2nd International Conference on Quaternary and Future Earth: Harmonious Coexistence of Ocean and Humans will be held at National Taiwan Ocean University (Keelung, Taiwan) from November 14-16, 2017 (plus 1 day optional post-conference field trip).
Min-Te Chen (chief convener) and Quaternary research group in Taiwan, Institute of Applied Geosciences, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan
The conveners and Quaternary research group in Taiwan will be responsible for reviewing all submitted abstracts and drafting the agenda, and the final report of the workshop. One convener will be responsible for submitting proposal of publishing special issue to the editors of Quaternary International. The conference is sponsored by NTOU, MOST, and ESRPC in Taiwan.
The main objective of the proposed 2nd International Conference on Quaternary and Future Earth: Harmonious Coexistence of Ocean and Humans is to bring together a diverse group of researchers who study bio-geological, oceanic fishery and resource, ocean culture, utilization, maritime transportations, and nature and human interactions and past and future perspectives of earth and ocean environmental changes since early Quaternary (~2.6Ma). Our recent science findings indicate that the health of the oceans and the health of humans are highly coupled. Though sustaining life could be in a variety of different ways, oceans provide us, in fundamental, with the air we breathe, the food we eat, even some of the medicines we use to cure disease. Moreover, the oceans are honest recorders for long-term, past earth climate and environmental history that allows us to distinguish anthropogenic impacts from natural variability over various time scales from deep time in the past to the future. However, imbalance in the oceans can have deleterious effects on human health and our utilizations of marine organic and inorganic resources. In particular, ocean acidifications caused by the increased atmospheric pCO2, melting of continental ice sheets and rising sea levels, and proliferation of harmful algal blooms and pathogenic microbes pollution can cause human illness or, in acute cases, death, while also wreaking economic havoc through beach and fishery closures. Understanding this corollary between the health of the ocean and our own, policymakers and researchers sought to emphasize an inter-disciplinary approach in studying this important relationship, pairing oceanographers and other scientists with fishery and bio-geological expertizes.
National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) has initiated such inter-disciplinary approach to study, cooperatively, the bio-geological, oceanic fishery and resource, ocean culture, utilization, maritime transportations, and nature and human interactions and past and future perspectives of earth and ocean environmental changes since early Quaternary (~2.6Ma) and their future. The inter-disciplinary approach could flourish this particular type of scientific research, and echoes the recent global scientific initiatives of INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research (http://www.inqua.org) and Future Earth (http://www.futureearth.org) under the supports of ICSU (International Council for Science) (http://www.icsu.org). Currently, scientists from oceanographic, geo-biologic, and fishery, biological and biomedical, marine transportation, culture/anthropology, and management/policy departments/institutions in Taiwan all work in a cooperative effort in a form of international conference to promote this multi-disciplinary research program that would advance our understanding on human health and its relevance to oceanographic, social/human, and multi-disciplinary environmental research.
Organized and Sponsored by:
• National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) 國立臺灣海洋大學
• The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) 科技部
• Geological Society Located in Taipei 中華民國地質學會
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