Volume 9, No. 1, 1998
Helping scientists to communicate ever more efficiently is clearly a major brief of organisations such as INQUA. In this issue, the Secretary draws attention to the essentials of our Home Page and how we can enhance its use, while Norm Catto's call for concerted action on compiling palaeoenvironmental data-bases is clearly both important and timely. In more reflective mode, the President reminds us that we have a responsibility to document with care the history of our organisation. Some of the older campaigners have more than facts to input, as Ian Smalley demonstrates in his ruminations about INQUA Congresses. Although on a lighter note than the President, he is probably right to remind us that, although history is registered by famous names and symposium programmes, its flavour is enhanced by bright logos and arresting tee-shirts!
The Editor
The INQUA Home Page contains information about all INQUA activities of importance. Each Commission and Committee has its own file, in which addresses, lists of sub-commissions and working groups, meetings and links to their own WWW sites may be found. There is also a list of INQUA projects. In addition, you will find lists of all National Member Committees, and maps showing the Membership Nations. The full text of INQUA's Statutes and Bye-Laws is also on our web page, as well as information on the 1999 INQUA Congress in Durban, and a link to the Congress Home Page. Brief minutes of the Executive Committee meetings are included quite soon after the Executive Committee Members have reached agreement on the formal text. Finally, our newest contribution is an e-mail address list of people who are active within INQUA at the moment. The list includes around 300 e-mail addresses.
It is clearly important that such a large Home Page should be kept up to date, and there is always the chance that particular addresses may contain errors or that other information may be missing. Please do not hesitate to inform me (sylvi.haldorsen@ijvf.nlh.no) if you find anything that should have been corrected. In particular, I should appreciate any information from members on the matter of incorrect or missing e-mail addresses.
Our main aim is to keep the INQUA Home Page a valued source of information. Although we believe that we have partly succeeded in this most important mission, we have to admit that the appearance of the page is not very exciting. We should have appreciated receiving from the membership more photographs of people and sites of Quaternary interest. So far the Executive Committee is well represented by recent photos, but there is a dearth of illustrations of other kinds. I hope that this note will encourage all leaders of Commissions and Committees to send us good quality photographs, not only of themselves but also of field sites. In addition, good photographs or figures that sum up important aspects of the work of their Commissions or Committees will be particularly welcome. Thus far, only the Commission on Glaciation has provided a photograph (Mer de Glace, Chamonix)) with this purpose in mind. We hope you, too, will find something similar to send me.
The only Group Member Committee photograph so far received came from the national INQUA Committee of Finland. I now encourage other Committees to do the same, and hope that a look at the photo of your Finnish colleagues will inspire you to do so!
In sending me a photo to be used on the web, please do not forget to mention the name of the photographer. If you did not take the picture yourself, make sure that we have the permission of the photographer to publish the photo on the Internet. Such photographs may be sent as either hard copies or as data files.
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Sylvi Haldorsen |
As part of establishing a new INQUA Secretariat in Haarlem, the Executive Committee would like to establish a permanent archive of INQUA documents spanning the interval from the founding of the organization in 1928 to the present day. It appears that INQUA has lacked any systematic retention of documents and publications, and so we need help from the international body of scientists who have participated in INQUA activities if we are to realize this goal. This notice serves as a special appeal for contributions to the archive, including all proceedings, documents, field guides, and resulting monographs of past congresses; INQUA documents retained by former officers (past presidents, vice presidents, treasurers, secretaries, commission and committee leaders); and any photographs of INQUA personalities or gatherings. We are especially seeking contributions from senior scientists who may have attended early (pre-Boulder, 1965) congresses, or hold documents or memorabilia from these congresses. The archive will be retained, catalogued, and maintained at the Secretariat, and will be available for general use and information of the INQUA membership and the scientific community at large.
If you have documents or photographs that would be appropriate for this archive, we are most eager to hear from you. Please address notice of your possible contribution to
Ms. Gerry Kroon, INQUA Administrative Secretariat
TNO
P.O. Box 157
2000 AD Haarlem
The Netherlands
Visiting address: Richard Holkade 10
If shipping is a problem, INQUA will cover cost of mailing any relevant material to the Haarlem office. With your help, the archive can become an important collection reflecting the history and scientific contributions of our union.
Stephen C. Porter
President
New data from the GISP2 ice core show interesting and significant variations in the frequency and timing of past volcanic activity. In particular, it appears that volcanic eruptions were more frequent during the beginning of the Younger Dryas climate event. The reconstruction of Late Pleistocene climatic changes possibly linked to volcanism constitutes a developing area of tephrochronological and palaeoecological research.
Some conflict has developed between Holocene palaeoecologic reconstructions of past climate changes and volcanic and atmospheric models of climatic impact. While dendrochronological records from periods marked by large eruptions show that cooling lasted ten years or more, volcanic and atmospheric models suggest that the climatic impact should last no more than two to three years.
The eruption at Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines provided an opportunity to make a direct comparison between the impact of volcanoes on the upper atmosphere during a large eruption and theoretical volcanological and petrological models of climatic impact, with a view to refining global climate models. The models were in good agreement with the observed effects of the actual aerosol loading as determined by satellite observations and atmospheric measurements. This new work will enhance interpretation of data from sites where Late Pleistocene climate change may have been influenced by volcanism, given that a secure timeframe is created so as to underpin these comparisons.
New geochronological data from Alaska, Europe and other sites are improving the age control on past volcanic eruptions, so that specific eruptions can be temporally linked with records of past climate changes. The Laacher See eruption in Europe and the Edgecumbe eruption in Alaska are now dated to ca. 11,200 yr B.P., and both occur in pollen in lake sequences near the beginning of the Younger Dryas event. Work published recently demonstrating the presence of Icelandic tephras in lake sediments from Britain emphasises the importance of volcanism at a time of climatic sensitivity. Further work on the Greenland ice cores and the marine sequences from the North Atlantic Ocean in particular will contribute to the growing body of evidence for volcanism and climate perturbation.
INQUA's Commission on Tephrochronology and Volcanology (INQUA), and the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences of UNESCO (UISPP) Commission 31 "Humans and Active Volcanoes during Prehistory and Protohistory" are getting together to address this question within the broader framework of "Tephrochronology and Coexistence of humans and volcanoes. They plan to meet in the French Massif Central, at Brevies-Charensac in the border district of Puy-en-Velay, 24-29 August, 1998. The Commission on Tephrochronology and Volcanology encourages papers on the topic of Late Pleistocene tephra eruptions and the climate of the Younger Dryas, especially where research can shed light upon the role large tephra eruptions may have played in the initiation or acceleration of Younger Dryas climate change anywhere in the world.
Details of the meeting may be obtained from the Secretariat of the Symposium:
Michel Leger
Syndicate de la Maison de la Haute-Valle de la Loire et du Mezenc
Mairie 43370, Solignac-sur-Loire
France
or from the Executive Secretary of the Commission on Tephrochronology and Volcanology:
Dr Valerie A. Hall
Institute of Irish Studies
Queen's University
BELFAST BT7 9GB
N. Ireland
E-mail: v.hall@qub.ac.uk
Full particulars of this meeting may be found at http://www.qub.ac.uk/iis/inqua/inqua2.htm
Valerie Hall
What is there to say about INQUA? On reflection, it is amazing that INQUA exists at all. How can a body which has no real structure, no office building of its own, no individual members, and no long term officers or workers sustain itself, and not only go on existing nut be, by and large, so effective, productive and useful?
What does INQUA do? It allows us all to get-together every four years to indulge our fascination with that lump of time that Charles Lyell called the Quaternary. We stick to this term with absurd nostalgia. Primary and Secondary time have long-since gone, and Tertiary is just about hanging on, yet we cling to Quaternary. It is obviously a special word.
I see INQUA in terms of Congresses, for these are the markers in our history. For example, from my one-eyed perspective, the 6th Congress in Poland was very important. The year was 1961 and it marked the launch of the sub-Commission on Loess Stratigraphy, on the initiative of Julius Fink of Vienna. Fink also organised a Loess Symposium, and invited Liu Tungsheng to attend from China. Eleven papers were eventually published in part 4 of the Proceedings, and members of the Loess Commission like to think that it was Liu's paper in that volume that initiated the idea of a truly multi-event Quaternary - a giant step away from Gunz, Mindel, Riss and Würm. So the 1961 Congress glistens in the past as does the Paris 8th Congress of 1969, at which the Loess sub-Commission was promoted to full Commission status. At Durban in 1999, therefore, we celebrate 30 years of Commission activity, including a lot of loess research. I guess not many people remember the 1961 meeting now, but it has a special place in the history of loess.
Both the Polish and the French meetings had striking logos (see Figures) that may well jog a few memories. The logo for the 12th Congress in Canada was very smart. The organisers put in a lot of effort on the logo front, and supplied neat lapel pins and beautiful stickers. My briefcase still bears an Ottawa 1987 sticker, so that I am constantly reminded of an informative and agreeable meeting.
The 9th Congress took place in New Zealand in 1973 - a long way away from almost everywhere. The Loess Commission, being a largely European operation, had few members attending as Fink rnournfully recorded in his report. I observed the effects of the New Zealand meeting for a long time after the event and I was very impressed by the stimulation delivered to Quaternary studies in that country. New Zealand is a small country and hosts very few large international science gatherings, but that INQUA Congress mobilised enormous effort and interest, and the benefit to the host country was considerable. I believe that this may have been one of the most successful of all our Congresses. It would be good thing if some way could be found by which rich INQUA countries could subsidise a major meeting in another, poorer country: meetings in Canada, France and Germany are fine but we would gain an extra dimension of benefit if some of the smaller and poorer countries could be helped to host a major Congress. It will be nice to be back in the Southern Hemisphere in 1999, and I look forward to the Durban meeting.
At the 10th Birmingham Congress in 1977, Julius Fink handed the Loess Commission over to Marton Pecsi of Budapest and the scale of the Commission's operations increased enormously. Jim Bowler of Canberra initiated the Western Pacific Working Group to bring together loess workers in Australia, China and New Zealand. The Loess Commission has oscillated from a very local project-based group looking at loess stratigraphy in Eastern Europe, through a phase as a worldwide operation and is now back concentrating upon two research projects. Pecsi ran the Loess Commission for three inter-Congress periods and then handed over to An Zhisheng at the Beijing Congress (the 13th in 1991). Beijing was a moment of glory for loess-lovers. I had the impression that every other paper concerned loess. This was a far cry from the 11 papers in Warsaw in 1961.
We held two rneetings of the Loess Commission at the Berlin 1995 Congress, but I am not sure that we achieved very much. A lot of people came but did we communicate as effectively as we could have done? The Loess Commission used to have a Working Group dedicated to communication and information transfer and, in these complex times, something similar is probably still required, although at the full Commission level. We may need a Quaternary Information and Communication Commission to operate at the same level as the scientific Commissions. I still remember the Schweizerhof with pleasure: the 14th Congress had the most comfortable accommodation, and they had good T-shirts..... INQUA Congresses seem to me to be enhanced by the peripheral paraphernalia (stickers-yes, badges-yes, T-shirts-yes). I seem to recall that Birmingham 1977 had safety helmets, but I may have dreamed that. We need display as well as discussion.
I assume that Durban 1999 will be a great success, but where should we go after that? INQUA Congresses meet several needs: can we identify the chief needs and plan accordingly? Is there a group of Quaternary investigators somewhere who could really benefit from having an INQUA Congress in their backyard (like New Zealand 1973 and China 1991)? Is there a part of the world that is of such specific Quaternary interest that we should all go there? Is there somewhere that has been unreasonably neglected? I think that we are going to have to go to South America (and not just for the loess). We had a great meeting in Asia (China 1991), two fairly recent meetings in North America (l964 Boulder and 1987 Ottawa), one in Africa (1999), one in Australasia (1973), and five in Europe since 1960: surely South America has to be next.
Ian Smalley
March 1998
In early February of this year, the World Data Center-A for Paleoclimatology hosted the Second Workshop on Global Paleoenvironmental Data at Boulder, Colorado. This meeting brought together more than 40 participants, representing 13 different countries and numerous organizations interested in the problems and rewards of collecting and managing paleonvironmental data, including myself on behalf of Quaternary International, the official journal of INQUA. Currently, PAGES efforts are focused upon palynological, plant macrofossil, dendrochronological, limnological, faunal, tephra, ice core, and other paleoclimatic data. The possibilities of expanding efforts to create databases for all styles of paleoenvironmental data, particularly those associated with Quaternary geological investigations, are very exciting both to scientists already involved with PAGES and Quaternarists associated with INQUA. One of the major products of the workshop was our recognition that much valuable data exists outside of the established databases. The diversity of paleoenvironmental work demands the widest possible range of data. With our increasing emphasis on linkages between regions of the world, and between different paleoenvironmental indicators, the necessity for repositories where diverse forms of data can be stored efficiently and can be quickly retrieved, integrated, and used by researchers around the world has become steadily more apparent. The problem of data 'lost' due to non-publication of graduate theses, government cutbacks in various jurisdictions, and lack of communication between researchers in different disciplines of Quaternary research, is of concern to us all. One of the ways to address this difficulty is to encourage the collection of data in databases readily accessible to everyone.
Quaternary International strongly encourages the archiving of data in centralized data repositories, particularly in conjunction with publications in the journal. Archiving of paleoenvironmental data will lead to enhanced integration across our discipline, and will increase our ability as Quaternarists to analyze the past, understand the present, and aid in the prediction of the future. The efforts of PAGES to develop a series of guidelines for archival and data entry formatting that will allow information about data, including that concerning data precision and reliability, to be readily incorporated into databases throughout the world, and will also allow data-sets to be augmented and updated through time, are enthusiastically welcomed by QI. We also welcome any and all moves to facilitate integration across existing, incipient, and yet-to-be established databases. If you're thinking, "Good idea, but I don't have the time to do all that formatting" ... then there is good news. The message, loud and clear, from PAGES and WDC-A is "Send us data in any format and we will endeavour to deal with it"... ASCII, EXCEL, spreadsheets, digital ... any format is welcomed.
To be effective, databases depend on goodwill and co-operation, both from the funding agencies and from the scientific community. I've become convinced that this effort is one of the most vital to the continued growth of interdisciplinary, integrated, multi-national Quaternary research. As Quaternarists, we should support and expand our data archiving, particularly into the fields of geological data -- such as striation alignments, diamicton fabrics, soil chemical analyses, paleomagnetic data, loess textures, and many, many other types. Some of these data are already incorporated into numerous fine efforts, but more input would be extremely valuable. We should consider incorporating within our research and grant proposals a strategy (and allocate funding if necessary!) for data archiving, and we should professionally support and recognize those in our Quaternary community who have diligently contributed to database construction and maintenance. Quaternary International looks forward to cooperating with PAGES and with all databases, and we encourage everyone associated with INQUA to do the same in the future!
Norm Catto
Associate Editor, Quaternary International
Notice has been received of the following future meetings.
August 26-29, 1998, Lisbon and Coimbra, Portugal
International Geographical Union, Commission on Climate Change and
Periglacial Environments
Details: Dr. G.C. Vieira, Centro de Estudos Geograficos, Facultade de
Letras, Univ. Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1699 Lisboa Codex,
Portugal. Fax: +35-1-1-7938690; E-mail:
goncalo.vieira@reitoria.ul.pt
September 21-25, 1998, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
8th Congress of the International Association of Engineering Geology,
Theme: Engineering Geology, A Global View from the Pacific Rim
Details: Ms. Kim Meidal, Secretariat, 8th Congress IAEG, c/o BC Hydro,
6911 Southpoint Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada, V3N 4X8; tel. (604)528-2421;
fax (604)528-2558; email: kim.meidal@bchydro.bc.ca;
Web Page: http://www.bchydro.bc.ca/bchydro/IAEG/IAEG98.html
October 11 - 13, 1998, Seattle, USA
Dust Aerosols, Loess & Global Change, Conference and Field Tour
(October 8 - 11, 1998) on Dust in Ancient Environments and Contemporary
Environmental Management
Details: Dr.Alan Busacca, Crop and Soil Sciences,P.O. Box
646420,Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-6420 U.S.A. Tel:
+1-509-335-1859; Fax: +1-509-335-8674; E-mail:
busacca@wsu.edu; Conference
homepage: http://www.eus.wsu.edu/c&i/programs/dust.htm
Global and Planetary Change, Volumes 16-17
Special Issue: Quaternary Carbon Cycle Changes
Guest Editors: H. Faure, L. Faure-Denard and J.M. Adams
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Quaternary International, Volumes 47-48
Quaternary Stratigraphy in Volcanic Areas
Guest Editors: G. Cavarretta, M. Fornaseri, M. Follieri, O. Girotti, C.
Turner
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Quaternary International, Volumes 49-50
As the World Warmed: Human Adaptations across the Pleistocene/Holocene
Boundary
Guest Editors: B.V. Eriksen and L.G. Straus
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Quaternary International, Volumes 51-52
Revisitation of Concepts in Paleopedology - Transactions of the Second
International Symposium on Paleopedology
Guest Editors: Leon R. Follmer, Donald L. Johnson and John A. Catt
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 17, Nos. 6-7
Late Quaternary Climates: Data Synthesis and Model Experiments
Guest Editor: Thompson Webb III
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 17, Nos. 9-10
Offshore Quaternary of the Northeast Atlantic Margin
Guest Editors: J.D. Scourse and H.P. Sejrup
Preface
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Table
of Contents (with Abstracts)
Professor Frank Mitchell, President of INQUA 1969-1973, and formerly Professor of Quaternary Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland, died on November 25, 1997. Mitchell's Executive Committee included Vice-Presidents Jean Dresch (France), Ulf Hafsten (Norway), Jane M. Soons (New Zealand) and Vladimir Sibrava (Czechoslovakia). His Secretary-General was Edward A. Francis (U.K.) and the Past President was Gerald M. Richmond (USA).
Frank Mitchell had an enviable intellectual grasp of a number of scientific disciplines aside from geology. Steeped in the science and culture of his beloved Ireland, Frank was, at the same time, a truly international scientist, as his long list of distinguished publications makes clear. He was a gifted communicator and the most generous of hosts. President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 1957-60, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1973, and was President of the Royal Irish Academy 1976-79. His outstanding contributions to academic life were recognised by the award of the Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy in 1989, the first time it had been awarded in over 100 years!
Despite all this, Frank Mitchell remained modest to the end, referring to himself as a 'first -approximation man'. In truth, he had a pioneering intellect that frequently opened up to those around him new approaches to the Quaternary, and much else besides.