Welcome to AMQUA

The American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) is a professional organization of North American scientists devoted to studying all aspects of the Quaternary Period, about the last 2 million years of Earth history.

Studying the Quaternary is critically important because it has been a time of frequent and dramatic environmental changes, exemplified by growing and decaying continental ice sheets and mountain glaciers.

Beyond understanding the forces that shaped our modern environment, studying the Quaternary Period is significant because the Ice Age environmental changes were the backdrop for global changes in floral and faunal communities, including extinction of a diverse megafauna, and for the evolution of modern humans and their dispersal throughout the world.

Latest News

  • Registration for the 2008 AMQUA Biennial Meeting Now Open!

    Program Chairs: Jeffrey P. Donnelly and Benjamin P. Horton

    Theme: "Quaternary Ice Sheet-Ocean Interactions and Landscape Responses"

    Date: June 5-7, 2008 with field trips June 4 and June 8-9

    Location: Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

    Meeting website.



  • Workshop for Teaching Climate Change with Ice Core Data

    On June 2-4, 2008, U. S. National Committee/International Quaternary Association, AMQUA, and National Association of Geoscience Teachers/Digital Library for Earth System Education will sponsor an On the Cutting Edge workshop on Teaching Climate Change with Ice Core Data. The workshop will be limited to 50 participants who teach undergraduate–level courses in climate as part of archaeology, biology, environmental science, and geology curricula. The participants must be willing to share their experiences in teaching about ice cores and how they have enhanced their course materials through hands-on exercises and labs.

    June 2, evening
    Dinner at the Atherton Hotel, State College, with keynote talk by Richard Alley (Penn State) – Lessons from ice cores: what nature does and doesn't do to our climate

    June 3, 8:00 am-6:00 pm
    Sridhar Anandakrishnan (Penn State) – Ice sheets and ice cores
    Todd Sowers (Penn State) – Gas bubble studies in ice cores
    Richard Alley (Penn State) – Ice cores, climate change and polar see-saws
    Carrie Morrill (NOAA, Boulder) – Accessing Ice Core data in the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program

    June 4, morning
    Todd Sowers will lead a visit to the Penn State ice core research labs.

    An application form for the workshop is available online at serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/climatechange08. Please note: the application deadline for the Workshop is April 1.

    Following the workshop, participants are encouraged to stay and participate in the AMQUA biennial meeting: www.outreach.psu.edu/programs/quaternary

  • 12th International Palynological Congress (IPC-XII 2008) and 8th International Organisation of Palaeobotany Conference (IOPC-VIII 2008)

    August 30 – September 5, 2008, Bonn, Germany.

    Details…

  • Update on the Status of the Quaternary

    I am writing to provide a short summary of recent developments in the debate about the status of the “Quaternary” in the Geological Time Scale (GTS)... Click for details.

  • Climate of the Past

    "Climate of the Past" (CP) is open access, on-line journal of the European Geosciences Union, affiliated with the Climate division. This journal is free, and you can download anything you want. Page charges are very low. CP was launched in June 2005 and will receive its fist impact factor this coming summer. -- Denis-Didier Rousseau, co-editor in chief

    Details …

  • More news...