About the conference

The annual meeting of IGCP 653 in 2021 also marks the official closing of a very successful global work programme that through official meetings, field workshops and joint sessions at larger conferences, has taken us from Asia to America and from Africa to Europe and Russia. This has truly been five intriguing years that has brought together both young students, as well as experienced professional researchers from all over the world in conducting excellent research further documenting one of the greatest testaments to the history of life on Earth:
The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

The official closing meeting of IGCP 653 in 2021 will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The main venue will be the Geological Museum, situated in the beautiful Victorian-style Botanical Gardens in the center of Copenhagen. Excursions are planned to key areas of southern Scandinavia that all represent classic successions in early Palaeozoic stratigraphy.

With the official closing of IGCP 653, the Copenhagen meeting seeks to place the GOBE in a broader context. We have now been exploring the roots of the GOBE for five years, but less focus has been on the consequences of this massive ecosystem change occurring in the Middle Ordovician. Although the main focus of this meeting will remain on the late Cambrian–Middle Ordovician, it is only natural to also look beyond this interval in the rock record so that we may begin to address possible future avenues – future IGCP projects – to explore. We hope this meeting will help facilitating this process and therefore welcome presentations from all of the early Palaeozoic, as long as they are GOBE-related.

We, therefore, welcome you all to GOBEnhagen 2021!