Minghao Du,^1,* Jaak Nõlvak,^2,** Jingqiang Tan,^1,*** Shijia Gao,^1,**** Wenhui Wang<sup>1,3,*****,******

1</sup>Key Laboratory of Metallogenic Prediction of Nonferrous Metals and Geological Environment Monitoring, Ministry of Education, School of Geosciences and Info-Physics, Central South University, Changsha, PR China
²Department of Geology, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
³State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS, Nanjing, PR China

^*Minghao Du is a doctoral student in Central South University, China. He is interested in Early Palaeozoic palynology. He is also adept at using quantitative methods to reconstruct biodiversity dynamics and palaeoenvironments, especially in the Early Palaeozoic.
^**Jaak NÕlvak is a specialist at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. He has long devoted himself to the Ordovician and Silurian chitinozoan biostratigraphy in the Baltica Region. His research has effectively promoted the delineation and global comparison of Baltica chitinozoan biostratigraphy.
^***Jingqiang Tan is a professor of petroleum geology and geochemistry at Central South University. He received his PhD in petroleum geology from the Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin, Germany) and the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ-Potsdam, Germany) in 2014. He spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Petroleum Geochemistry at the University of Houston in the United States. His research primarily focuses on the geology and geochemistry of unconventional resources and the stimulation of unconventional reservoirs. In recent years, his research interests have also included integrated biostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy in gas-bearing shale.
^****Shijia Gao is a graduate student of Central South University. For her undergraduate degree, she mainly studied oil- and gas-related geology, including geochemistry, palaeontology, geohistory, stratigraphy, geophysics, etc. Now she is working on the middle graptolitic shales of Hunan Province, South China.
^*****CONTACT Wenhui Wang whwang@csu.edu.cn; wwhever@126.com Key Laboratory of Metallogenic Prediction of Nonferrous Metals and Geological Environment Monitoring, Ministry of Education, School of Geosciences and Info-Physics, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China
^******Wenhui Wang is an associate professor at Central South University, China since the end of 2016. Her two primary research interests are: (1) Palaeozoic planktonic palaeontology and stratigraphy – she is working on several localities yielding graptolitic biostratigraphy from South China near the Cambrian/ Ordovician and Ordovician/Silurian boundaries; and (2) the analysis of palynomorphs from the Lower Palaeozoic shales and their relationship with shale gas. She is Co-leader of the IGCP 735 Program.