Working group for defining GSSP for the Upper Pleistocene subseries and its corresponding stage (started May 2025)
Background
The formal chronostratigraphic subdivision of the Quaternary System/Period is incomplete. The Upper Pleistocene Subseries, with a base traditionally marked by the onset of the Last Interglacial, is not yet defined by Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), and defining the Upper Pleistocene has become a priority for the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS), as a constituent body of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).
The Working Group (WG) on the Upper Pleistocene GSSP was created on May 15, 2025. It is chaired by Prof. Alessandro Amorosi (Bologna University) and has Prof. Gonzalo Jiménez Moreno (Granada University) as Vice Chair. The WG includes 10 voting members with high scientific reputation. It maintains balance between geographic areas, gender, and variety of proxies covered (speleothems, lakes, marine sediments, ice cores, isotopes, geochemistry, pollen, sedimentology, paleoecology, tephrochronology, geomorphology, magnetostratigraphy).
Initial attempts to define the boundary by GSSP failed to achieve ratification by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Following examination of and voting upon candidate sections, the Working Group on the Upper Pleistocene GSSP is expected to formulate a GSSP proposal to the SQS, starting the sequence of events needed for GSSP ratification.
Chair: Prof Alessandro Amorosi
Department of Biological, Geological
and Environmental Sciences
University of Bologna (Italy)
alessandro.amorosi@unibo.it
Vice-Chair: Prof Gonzalo Jiménez Moreno
Department of Stratigraphy and Palaeontology
University of Granada (Spain)
gonzaloj@ugr.es
Voting members
Dr. Pierre Antoine
CNRS Paris, France
pierre.antoine@lgp.cnrs.fr
Dr. Margarita Caballero
National Autonomous University of Mexico
maga@igeofisica.unam.mx
Prof. Hai Cheng
Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
cheng021@xjtu.edu.cn
Dr. Georgia Grant
GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
g.grant@gns.cri.nz
Prof. Lucas Lourens
University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
l.j.lourens@uu.nl
Prof. Maria Marino
University of Bari, Italy
maria.marino@uniba.it
Prof. Alex Simms
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
asimms@geol.ucsb.edu
Dr. Toru Tamura
Geological Survey of Japan
toru.tamura@aist.go.jp
Prof. Chronis Tzedakis
University College London, UK
p.c.tzedakis@ucl.ac.uk
Dr. Blas Valero-Garcés
Spanish National Research Council, Zaragoza, Spain
blas@ipe.csic.es