晚密西西比亚纪开始的全球大规模构造运动和冈瓦纳大陆冰川的发育，导致了石炭纪地层划分与对比的困难。目前石炭系内部仍有Serpukhovian等4个阶的GSSPs没有确立。尽管Visean/Serpukhovian（V/S）界线层的牙形刺研究等近年来已取得不少进展，但牙形刺与有孔虫、菊石等的精确对比、地化指标、锆石定年等问题仍然没有解决。本项目旨在通过对华南和德国多条不同相型的V/S界线剖面开展多门类生物地层与演化、沉积学、沉积岩石学、碳、氧、锶、氮等同位素地球化学、锆石定年和气候变冷（即冰期）事件等的综合研究，找到全球V/S界线层的生物、沉积、地化、年龄和其他事件对比标志，争取最终在我国确立V/S界线的GSSP（“金钉子”），同时为晚密西西比亚纪全球气候变冷事件提供精确的生物地层和年代地层框架，并力争在晚古生代大冰期（LPIA）的触发原因、产生机制和开始时间等重大科学问题研究方面有新的突破。

Global tectonics combined with Gondwanan glaciation since Late Mississippian confounds the subdivision of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian of Carboniferous and also complicates global correlations. Four Carboniferous stages, including the Serpukhovian of Mississippian, the Moscovian, Kasimovian and the Gzhelian of Pennsylvanian still do not have Global Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs). Although great progress on the study of conodonts from the Visean-Serpukhovian boundary interval have been made by some task group members in recent years, the precise correlations of conodonts with foraminifers, ammonoids, corals and brachiopods, isotopic geochemical markers and zircon U-Pb age dating of volcanic ash layers are not clear yet. Therefore, this project will focus on the establishment of a GSSP for the base of the global Serpukhovian Stage in South China based on the multidisciplinary study on poly-phylum biostratigraphy and evolutionary palaeontology, sedimentology, sedimentary petrology, isotope geochemistry, zircon dating and the global cooling event in Late Mississippian. This project will also provide an accurate biostratigraphic and choronostratigraphic framework for the global cooling event, and try to better understand the trigger, generation mechnism and initiation timing of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA).