Flugsaurier 2010 - Beijing

The most obvious way to kick off this blog properly is to announce the 2010 international pterosaur meeting. Pterosaur.net began as a project over a drinks session after the fieldtrip of the 2007 meeting which was held in Munich and arranged by Dave Hone. Here we agreed that creating a website to talk pterosaurs to a lay audience was the way forward and while it may have taken us a while to get this all up and running, Pterosaur.Net was born.

The meeting itself was very successful with 50 pterosaur researchers from around the world attending the four day symposium. It was quickly decided that this should become a regular event and thus the plans for a second meeting in Beijing for mid 2010 was announced. While the final details have yet to be decided the basic arrangements are there. So, if you want to come to a meeting on pterosaurs then this is what you need to know:

Flugsaurier 2010

Third International Symposium on Pterosaurs

5-10 August, 2010

Beijing, China

Pterosaurs are amongst the most fascinating and enigmatic of all extinct creatures. Thanks to some spectacular fossil finds in recent years our understanding of the palaeobiology and evolutionary history of these ‘flying reptiles’ has seen several dramatic advances. Some of the most important discoveries, including the first eggs with embryos, have been made in China where the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous is currently producing new species of pterosaurs at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world. In recognition of this the Third International Symposium on Pterosaurs “Flugsaurier 2010” will be held in China in August 2010. This will be the third international pterosaur symposium and follows successful meetings held in France in 2001 and Germany in 2007.

The meeting will be organized by the Geological Survey of China, sponsored by the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, and co-sponsored by the Bureau of Fossil Protection, Liaoning Provincial Department of National Land Resources, and the People’s Government of Yixian.

The meeting is planned for 5^th-11^th August, 2010. Talks, posters, at least one open discussion session and (subject to availability) examination of specimens, are planned for the first three days of the meeting. This will be followed by an optional three day field excursion to view exposures of the Jehol Group and exhibitions/collections of fossils from this sequence which has yielded more than 100 specimens of pterosaurs in the last 10 years. All those interested in pterosaurs and the communities and environments in which they lived are encouraged to attend.

1. Meeting aims:

As in previous symposia this meeting is intended to cover all aspects of pterosaur palaeobiology and the world in which they live:

(a) The origin and evolution of pterosaurs

(b) Taxonomy, systematics and phylogeny

(c) Palaeobiology including anatomy, functional morphology and ontogeny

(d) Taphonomy, sedimentology and environments of preservation

(e) Ecosystems and contemporaneous fauna and flora

2. Meeting Programme:

(a) Academic sessions (3 days):
Oral presentations will consist of key-note lectures (45 minutes) and talks (30 minutes). These times include at least 5 minutes for discussion.

Posters:
There will be at least one poster session (further details will be given in the second circular)

Language:
English

(b) Field excursion (3 days):
North-east China. This will include visits to field sites, exhibitions and collections primarily in Liaoning Province.

3. Abstracts and Symposium Volumes

An abstract volume will be prepared for distribution at the meeting. The abstract submission deadline is March 31^st, 2010. No abstracts will be accepted after this date. Abstracts of up to two printed pages (A4) are preferred, but longer abstracts will be considered. Preferred formats are “Word” for text files and “JPG” for figures. A symposium volume is planned for publication in 2011 and will be open to both attendees and non-attendees. The manuscript deadline will be December 31^st, 2010 (further details will be given in the second circular).

4. Expression of interest/information.

If you are interested in attending this meeting please send us an expression of interest indicating your plans to attend the academic session and the field trip, possible talk/poster title(s) and likelihood that you will be accompanied.

All correspondence (e-mail preferred), including any questions or suggestions, should be sent to Lü Junchang and Dave Unwin

Lü Junchang

Institute of Geology

Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences

Beijing 100037

China

e-mail: yilong2010 AT gmail.com or lujc2008 AT 126.com

Dave Unwin

Department of Museum Studies

University of Leicester

103-105 Princess Road East

Leicester LE1 2LG

e-mail: dmu1 AT leicester.ac.uk

Welcome to the Pterosaur.Net blog

This blog is intended to act as a the 'current' and ongoing section for pterosaur information to compliment the main Pterosaur.Net site. The mainsite is there to proivde a general introduction to pterosaurs for the general public and while it will be updated periodically and new content will be added, the blog here is supposed to be far more dynamic.

Many of the Pterosaur.Net team run their own blogs (like Darren Naish and Mark Witton) and cover pterosaurs regularly in their pages. However, this blog provides a forum for all our pterosaur-related posts to come together. The idea being that pterosaur-bloggers can cross post this pterosaur related content directly onto this site and those who don't normally blog can pitch in too. Thus a whole raft of pterosaur experts should be putting in a whole raft of posts, comments, discussions and general information on those most interesting of Mesozoic flying vertebrates (birds? pah!).

If you have not found it already, then do head over to the main part of Pterosaur.net where you can get to grips with pterosaurs properly and read about the research of the people contributing here. Please do come back and do link to us and enjoy the site.