meetings-2012

Session at EGU (European Geosciences Union) General Assembly Vienna/Austria, 22–27 April 2012 “Soils as record of the past” 

http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2012/

Convener: C. Zaccone, Co-Conveners: J.M. van Mourik, C. Barbante, and S.J. Kluiving

The session comprised 15 posters and 5 oral presentations. The oral presentations included:

W. Shotyk: Reconstructing the environmental impact of smelters using Pb isotope analyses of peat cores from bogs: Flin Flon, Manitoba and Harjavalta, Finland (solicited)

G.T. Swindles, P.J. Morris, A.J. Baird, M. Blaauw, and G. Plunkett: Are peatland water-table reconstructions reliable proxies of past climate?

M. Lamentowicz, M. Gałka, K. Tobolski, and A. Górska: Land-use change, climate and conservation of peatlands: lessons from the high-resolution palaeoecology peat archives of the southern Baltic region

C. Giguet-Covex, J. Poulenard, F. Arnaud, J-R. Disnar, P. Sabatier, B. Wilhelm, I. Jouffroy-Bapicot, P-J. Rey, F. David, and E. Malet: Past soil erosion history recorded by lake sediments in mountain areas (north and south French Alps): complex interactions with climatic and human activities

J. Wallinga, M. Schilder, J. van Mourik: Sand and soil dynamics studied by quartz OSL dating

B. Jansen, K. Kalbitz: A new biomarker approach to reconstruct past vegetation patterns

Session at Goldschmidt Congress Montreal/Canada, 24-29 June 2012 “Records of climate change from terrestrial archives: paleosols and loess” 

www.goldschmidt2012.org

Conveners: Mohammed Rafi G. Sayyed, Martine Gerard

The session comprised a poster session and 11 oral presentations. The oral presentations included:

Steven Driese, Lee Nordt, Gary Stinchcomb, Kimberley Kuijper: Construction of a Fully Searchable Soils Database Integrating Soil Characterization Data and Whole-Soil Geochemical Data (Keynote)

Carolyn Olson: Regional Erosion Surfaces and Climatic Readjustment, Midwest USA: Clues from late Pleistocene loess and paleosols (OIS 5e-2)

Steve Dworkin, Lee Nordt, Stacy Atchley: Using Bulk Paleosol Organic Matter to Reconstruct the Carbon Isotopic Composition of the Atmosphere

Sirle Liivamagi, Kalle Kirsimae, Peeter Somelar, Juho Kirs: Precambrian palaeosol from Baltica - reconstructing the Neoproterozoic climate

Helaine Markewich, Milan Pavich, Douglas Wysocki, Ronald Litwin: Post OIS6 climate-change records in the Lower Mississippi Valley and mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain

Michal Ben Israel, Yigal Erel, Yehouda Enzel, Rivka Amit: Geochemical Proxies for Changes in Dust Sources in Negev Desert Loess

Anchun Li, Jie Huang, Hengyi Jiang, Shiming Wan: Sedimentary evolution in the northern South China Sea since Oligocene and its responses to tectonics

Martine Gerard, Frederic Fluteau, Vincent Courtillot, Maud Moulin: Intrabasaltic Regoliths in the Deccan (India) and Karoo traps (Lesotho): witnesses of volcanic quiescence and environmental links

Mohammed Rafi Sayyed, Sajid Hundekari: Geochemical investigations of the intrabasaltic palaeosols (bole beds) from Deccan Traps, India in deducing the palaeoclimatic conditions

Andrew Madden, Andrew Swindle, Leland Bement, Brian Carter, Alexander Simms, Mourad Benamara: Nanodiamonds and carbonaceous grains in Bull Creek Valley, Oklahoma

Sajid Hundekari, Satish Sangode, Mohammed Rafi Sayyed: A comparative mineral magnetic study of the intrabasaltic palaeosols and modern soils from the Deccan volcanic province, India

Session at Eurosoil Congress Bari/Italy, 2-6 July 2012 “Soils and sediments as natural archives”

Conveners: Daniela Sauer, Claudio Zaccone, Alexander O. Makeev, Sylvie Quideau

The session comprised 26 posters and 12 oral presentations. The oral presentations included:

P. Felix-Henningsen: Ancient dunes and paleosols of the Sahel and Sahara in East Niger as archives of Pleistocene and Holocene climate changes

F. Scarciglia: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Tephra and volcanic soils in the Vesuvius foothill, southern Italy: Reconstruction of time spans of soil formation and climatic changes

C. Kabala: Polygenetic Podzols developed of slope cover-beds in the Sudetes Mountains (SW Poland)

M. Gocke: Identification and quantification of postsedimentary root-derived OM in loess-paleosol sequences using lipid molecular proxies

M. Egli: Soil weathering and accumulation rates of poorly crystalline phases derived from a 1Ma chronosequence

C. Zaccone: Do smouldering fires along peat columns affect paleoenvironmental reconstructions?

A. Huguet: Branched tetraether lipids in a French peatland: application to the reconstruction of past temperatures and pH

B. Jansen: New multi-proxy approach to reconstruct vegetation dynamics from terrestrial archives in the Ecuadorian Andes

F. Quinto: Potential of 236U/238U and 240Pu/239Pu isotopic ratios as chronological markers for peat bogs complementing the classical 210Pb method

D. Said-Pullicino: Carbon distribution along the profile of a compost-amended anthropogenic soil: evidence from a chronosequence study

S. Geoffroy: Multi-scale approach of the structure evolution of constructed Technosols during early pedogenesis

A. Makeev: Zonal soil pattern in relation to glacial history of the Russian Plain

B4. Session at International Micromorphology Meeting Lleida/Spain, 8-14 July 2012 “Micromorphology for paleopedology, sediments and loess-paleosol sequences” www.lleida2012.udl.cat

Conveners: Héctor Morrás, Peter Kühn, Daniela Sauer, Sergey Sedov

The session comprised 8 posters and 10 oral presentations. The oral presentations included:

Roger Langohr, Vera Marcelino, Johan Yans, Laurent Bock, Patrick Engels: Micromorphological characterization of clay migration features and their relation to soil structure in a 3 m deep plateau soil at Transinne, Belgian Ardennes

Elvira Roquero, Pablo G. Silva, Cari Zazo, Jose L. Goy, Francisco Borja: Micromorphological features of soils developed in fluvio-marine sediments during the Last Interglacial in the Gulf of Cadiz (Atlantic South Spain)

Tobias Sprafke, Birgit Terhorst: Micromorphological investigation of the polygenetic paleosol development in the classic loess outcrop of Paudorf (Lower Austria)

Seema Singh, B. Parkash, A. K. Awasthi: Micromorphology as a tool in evaluating basin depositional environment

Ana M. Alonso-Zarza, J. Genise, A. Meléndez, M. Verde: A comparison between calcretes and insect traces micromorphology. Examples from the Canary Islands

Fabio Scarciglia, Veronica Zumpano, Roberto Sulpizio, Fabio Terribile: Late Pleistocene-Holocene paleoclimatic changes in the Vesuvius volcano area, southern Italy: a micromorphological study of volcanic soils and primary tephra

Héctor José María Morrás, Lucas M. Moretti: Controversy on the origin of the ferrallitic pedological mantle in Misiones. Micromorphological evidences of autochthony

Peter Kühn, Andrej Sinitisn, Sergey Lisistyn, Dana Pietsch, Sergey Sedov: Micromorphogenesis of MIS2-3 paleosols in Kostiënki 14 and Borshchevo 5

Claudio Zucca, Stefano Andreucci , İhsan Akșit, Y.K. Koca, Sameh Shaddad, Salvatore Madrau, Vincenzo Pascucci, Franco Previtali, Selim Kapur: Genesis and palaeoenvironmental implications of upper Pleistocene palaeosols on the NW Sardinian coast

Clara Martí, David Badia, Rosa M. Poch, M.Teresa Garcia: Genesis and characterization of a recarbonated argic palaeosol in Monegros Desert (NE Spain)

2nd Würzburger Loess Symposium: “Palaeolandscapes of Middle and Late Pleistocene” Würzburg/Germany, 15 September 2012

Organizer: Birgit Terhorst, University of Würzburg, Germany

The symposium comprised six oral presentations:

Sergey Sedov, Svetlana Sycheva: Palaeopedology of the Late Pleistocene loess sequences of Eastern Europe: implications for the palaeoecology of mammoth fauna and first modern humans

Frank Lehmkuhl, Holger Kels, Jens Protze: Differentiation of loess sequences and their geomorphology in Central and Eastern Europe

Slobodan Markovic: Danube loess stratigraphy – towards European loess chronostratigraphic model

Pierre Antoine: The Middle to Upper Pleniglacial boundary: A main level-mark at ± 30 ka in European loess-palaeosol sequence from Northern France to Germany

Birgit Terhorst, Tobias Sprafke, Simon Meyer-Heintze: News from loess-palaeosol sequences in Lower Austria

Marc Händel: A site-formation model based on field observations for the main Gravettian horizon at Krems-Wachtberg in Eastern Austria.

International Conference “Geomorphic processes and geoarcheology - From Landscape Archaeology to Archaeotourism”, Moscow-Smolensk, Russia, 20-24 August 2012 

http://geoarch2012.narod2.ru

The conference, hosted by the Smolensk University of Humanities, was organized by Russian Association of Geomorphologists, initiated by the IAG Working Group on Geoarchaeology. Co-organizers were Moscow State University (History and Geography Faculties), State Historical Museum (Moscow), Russian Academy of Sciences – Institute of Geography and Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Moscow), State Hermitage Museum (Sankt-Petersburg). The conference was countenanced by INQUA, TERPRO Commission.

Among some 90 participants there were almost 40 people from overseas representing 13 countries: Poland, Germany, Italy, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Belgium, Byelorussia, Mexico, Netherlands, Ukraine, Vietnam.

The first two days consisted of four oral and poster sessions: “Human dimensions of Quaternary palaeoenvironments”, “Local palaeoenvironments at archaeological sites”, “Alluvial geoarchaeology, palaeohydrology and paleopedology”, and “Preservation of geoarchaeological monuments, geotourism and archaeotourism”.

More than half of all presentations were related to paleoecological and paleopedological aspects in archaeological context, about 20 presentations included data on soil morphology and micromorphology.

On the last two days fieldtrips were organized. A fieldtrip to the Gnezdovo archaeological site was devoted to complex geoarchaeological studies of the widely known settlement at the Early Medieval trade route "from Varyangians to the Greeks".

On the last day the larger group visited the Serteyka archaeological complex in the Western Dvina River basin with Neolithic sites, pileworks of the Bronze Age, Iron Age settlements. The smaller group visited the Talashkino historical and art preserve, a notable cultural center in 1890th-1910th.

The conference program, fieldtrip guides and the extended abstracts volume can be downloaded from the conference website at http://geoarch2012.narod2.ru/. 

Selected papers of the conference will be published in Quaternary International, Special Issue "Human dimensions of Quaternary palaeoenvironments", and in a Special Issue of Geo-Archeologia, the journal of the Italian Geoarchaeological Association.

Fieldtrip to the Gnezdovo archaeological site.

Fieldtrip to the Serteyka archaeological complex, group photo.

On behalf of the organizers:

Maria Bronnikova, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Andrey Panin, Moscow State University, Faculty of Geography; Russian Association of Geomorphologists (RuAG).

Paleopedological contributions at the International Conference “ED@80: Loess in China and Europe - A Tribute to Edward Derbyshire“, Novi Sad / Serbia, 27-30 September 2012

Organized by the INQUA Loess Focus Group

Local Organisational Board:

Neda Mimica-Dukić, Lazar Lazić, Slobodan B. Marković, Milivoj B. Gavrilov, Đorđije A. Vasiljević, Miroslav D. Vujičić, Tin Lukić, Biljana Basarin, Mlađen Jovanović, Tanja Armenski, Nemanja Davidović, Tamara Jovanović, Nemanja Tomić, Ivana Hrnjak, Daniela Arsenović, Boris Paško, Miomir Korać, Nemanja Mrđić.

A number of paleopedologists attended this conference, contributing particularly to the Session “Reconstruction of loess environments“:

Anna O. Sizikova, Valentina S. Zykina: THE GRAIN-SIZE AND SAND QUARTZ GRAIN MORPHOSCOPY OF LATE PLEISTOCENE LOESS DEPOSITS, SOUTH OF WEST SIBERIA

Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons, Ulrich Hambach, Frank Lehmkuhl, Toshiyuki Fujioka, Radu Iovita, Adrian Dobos, Daniel Veres, Slobodan B. Marković, Shannon McPherron: LOESS ARCHIVES AND PLEISTOCENE ENVIRONMENTAL DYNAMICS IN THE LOWER DANUBE BASIN Tobias Sprafke, Birgit Terhorst, Christine Thiel: PAUDORF LOCUS TYPICUS, LOWER AUSTRIA – A POLYGENETIC RECORD OF LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION DURING MIDDLE PLEISTOCENE AND OIS 5

Sándor Gulyás, Pál Sümegi, Dávid Molnár, Bálint Csökmei, Gergő Persaits, Thomas Stevens, Ulrich Hambach, Slobodan Markovic: THE FIRST HIGH-RESOLUTION MULTIPROXY PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECORD OF THE PAST 800 KYS FROM SW HUNGARY: A COMPARISON WITH COEVAL LOESS/PALEOSOL ARCHIVES OF VOJVODINA

David Gergely Pall, Julia Hupuczi, Sandor Gulyas, Zsolt Veres, Pal Sümegi: MICROMORPHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON TWO PALEOSOL HORIZONS OF THE LOESS/PALEOSOL SEQUENCE OF MADARAS

Jef Vandenberghe and Slobodan Markovic: THE SEDIMENTARY ENVIRONMENT AT THE PETROVARADIN SITE AT THE TIME OF FORTRESS CONSTRUCTION: A CONTRIBUTION FROM GRAIN-SIZE ANALYSIS

Ken O’Hara-Dhand and I. J Smalley: A CAREFULLY DESIGNED SET OF BROMHEAD GLACIAL GRINDING EXPERIMENTS TO STUDY THE GENERATION OF LOESS PARTICLES

János Kovács, Gábor Újvári, György Varga & Franz Ottner: PRE-QUATERNARY/QUATERNARY PEDOSTRATIGRAPHY OF CENTRAL EUROPE BASED ON GEOCHEMICAL, CLAY MINERALOGICAL PROXIES AND FOSSIL ASSEMBLAGES

Sergey Sedov, Birgit Terhorst, Svetlana Sycheva: PALEOSOLS OF LAST INTERGLACIAL IN THE LOESS SEQUENCES OF UPPER AUSTRIA AND CENTRAL RUSSIA: COMPARATIVE PEDOGENETIC ANALYSIS AND PALEOECOLOGICAL INFERENCES Zdzisław Jary: ICE-WEDGE CASTS IN THE LATE PLEISTOCENE LOESS-SOIL SEQUENCES IN POLAND AND NW UKRAINE

Igor Obreht, Bjoern Buggle, Slobodan B. Marković, Dimitri Vandenberghe, Norm Catto, Biljana Basarin, Djordjije A. Vasiljević, Dragan Popov, Milivoj Gavrilov, Tin Lukić: GRAIN SIZE VARIATIONS RECORDED AT BELOTINAC LOESS SEQUENCE (THE SOUTHERN LIMIT OF THE EUROPEAN LOESS BELT: INITIAL RESULTS) Zorica Svirčev, Slobodan B. Marković, Thomas Stevens, Ian Smalley, Igor Obreht, Ulrich Hambach, Tamara Dulić, Tamara Pantelić: IMPORTANCE OF BIOLOGICAL LOESS CRUSTS FOR LOESS FORMATION IN SEMI-ARID ENVIRONMENTS

First Workshop of AEOMED: “Mediterranean palaeosols: evidence of the continuous interplay between climatic and event driven pedogenesis, with a special focus on the role played by dust inputs” Florence, Italy: 10/2012

Organizers: Stefano Carnicelli, Edoardo Costantini, Daniela Sauer, Rivka Amit

The workshop included a two-day oral and poster symposium and one-day field trip demonstrating loess-influenced soils in central Tuscany guided by Edoardo Costantini and Simone Priori.

The following papers were presented:

Rivka Amit, Yehouda Enzel, Onn Crouvi, Amit Mushkin, Batbaatar Jigjidsuren, Alan Gillespie: The role of active sand seas in forming warm-desert loess sequences and implications to the Chinese Loess Plateau

Michal Ben Israel, Yigal Erel, Yehouda Enzel, Rivka Amit: Geochemical proxies for changes in dust sources in Negev desert loess

Stefano Carnicelli, Francesco Malucelli, Anna Andreetta, Rossano Ciampalini, Guia Cecchini: Chronology and aggradation rates of Southern Po Plain loess

Mauro Cremaschi, Andrea Zerboni, Helena Rodnight, Christoph Spötl: Loess in Northern Italy: New insights on dating, soil forming processes, and archaeology

Edoardo A.C. Costantini, Simone Priori: Is the middle Holocene loess soil cover a witness of a climatic deterioration during the Bronze age setting?

Maayan Harel, Rivka Amit, Yehouda Enzel, Naomi Porat: Buried and relict sandy soils as samplers of Quaternary dust in the central Coastal Plain, Israel: initial results

Ivano Rellini, Luca Trombino, Francesca Ferraris, Pietro Mario Rossi, Marco Firpo: Loess distribution on the northern flank of Ligurian Alps (NW-Italy): topographic influences and palaeoenviromental implications

Daniela Sauer, Lisa Zwanzig, Achim Brauer, Riyad Al-Sharif, Helmut Brückner, Fabio Scarciglia, Karl Stahr: Late Pleistocene paleosols and lake sediment records of S Italy

Andrea Zerboni, Francesca Ferraro, Ludwig Zoeller, Mauro Cremaschi: A loess/palaeosol sequence at the margin of the Sahara (Garyan, Libya) Evidence for the expansion of the Sahara during the upper Pleistocene glacial periods.

In the concluding session the participants agreed on the following issues to be considered in future AEOMED activity:

1. The chronology of loess deposition in the Mediterranean needs to be revised, and a higher resolution chronology has to be established. This will lead to a better understanding of major loess accumulation phases around Mediterranean and advance the understanding of the Quaternary climatic conditions.

2. The sources of loess and dust should be identified more precisely; this is necessary in order to model dust transport mechanisms.

3. An integral study of dust sources and dust influx to soils developed in similar geomorphic positions around Mediterranean will allow to reconstruct the conditions, either climatic or of other nature (geomorphologic, anthropic) which trigger aeolian erosion and loess deposition.

4. The studies presented in the workshop stressed the need to develop methodologies for dust analyses to be used by all researchers studying dust and loess in continental and marine sequences.

5. The issue of (current) dust generation, transport and deposition should be linked to the issue of palaeo-dust such as loess. It needs to be tested whether processes identified for dust are comparable to those involved in loess generation, transport and deposition. For this purpose common analytical procedures should be applied in order to enable comparison of data from different regions across the Mediterranean.

6. Developing methods for tracing loess source areas was considered one of the most critical issues in studying loess and dust. A general agreement has been reached that high-quality particle size distribution (PSD) data is crucial in determining dust sources, in addition to geochemical proxies such as analysis of isotopes and major elements.

7. None of the methods available for grain size analysis is perfect and accurate; thus, the comparison between samples analyzed by different methods is almost impossible. We need to select one common method in order be able to compare sample data across the Mediterranean. The practical possibility of a cross-calibration will be examined.

8. It has been agreed that knowledge on geochemical and mineralogical tracing will be circulated and exchanged in a more intense way, which will be one of the activities of AEOMED in the next future.

9. A relevant effort of the AEOMED project will be the compilation of all existing data on wind patterns across the Mediterranean during the different climatic phases of the Late Quaternary; this kind of data is indispensable to generate sound hypotheses about sources and transport trajectories, but it is widely scattered, and no review exists on the present state of the art.

10. In conclusion, the following actions have been finally agreed, to be accomplished by AEOMED as part of continuation of the project:

a) Compilation of known loess occurrences in the Mediterranean, including these loess occurrences in the “Loess map of Europe”, created and managed by Dagmar Haase (Germany);

b) Continued exchange of experience concerning analytical methods;

c) Compilation of late Quaternary wind pattern data.

Photographs: Daniela Sauer

Session at EGU (European Geosciences Union) General Assembly Vienna/Austria, 7-12 April 2013 “Soil as a Record of the Past: Soil science in cultural and natural landscapes” 

http://www.egu2013.eu/

Convener: Sjoerd Kluiving, Co-Conveners: Ian Simpson, Jan van Mourik, Claudio Zaccone

The session comprised 14 posters and 6 oral presentations. The oral presentations included:

Timothy Beach and Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach: Soil and Human Interactions in Maya Wetlands (solicited)

Rebecca Barclay, Ian Simpson, and Eileen Tisdall: Formation and Cultural Use of Wetland Areas in Vatnsfjörður, Northwest Iceland

Maria Dergacheva and Olga Nekrasova: Lanthanides in humic acids of soils, paleosols and cultural horizons (Southern Urals, Russia)

Arnald Puy: The construction of fertility in al-Andalus. Geoarchaeology in Ricote (Murcia, Spain, 8th century AD)

Karolina Leszczynska, Julie Boreham, and Steve Boreham: Hidden Ice Worlds - Pleistocene glacigenic deposits in Essex, England. Application of the novel systematic approach to thin-section description

Daniela Sauer, Lisa Zwanzig, Fabio Scarciglia, Annette Kadereit, Achim Brauer, Riyad Al-Sharif, and Helmut Brückner: Steppe to forest steppe ecosystems during the last glacial period in S Italy - evidence from sediment-paleosol sequences, compared to lacustrine archives and marine data