submarine canyons off South Western Australia

The waters offshore southwestern Australia, in particular the Bremer Marine Park, are already known as a biodiversity hotspot of marine species such as whales and dolphins, however, a recent expedition on board the R/V Falkor has now revealed rich and diverse ecosystems inhabiting the cold deep waters within the canyon. Led by researchers from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the Institute of Polar Sciences (ISP) in Italy, these discoveries were only made possible by the philanthropic Schmidt Ocean Institute’s (SOI) deep-sea remotely operated vehicle, SuBastian, which is capable of sampling depths to 4,500 meters.

Follow us on Twitter!

Conference in Modena in September 2019!

General Assembly International Fossil Coral and Reef Society (IFCRS)
Date: September, 6th, 2019 Time: 2.00 pm Venue: University of Modena, Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, Room 1.3.

Provisional Agenda
1. Welcome
2. Approval of the agenda
3. Report of Association Activities since 2015
4. Name of the Association (requires a vote)*
5. Presentation of the Proposal of the New Statute (requires a vote)*
6. Election of the Council if point 5 is accepted (requires a vote)*
7. Presentation of the new website and communication
8. Proposals for the next symposium and election (requires a vote)
9. Milne-Edwards Medal
10. Best poster Prize
11. Any other business
12. Adjournment

* for details: see mail and documents sent on June 20th

Motions to the assembly can be submitted until September 2, 2019 to markus.aretz@get.omp.eu

3rd Circular and Scientific Program are online and can be downloaded from the website of the congress: http://www.13thfossilcnidaria.unimore.it/.

Letter of the IFCRS President and the IFCRS Secretary, 20th December 2018

2018 has been another eventful year for our Association. Following the sudden death of our president, Michaela Bernecker, in late 2017, the task of modernizing the IFCRS has been taken over by the incoming President Francesca Bosellini (Modena) and the Secretary Markus Aretz (Toulouse).

One major event of this year was the launch of the new website of the Association. Michaela had initiated this project and an ad-hoc committee composed of Francesca Bosellini, Markus Aretz, Wolfgang Kiessling and Kenneth Johnson continued it. The website of the Association is now hosted at the University of Erlangen (http://www.cnidaria.nat.uni-erlangen.de/IASFCP). It replaces the old website hosted at the University of Silesia.

The task of maintaining an attractive, dynamic and up-to-date website can only be achieved with the input from the entire membership.

The new website will also replace the newsletter. In our understanding the website is a dynamic structure, which will evolve with time. It is not only the website of the Association, but as a member also your website! All suggestions for new things or sections, missing links, which could be implemented into the website are welcome (please send these to Markus Aretz: markus.aretz@get.omp.eu). We are also currently working on ideas to be more present in social medias and we will provide you with more information on this in the next months.

2019 will be an important year for IFCRS. The 13th symposium of the Association will be held in early September in Modena. We hope that most members will attend and present the latest and most exiting results of their research on corals, sponges, and reefs. You can find detailed information on the conference website: http://www.13thfossilcnidaria.unimore.it.

During the symposium the Association will also hold its General Assembly. We will have to make decisions about the future of the IFCRS and, as discussed during the last general assembly at Muscat, we have to decide about changes of the statute. The officers are currently working on a proposal for a revised statute, which will be sent to all active members of the Association several weeks in advance of the General Assembly. In order to do this, we need to update the membership directory! In the second half of January 2019 you will receive an electronic message detailing the procedure.

Best Wishes and a Happy New Year!

Francesca Bosellini and Markus Aretz

News on research on fossil cnidarians, sponges and reefs / July 2018

* New scleractinian chapter of Treatise Online - by Rosemary Baron-Szabo - see Fossils and Databases

News & Views / January 2018

FEDOROWSKI J. XXXX. Early Bashkirian Rugosa (Anthozoa) from the Donets Basin (Ukraine), Part 7. Family Neokoninckophyllidae Fomichev, 1953; with a preliminary revision of Moscovian taxa. Acta Geologica Polonica.

PRELIMINARY ABSTRACT: The Family Neokoninckophyllidae and its type genus Neokoninckophyllum Fomichev, 1939 (type species: N. tanaicum Fomichev, 1939) are discussed and emended. In addition, the genera Orygmophyllum Fomichev, 1953 and Yuanophylloides Fomichev, 1953, originally included in the Families Campophyllidae Wedekind, 1922 and Lophophyllidae Grabau, 1928, respectively, are emended as well and transferred to the Neokoninckophyllidae. Two early Bashkirian species, viz. Yuanophylloides rectus (Vassilyuk, 1983) and Y. inauditus (Moore and Jeffords, 1945), plus the Moscovian Neokoninckophyllum sp. nov. are described on the basis of new collections from the Donets Basin. Neokoninckophyllum tanaicum, Yuanophylloides gorskyi Fomichev, 1953 (both Moscovian in age) and Y. cruciformis Fomichev, 1953 (latest Bashkirian), are redescribed on the basis of peels taken from Fomichev's (1953) type specimens. Derivation of the Neokoninckophyllidae from the Subfamily Dibunophyllinae Wang, 1950 is postulated and phylogenetic links within the former are hinted at. The occurrence of Yuanophylloides inauditus in both the Donets Basin and Western Interior Province of North America points to marine communication between those areas during the Bashkirian. The slightly earlier appearance of the oldest neokoninckophyllids in the Donets Basin, in comparison to North America (i.e., R1 vs R2 ammonoid biozones), documents the common roots and monophyletic development of the Neokoninckophyllidae in both areas.

FEDOROWSKI J., VASSILYUK N. P. Early Bashkirian Rugosa (Anthozoa) from the Donets Basin (Ukraine). Part 8.
The paper in its main part is devoted to the study on specimens derived from the lower Bashkirian strata, starting from one of the earliest limestone intercalations included in the Bashkirian. A new subfamily of an uncertain relationship is introduced for that group of taxa. A brief revision of the Family Kumpanophyllidae Fomichev, 1953, based on several specimens collected from the lower Bashkirian strata, supplements the study mentioned above. The paper will be submitted to Acta Geologica Polonica.

FEDOROWSKI J., BAMBER E. W., RICHARDS B. C. Temporary title: Rugosa (Anthozoa) from the Pennsylvanian Mattson Formation in the Liard Basin (Canada) and their bearing on the stratigraphy and the rugose corals paleobiogeography.

Two new species included in the genera Nemistium Smith, 1928 and Heritschioides Yabe, 1950 are described from the strata and site as in the title. Specimens from the Mattson Fm. appear co-specific with some colonies derived from the late Serpukhovian - early Bashkirian strata of the Stikine terrane whereas the new species of Heritschioides closely resembles some morphologically simple species of that genus described earlier from the Alexander terrane and Brooks Range (Alaska). The relationships mentioned allow some palaeogeographical considerations. Submission of the paper has not yet been decided.