IGCP 653 “The Onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE)” had its Annual Meeting last year in Yichang, Hubei between Oct. 8^th – 18^th, 2017. The meeting was hosted by NIGPAS, and the theme is “Filling the gap between the Cambrian Explosion and the GOBE”. The symposium lasted for 3 days, with a one-day mid-conference field trip to those Ordovician GSSPs near Yichang such as the Dapingian GSSP at Huanghuachang, and the Hirnantian GSSP at Wangjiawan and the meeting was followed by a 6-day post-conference field excursion (Cambrian – Ordovician sections in Hubei and Hunan ). 

　　There were 65 participants from 12 countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Russia, Morocco, the USA, Australia, South Korea, Vietnam and China. Three experts were invited to give a keynote talk respectively on the biotas in Lagerstättens, the successions of key faunas and the geochemical evolution of the ocean. The meeting contained 38 oral presentations and 16 posters, covering the studies on palaeobiology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, geochemistry, palaeogeography, Lagerstätten, palaeoecology, and Big Data Computing. A conference volume including 55 short papers or extended summaries or abstracts contributed by 126 authors from 12 countries had been published by the Zhejiang University Press before the symposium.