In November, Dr. Markus Aretz, an Associate Professor of Paul Sabatier University, France, has assumed his CAS Visiting Scholarship in NIGPAS. Director YANG Qun presented him the certificate of the scholarship. Dr. Aretz also gave a series of lectures on the biostratigraphy, reefs and mounds, foraminifers and rugose corals from Upper Devonian to Carboniferous. He paid this visit also to the collaborations with the NIGPAS Late Palaeozoic Group for the study of Carboniferous reefs in East Tethys, based on the Carboniferous sections in South China.