Abstract The Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and SE Asia (CCOP) is an intergovernmental geoscience organization based in Bangkok, Thailand. CCOP currently comprises 15 member countries in East and SE Asia; it has provided venues for various geoscientific programmes and activities in the region for over 50 years. At its inception, CCOP conducted work in geological surveys, exploration and technological cooperation in the extraction of off-shore petroleum and mineral resources in the region. In response to the needs of member countries, CCOP projects have become increasingly diverse over time, especially in the areas of groundwater resources, geohazards, global climate change and urban geology. Facing the imminent fourth industrial revolution, CCOP compiles, manages and utilizes large amounts of data collected and accumulated by its member countries, and increasingly focusses on data sharing, education and capacity building. With the vision of becoming a premier intergovernmental Earth science organization in East and SE Asia, CCOP's mission is the application of Earth science to make significant contributions to the economic development and sustainable environmental management of its member countries, enhancing their quality of life. To fulfil this mission, CCOP has developed four strategic foci: (1) outreach; (2) cooperation and partnership; (3) knowledge enhancement and sharing; and (4) data and information. Organization and management of CCOP are governed by a steering committee formed of permanent representatives from the 15 member countries and guided by recommendations from an advisory group comprising representatives from cooperating countries and organizations. The steering committee considers and endorses projects and activities planned and proposed by the technical secretariat, which oversees the management of the organization, implementing all approved plans for the benefit of all member countries as well as cooperating countries and organizations. CCOP has played important roles in providing venues for activities and collaboration on various Earth science topics, including energy and mineral resources, groundwater, geohazards, global climate change, urban geology, geoscience big data, education and outreach. CCOP also publishes regular and special publications describing its activities. In the future, CCOP will encourage non-members in the region to join as official member countries, and will further strengthen its network by conducting joint Earth science research projects with cooperating countries and organizations. CCOP will also pursue sustainability in research by establishing a system to continually nurture new Earth scientists. Furthermore, CCOP will build a cooperative network with geoscience communities in other regions to promote a sustainable Earth.

Abstract: Establishing a Permian brachiopod biochronological scheme for global correlation is difficult because of strong provincialism during the Permian. In this paper, a brief overview of brachiopod successions in five major palaeobiogeographical realms/zones is provided. For Gondwanaland and peri-Gondwanan regions including Cimmerian blocks, Bandoproductus and Punctocyrtella (or Cyrtella ) are characteristic of the lower Cisuralian, as is Cimmeriella for the middle Cisuralian. As the Cimmerian blocks continued drifting north during the late Kungurian, accompanied by climate amelioration, contemporaneous brachiopods inhabiting these blocks showed a distinct shift from cold-water to mixed or warm-water affinities. However, coeval brachiopods in the Northern Transitional Zone (NTZ) are characterized by warm-water faunas and are associated with fusulinids in the lower Cisuralian. The Guadalupian brachiopods of the NTZ were clearly mixed between the Boreal and palaeoequatorial affinities. The end-Guadalupian is marked by the disappearance of a few characteristic genera, such as Vediproductus , Neoplicatifera and Urushtenoidea , in the Palaeotethyan region. The onset of the end-Permian mass extinction in the latest Changhsingian is clearly exhibited by the occurrence of the dwarfed and thin-shelled brachiopods commonly containing Paracrurithyris .