Volume 10, No. 2, 1999

One of the most important needs of an organisation is effective, simple communication and in INQUA we are fortunate to have the continual support of Elsevier in producing our journals and this Newsletter. Quaternary Perspectives is published twice a year and circulated electronically on the web. In addition, no less than 3000 hard copies are printed and circulated internationally to those parts of the world and to individuals who cannot receive material electronically. The electronic version of Quaternary Perspectives will be fuller in content whereas the hard copy version will be restricted to 8 pages per number and perforce will carry shortened edited contributions.

I was appointed Editor of the Newsletter at the XV Congress in Durban , South Africa, in succession to Professor Edward Derbyshire who had been editor since 1991. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to Ed for reforming the format and enriching the content of the Newsletter so that it reflected the activities of INQUA and highlighted current issues in eliciting pithy articles from distinguished members of the Quaternary fraternity. He also enlivened the pages of the Newsletter with photographs, line drawings and cartoons. As incoming editor it will be a difficult act to follow!

At the Durban Congress during one of the novel and valuable meetings between the Executive and the officers of the Commissions, the President of INQUA, Professor Stephen Porter, made the important point that during each inter-congress period INQUA was the Commissions. Their platform from which they can declaim and proclaim is this Newsletter, Quaternary Perspectives. It is my hope that they will use this Newsletter to announce their meetings and to report on progress in reaching their goals during this inter-congress period.

In the first Newsletter of a new inter-congress period it is necessary to inform readers of the names and addresses of the new Executive and of the officers of the Commissions so that effective communication and interaction can be initiated.

An edited version of Professor Porter’s Presidential address to the General Assembly of INQUA and of Professor Rose’s editorial in the latest number of Quaternary Science Reviews is given in the hard copy edition of the Newsletter whereas full versions are given in this electronic edition.

The programmes for six commissions during Inter-congress Period XVI (Carbon, Glaciation, Global Continental Palaeohydrology, Human Evolution and Palaeoecology, Loess and Sea-level Changes) are on this web version of Quaternary Perspectives.

Finally there are links to the contents of recent issues of Elsevier Journals.

Corrections to addresses, particularly e-mail, should be sent to me and to the Secretary General of INQUA, Sylvi Haldorsen.

Copy for Quaternary Perspectives Volume 11, number 1 must reach me by 14 February 2000.

Professor Michael Tooley, Editor

School of Geography, Kingston University,
Victoria Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 3DW, United Kingdom.
Telephone +44 (0) 181 286 4416
Facsimile +44 (0) 181 286 4416, +44 (0) 181 547 7497
e-mail m.tooley@kingston.ac.uk, rowlls@yahoo.com