Abstract The oldest known Palaeozoic vertebrate record currently is Early Cambrian in age. The first taxa with mineralized exoskeletons are at least Ordovician in age, followed by a sporadic fossil record with Talimaa’s Gap of c. 3 myr in the Rhuddanian (earliest Silurian). Ordovician and Silurian vertebrate faunas are dominated by ‘agnathans’. Early Palaeozoic vertebrates occupied a wide range of environments: nearshore marine to restricted marine in the Ordovician, and on the marine epicontinental shelves of the Silurian. Silurian vertebrates are useful biostratigraphical indicators, as well as good markers of palaeocontinental margins. Two main palaeobiogeographical units are renamed for the Ordovician: a Gondwana Realm and a Laurentia–Siberia–Baltica Realm. Vertebrate fossil localities are more numerous in the Silurian; therefore a series of palaeobiogeographical provinces and realms are defined on Laurentia, Baltica, Avalonia, Siberia, South China and East Gondwana. More discoveries of Silurian vertebrate-bearing localities should certainly help to define additional provinces, in particular along the northern margins of Gondwana and in SE Asia.

Abstract Recent discoveries have dramatically altered traditional views of the stratigraphic distribution and phylogeny of Early Palaeozoic vertebrates and permit a reappraisal of biogeographic patterns and processes over the first 120 million years of vertebrate evolution. Stratigraphic calibration of the phylogenetic trees indicates that most of the pre-Silurian record can be inferred only through ghost ranges. Assessment of the available data suggests that this is due to a shift in ecological niches after the latest Ordovician extinction event and a broadening of geographical range following the amalgamation of Euramerica during the early Silurian. Two major patterns are apparent in the biogeographic data. Firstly, the majority of jawless fishes with dermoskeletal, plated ‘armour’ were highly endemic during Cambrian-Ordovician time, with arandaspids restricted to Gondwana, galeaspids to China, and anatolepids, astraspids and, possibly, heterostracans confined to Laurentia. These Laurentian groups began to disperse to other continental blocks as the ‘Old Red Sandstone continent’ amalgamated through a series of tectonic collisions. The second maj or pattern, in contrast, encompasses a number of microsquamous and naked, jawed and jawless primitive vertebrates such as conodonts, thelodonts, placoderms, chondrichthyans and acanthodians, which dispersed rapidly and crossed oceanic barriers to attain cosmopolitan distributions, although many have Laurentian origins. A clear difference in dispersal potential exists between these two types of fishes. Overall, the development of biogeographic patterns in Early Palaeozoic vertebrates involved a complex interaction of dispersal, vicariance and tectonic convergence.

Abstract In 1901, Charles Van Hise asked Samuel Emmons and Whitman Cross to organize a grand excursion across Colorado as part of the combined meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, GSA, and the Colorado Scientific Society (CSS). This trip replays part of that 10-day excursion across Colorado. Shortened to three days, this trip takes in some of the same sites as the 1901 trip, plus adds others of interest along the route where CSS members are reinventing geological interpretations. The trip will follow the precedent set in 1901; CSS members will serve as “site or stop hosts” in addition to the trip leader and drivers. While walking in the steps of the most famous of our profession we will also see some of the most magnificent scenery of Colorado.