Protocol of Paleopedology Commission Business Meeting at VI International symposium and field workshop on Paleopedology

Protocol of the Business Meeting

of the Commission on Paleopedology INQUA/IUSS, 11. Oct. 2001 during the VI ISFWP, Collegio de Postgraduados, Chapingo, Mexico.

Chairperson: Arnt Bronger

Present: 34 members from Argentina, Czechia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, U.K., USA and Yugoslavia.

A. Future activities

• 1. During the XVII World Congress of Soil Science in Bangkok/Thailand, 14-21 August 2002 the Commission will convene Symposium No. 49 on Paleopedology entitled Paleosols as a memory for understanding landscape history and environmental problems“ (convenor: A. Bronger). Meanwhile the participants are informed about acceptance of their paper as oral or poster presentation.

  2. XVI INQUA Congress in Reno, Nevada, USA, Juli 23-31, 2003.

Many details about preliminary program, pre- and post-Conference excursions, accommodation prices etc. can be obtained on the Congress Web site:

The Commission on Paleopedology will anounce for Reno:

A symposium - together with the Loess Commission and the Commission on Quaternary Stratigraphy -

Sequences of glacial deposits, loesses and paleosols as indicators of a Quaternary climatic history“

• • 1. A poster session entitled:

Magnetic susceptibility in soils - possibilities and limitations“.

The XIV INQUA-Congress offers great possibilities of pre- and post-Conference tours (see web site above). Tours which seem especially related to (paleo)pedologists are:

A-3: Quaternary Stratigraphy, Geomorphology, Soils and Alpine Archeology in an Alpine-to-Plains Transect, Colorado Front Range (5 days). Trip organizers: P. Birkland, R. Shroba.

A-4: Soil Geomorpholocial Studies in the Mojave Desert: Impacts of Quaternary Tectonics, Climate and Rock Type on Soils, Landscapes, and Plant-Community Ecology (4 days). Trip organizers: L. Me Fadden, M. Eppes, E. Mc Donald.

A-5: The Palouse Loess and the Channeled Scabland: A Paired Ice-Age Geologic System (3 days). Trip organizers: A. Busacca, D. Gaybord.

A-9: Late Quaternary Eolian Sedimentary Systems of the USA Midkontinent (6-7 days). Trip organizers: Art Bettis, I. Mason. Peter Jacobs, Whitewater/Wisconsin, USA, one of the guides of this tour reported at the Business Meeting that one major point will be the genesis of the Late Pleistocene - Holocene sequence: Peoria Loess-Brady Geosol (11-9.4 ka) - Bignell Loess - Holocene soil in central Nebraska (see his abstract with J. Mason in this newsletter).

The participants accepted the invitation of Slobodan Markovic, University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia to host the VII ISFWP in Novi Sad in September 2004.

The participants accepted the proposol of Elizabeth Solleiro, UNAM, Mexico City to found a new Working Group of Latin American Paleopedology“ within the Commission on Paleopedology. This group will also ask for the status of a WG in the Soil Science Society of Latin America. Martin Iriondo, Parana, Argentina was elected as the Chairperson of this WG.

At the XVI INQUA Congress in Reno new Commission leaders must be elected. After a discussion a majority of the participants proposed Ecoardo Costantini, Firenze, Italy as President Alexander O. Makeev, Moscow, Russia as Vicepresident and Francesco Malucelli, Milano, Italy as Secretary of the Commission for election in a Business Meeting of the Commission on Paleopedology in Reno in 2003.

B. Commission publications

The Commission intends to get the papers, presented on its meetings, published in international reviewed jounals. The reviewed papers of the III ISFWP in Rauischholzhausen, Germany 1997 are published in CATENA, Vol. 41, pp 1-259, 2000. Reviewed papers of the IV ISFWP in Lanzhou, China, 1998 are published in Chinese Science Bulletin, Vol. 44, Supp. 1, pp. 1-263, 1999. Some details of both publications can be found in NL-17.

In the meantime reviewed papers presented at a symposium entitled Records in soils of environmental and anthropogenic changes“, which was held at the World Congress of Soil at Montpellier, France, August 1998, organized by the WG Paleopedoloy (IUSS) resp. the Commission on Paleopedoloy (INQUA), were published partly in CATENA. Vol. 43, pp. 163-276, 2001. This volume contains eight papers. The first three are concerned specifically with long-term anthropogenic effects on soils and the remainder with eridence in relict (surface) paleosols for past natural (mainly climatic) changes. A second set of seven papers of the same symposium were published in Quaternary International, Vol. 78, 1-70, 2001. Both volumes were edited by J.A. Catt, London, U.K. and N. Fedoroff, Thiverval-Grignon, France.

At set of 15-20 papers , mainly presented at the V ISFWP in Suzdal, Russia, July 2000, are now in the review process to be published in a special volume of Quaternary International, edited by F. Terriblile, Napoli, Italy and A.O. Makeev.

It is intended to publish papers presented at the VI ISFWP in Mexico. The papers related to the session Magnetic properties of Quaternary and Pre-Quaternary paleosols and sediments as paleoclimatic indicators“ will be published in Geofisica Internacional“ and all other papers in Revista Mexicana des Cioncias Geologicas“. Both journals are published in English. Editors will be P. Jacobs, Dept. Geography, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater 53190 USA and S. Sedov, UNAM, Mexico City (e-mail: sergey@geologia.unam.mx