Newsletter

Download a pdf version of the Spring 2012 newsletter here

Table of Contents

  1. Editor’s Note: guidelines for submissions to the Quaternary Times
  2. The Quaternary Scientist as Philosopher by Steve Jackson, President
  3. AMQUA Announcements:
    1. AMQUA 22nd Biennial Meeting, June 21-24, 2012, Duluth, MN
    2. Student Travel Grant
    3. Call for nominations: 2012 Distinguished Career Award
    4. Call for nominations: Denise Gaudreau Award
    5. Call for nominations: AMQUA President-elect, Officers, and Councilors
  4. Graduate student corner
    1. Steve Ahr
    2. Ashley Losey
  5. Research Reports
    1. Addressing rates of landscape change in and along the Front Range, Colorado using both meteoric and in situ 10 Be, by Miriam Dühnforth and Bob Anderson
    2. New tephra lab and recent projects, by Steve Keuhn
    3. Aminostratigraphy workshops 2010-2011 and continuing data management, by John Wehmiller, Kirsty Penkman, and Darrell Kaufman
    4. Dynamics of the Sagebrush-Steppe Environment: Preliminary Investigations at Dot Cave, Minidoka County, Idaho, by Kenneth Cannon
    5. Great Lakes stratigraphy and history, by Paul Karrow
    6. Geoarchaeological Investigations of the Submerged Continental Shelf on Florida's Gulf Coast, 2008 to Present, by J.M. Adovasio and C. Andrew Hemmings
  6. AMQUA council member profiles
    1. Kim Cobb, Geochronology, Geophysics, Geochemistry Councilor
    2. Steve Holen, Archaeology Councilor
    3. Darrell Kaufman, Terrestrial Geoprocesses Councilor
    4. Brent Ward, Geohistory Councilor
    5. Connie Woodhouse, Paleoclimatology Councilor
  7. Passings
    1. Norton Miller
  8. Announcements:
    1. Conference: International Biogeography Society 6th Biennial Conference, Miami, Florida, January 9-12, 2013
    2. Conference: XIIIth International Palynological Congress (IPC XIII) and IXth International Organization of Palaeobotany Conference (IOPC IX), Tokyo, Japan, August 23-30, 2012
    3. Workshop: Climate Refugia: Joint Inference from Fossils, Genetics, and Models, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, August 1-3, 2012.

Editor’s Note

We are now in the happy situation of receiving more research report submissions than we can accommodate in a single issue! Starting with the fall 2012 issue, we will be limiting the numb of research reports per issue to 4-5 and standardizing the deadlines and guidelines for submission. Please see the submission guidelines on the AMQUA website for more details.

The view from the moraine: the President's message by Steve Jackson

The Quaternary Scientist as Philosopher

Most AMQUA members possess, or are working hard to earn, a PhD degree – a Doctorate of Philosophy. We are addressed as “doctor,” confusing the public. The “philosophy” part is often forgotten, though. How often do we think of ourselves as philosophers? Is the Ph in PhD just a quaint tradition, like the medieval garb we wear at commencement?

I’ve been thinking about philosophy recently. Maybe it’s the 13th /14th Century house I’m living in, occupied in earlier centuries by elite scholars from the medieval college across the lane. I’m sure many a philosophical dispute took place within its walls, and perhaps those wrangles echo yet in the stones.

Philosophy is concerned with the really big questions: What’s real? What’s true? What’s good? These all bear on scientific practice; as scientists we routinely make decisions about reality, truth, and value, so we all follow some form of philosophy even if we don’t know it. Of course, anything worth doing, like science, is worth thinking carefully about.

We hope those things we study correspond to entities “out there” in the real world. So, strictly speaking, was there ever such a thing as MIS 3, Pollen Zone C, the Solutrean Culture, the Great Drought, or the Megaloceros extinction? Which are like “the Renaissance”, which like “the Second World War”, and which like “Game Seven of the 2011 World Series”? What, fundamentally, is a fossil assemblage, an ocean current, a climate oscillation? How do we draw boundaries around phenomena? Are they sharp or fuzzy? To what extent are these real entities, versus useful creations of our minds and culture?

These questions fall into the areas known formally as ontology – what entities exist in the world? – and metaphysics – what are the properties of those entities we encounter1 ? These questions are not trivial, even in routine scientific practice. We pay a price whenever we organize information into a category or assign a label, because we risk creating an idol – a reifiedFdeg; concept that can blind us and future scientists to important nuances and phenomena. For example, when we say “Little Ice Age”, we impose subtle assumptions on the way the world should behave2 . Whether we say “ENSO” or “ENSO-like” really matters. “Younger Dryas” means different things depending on whether we think of it as a climato-, chrono-, or bio- stratigraphic entity.

A very different, but perhaps more familiar class of questions arises in the realm of epistemology1,3,4 : What is it to “know” something? How do we justify our claims about the world? Science is differentiated from some other areas of inquiry by its reliance on empirical evidence, logical argument, and naturalistic explanations, but that doesn’t liberate us from epistemological issues; many of the disagreements that arise among scientists are ultimately epistemological. Start with a seemingly simple question: What caused late Pleistocene extinctions? This decomposes into a series of epistemological questions (many with ontological components): Must all extinctions fall under a single, unified explanation? At what scale (temporal, spatial) should the question be addressed? How do we deal with multiple, potentially interacting mechanisms (e.g., climate change, habitat fragmentation, human predation, population dynamics, Allee effects)? Should we seek explanation in terms of causal chains, causal webs, or causal thickets4 ? How do we weigh the various arguments and bodies of evidence? What must we know to evaluate an explanation properly? Do we place the burden of proof (or of falsification) on particular explanations or classes of explanations? How much and what kind of evidence would be required to dislodge our favored hypothesis? What are the uncertainties? Can we measure them? How likely is it we might be wrong?

A final domain of philosophy, axiology, has to do with values – ethical, utilitarian, and aesthetic. These are more important to science than might first appear. Many of us are public employees, and our research is supported largely by public funds. Could those funds be put to better use – say, repairing bridges, feeding the poor, inspecting meat plants – than indulging our curiosity and advancing our careers? And we’re all smart, talented people who could be doing something else with our lives – practicing medicine, teaching kids to read, creating jobs in startup companies, researching alternative energy. How do we justify devoting our time and talents to Quaternary science? These are moral questions at heart, and how we answer them is up to us as individuals. But they’re worth asking. Quaternary science isn’t life. Can you explain, convincingly, to your skeptical uncle or niece why you do what you do?

Moral questions arise routinely in our professional practice and relationships5 . What merits coauthorship? How do we reconcile tradeoffs between inclusiveness (recognizing everyone who made contributions, however minor) versus discrimination (giving due credit to those who did the bulk of thinking, analysis, or writing)? What’s proper conduct in dealing with our peers? What are our responsibilities when reviewing their papers and proposals, citing their work, and engaging them as collaborators or competitors? What’s the role of graduate students in our labs – are they galley slaves, apprentices, junior colleagues, or lost children?

Values questions – rights, utility, virtue, and beauty - arise whenever we engage with societal issues, like climate-change adaptation and mitigation. Like it or not, values trump science in the policy world. Scientists who fail to understand this are doomed to frustration and ineffectiveness in the public arena.

Values also interact with the ontological, metaphysical, and especially epistemological issues outlined above. When we communicate with managers or policymakers or stakeholders, we’re often asking them to reallocate finite resources and make politically costly or professionally risky decisions based on our recommendations. What if we’re wrong?

The Quaternary sciences are not especially introspective. We have a long tradition of empiricism. In many ways, this focus is an asset – as a young ecologist in the 1970s-1980s, I witnessed bitter, divisive disputes over philosophical issues in biology (If it’s not a controlled experiment, is it science? How do we maximize parsimony? What’s the proper null hypothesis? Are communities real?). We’ve been spared those kinds of battles.

Nonetheless, the Quaternary sciences might benefit from more attention to philosophy. We should be asking ourselves the kinds of questions raised above. More important, we should be encouraging our students to grapple with them. None are – or should be – easy to answer, and all can be informed by explicit knowledge of how philosophers as well as scientists in other fields have addressed them. Encouraging our students to think deeply about what they do can make the difference between their becoming scholar-scientists, or unreflective technicians.

In hindsight, it’s too bad the medieval philosophers who lived in my house didn’t spend more time keeping daily records of temperature and precipitation and less time pondering ancient texts. (They’d certainly have benefited from reading more Lucretius6,7 and less Plato.) Nonetheless, the really big questions matter, enriching and even accelerating our pursuit of the smaller questions at the frontier of science.

References Cited:

1 Reiners, W.A. & J.A. Lockwood. 2009. Philosophical Foundations for the Practices of Ecology. Cambridge University Press. 226 p.

2 Bradley, R.A. & P.D. Jones. 1993. ‘Little Ice Age’ summer temperature variations: their nature and relevance to recent global warming trends. The Holocene 3:367-376.

3 Schumm, S.A. 1991. To Interpret the Earth: Ten Ways to be Wrong. Cambridge University Press. 135 p.

4 Wimsatt, W.C. 2007. Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Harvard University Press. 450 p.

5 National Research Council. 2009. On Being a Scientist. Third Edition. National Academies Press. 82 p.

6 Lucretius. 2007. The Nature of Things. A.E. Stallings, translator. Penguin Classics. 265 p.

7 Greenblatt, S. 2011. The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began. The Bodley Head. 356 p.

8 Thanks are due to Jeff Lockwood, Bill Reiners, and Tom Webb for critical comments.

AMQUA Announcements

AMQUA 2012: The American Quaternary Association 22nd Biennial Meeting, June 21-24, 2012, Duluth, MN

www.cce.umn.edu/American-Quaternary-Association-Meeting

The 22nd biennial meeting of the American Quaternary Association will be held in the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center (DECC), on the shores of beautiful Lake Superior, hosted by the Department of Geological Sciences and the Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota Duluth, June 21-24, 2012

Local organizing committee: Steve Colman, chair (scolman@d.umn.edu)
Program committee: Bryan Shuman, chair (bshuman@uwyo.edu)

From floods to droughts: Water, climate variability, and their impacts in the Holocene

Fresh water is a vital resource and a critical component of the Earth System; the Duluth AMQUA meeting, located on the shores of Lake Superior, provides an ideal opportunity for the American Quaternary community to consider the roles that water has played in the warm world of the Holocene - and could play in the future. Because the availability of water remains as one of the largest uncertainties about the future, Quaternary research provides a vital perspective on the patterns and processes of hydroclimatic change, and related impacts in ecological, geomorphic, and cultural systems. Key questions will be discussed:

  • What is our current understanding of Holocene climate variability - particularly with respect to moisture?
  • How have important processes, including glacial meltwater drainage, ocean circulation, monsoon dynamics, and land surface-atmosphere interactions, contributed to such variability?
  • What ecological, geomorphic, and cultural impacts were generated?
  • What unique perspectives do large lakes, such as Lake Superior and similar lakes around the world, provide?

The plenary sessions will provide both data and modeling perspectives on these questions while tapping into the diversity of the broad Quaternary community. Talks will incorporate perspectives on climate, geomorphology, paleoecology, and archeology

General Schedule—AMQUA 2012

Tuesday-Wednesday, June 19-20

  • Teaching global change workshop (details TBA)

Thursday, June 21

  • Pre-meeting field trip—RV Blue Heron
  • Opening Mixer

Friday, June 22

  • Opening remarks
  • Plenary session 1. Importance of water in the earth system (dendro and Holocene perspectives)
  • Plenary Session 2. Patterns and processes of tropical hydroclimate change
  • AMQUA Council meeting
  • Plenary Session 3. The view from large lakes (dominantly tropical)
  • Poster session 1 and mixer
  • Banquet

Saturday, June 23

  • Plenary session 4. Water in western North America
  • Plenary Session 5. Lessons from cultural, ecological, and geomorphic impacts in the West
  • AMQUA Awards and Business meeting
  • Plenary Session 6. Droughts and floods in the mid-continent
  • Poster session 2 and mixer

Sunday June 24

  • Plenary session 7. Droughts, floods, and impacts in humid eastern North America
  • Plenary Session 8. The importance of glacial meltwater
  • Post-meeting Field Trips—Western Lake Superior and Rainy Lobe

Monday, June 25

  • Post-meeting Field Trips

Student Travel Grants for the 2012 AMQUA Biennial Meeting

Student AMQUA members who are presenting a poster or a paper at the 2012 AMQUA Biennial Meeting may apply for travel awards. Successful applicants will receive a maximum reimbursement of $300 each. Checks will be issued following the meeting, upon submission of original receipts for eligible expenses associated with travel to the meeting, such as room costs, registration fee, meals, airfare, and gas or mileage. Deadline for application is April 1, 2012. A letter request for a travel award and one copy of the abstract should be submitted to: Dr. Colin Long; longco@uwosh.edu. Important: You must be an AMQUA member to be eligible, and you must also submit your abstract online as a part of the normal registration process. Awards will be announced by May 10, 2012.

2012 AMQUA Distinguished Career Award

Call for Nominations

Nominations are being solicited for the 2012 AMQUA Distinguished Career Award. The award recognizes a Quaternary scientist who has contributed significantly and continuously to the advancement of Quaternary science in any discipline. This award is the highest one made by AMQUA and truly honors someone with a lifetime commitment to Quaternary science. We encourage everyone to consider and nominate those senior scientists who have contributed significantly to their field. The award is for scientists who have worked on American Quaternary issues for a substantial part of their career. The nominee must be alive at the time of nomination and does not have to be a member of AMQUA. The winner of the award will receive a bronze sculpture and recognition at the 2012 Biennial Meeting. The award will be announced on the AMQUA Web site, listserve, and electronic newsletter. To nominate a scientist, please send a letter outlining why the nominee is qualified for the Distinguished Career Award and forward his/her current CV. All nominees are retained as candidates for five years. Please send nominations by March 1, 2012 to: Stephen Jackson; jackson@ uwyo.edu, with “AMQUA Distinguished Career nomination” as the subject line of the message.

2012 Denise Gaudreau Award

This biennial award of $500 was established to support the early career development of women scientists in Quaternary studies. Female scientists in any field of Quaternary studies within two years prior to completing the Ph.D. (i.e., they have not yet finished their dissertation research) are encouraged to apply. Membership in AMQUA and citizenship in the United States are not required. Selection will be based on scientific accomplishments, promise, and demonstration of original thinking. Emphasis will be placed on the quality and carefulness of the work, rather than solely on quantity.

Applications should include:

  • Curriculum vitae (no page limit)
  • Summary of research interests, accomplishments, and goals (not to exceed two pages)
  • Copy of graduate transcripts (signed by the Advisor). Photocopies of transcripts will suffice. For credits shown in transcripts under general titles, such as independent studies or seminars, briefly describe the subject(s) of the seminar or independent study on a separate page.
  • Name, address, e-mail address, and phone number of two referees to contact after initial committee screening.

Applications for the 2012 Award must be postmarked by March 15, 2012. The award will be presented at the 2012 AMQUA Biennial Meeting and announced on the AMQUA Web site, listserve, and AMQUA newsletter. The award will also include support to cover registration cost and up to $300 in travel expenses to attend the meeting. Gaudreau applicants are encouraged to present a poster at the meeting. Submit all materials to Colin Long, AMQUA Secretary via email at: longco@uwosh.edu

2012 AMQUA President-elect, Officers, and Councilors

Call for Nominations

Nominations are being solicited for the AMQUA Executive officer positions of: President-elect, Secretary, and Treasurer. The President-elect serves as a member of the Executive Committee on the AMQUA council for two years and succeeds to the office of President upon the completion of the president’s term to serve as President for two years. The Secretary performs general secretarial functions for the Association and serves a two-year term. The Treasurer is responsible for the collection, disbursement, and accounting of Association funds and serves a two-year term.

Nominations are also being solicited for AMQUA Councilors. Councilors, along with the members of the Executive Committee, are responsible for the management of AMQUA. Each Councilor represents one of seven disciplinary groups: 1.Terrestrial Geoprocesses; 2. Marine Geoprocesses; 3. Geohistory; 4. Paleobiology; 5.Paleoclimatology; 6. Archaeology; 7. Geochronology-Geochemistry-Geophysics. All councilor terms are four years.

Please send nominations for all positions (self nominations are accepted) by March 15th to Colin Long, AMQUA Secretary via e-mail: longco@uwosh.edu. Please note the position for which the nomination is being sent and for councilors, indicate the disciplinary group with the nomination. Ballots for each position will be distributed via email and elections will take place in April. The election results will be announced at the 2012 Biennial Meeting in Duluth, MN

Graduate Student Corner: Steve Ahr, Geology Department, Baylor University

Alfisols are widely mapped across Tertiary sedimentary rock formations along the Gulf Coastal Plain. These soils commonly exhibit strong textural contrasts between upper and lower sola, which have fueled debate among pedologists and geologists about parent material uniformity and the origin of the texture contrasts. The burial context of prehistoric artifacts within such settings is also the subject of controversy among archaeologists. In Texas, these soils span a strong climate gradient (climosequence), with mean annual precipitation (MAP) ranging from 500-1200 mm, and mean annual temperature (MAT) ranging from 17 to 21°C. When viewed in the context of climate as a major soil forming factor, this setting provides a unique opportunity to examine several important aspects of climate-related Alfisol genesis, gains and losses of soil constituents, and parent material uniformity. As a Geology Ph.D. candidate at Baylor University I am addressing these and other issues, which have broad relevance for pedology, Quaternary geology, geoarchaeology, and paleopedology. My research comprises three main components.

First, I am assessing parent material uniformity within Alfisols in upland summit settings. I am examining depth trends in clay-free particle size classes and resistant and immobile concentrations of Ti and Zr to identify potential lithologic discontinuities. The results of these investigations will help distinguish pedogenically-derived textural changes from geomorphologic inputs (e.g., eolian), and will lend insights into burial processes and integrity potential for prehistoric artifacts buried in upland summits.

Second, I am reconstructing the timing and pedogenic pathways of upland summit soils using optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and constituent mass balance analysis to develop a model of upland landscape evolution. My work to date reveals highly complex OSL age structures throughout the profiles indicative of the effects of bioturbation, intensive pedogenic weathering, and the addition of secondary fines. Additionally, preliminary work with OSL dating is shedding light on climate-dependent argillic horizon formation rates, which has important implications for paleopedology and geochronology.

Finally, I am addressing the role of climate in Alfisol morphology and characterization properties along a well-constrained modern climosequence. Results thus far show fairly strong correlations between MAP and physical properties such as soil horizonation, soil weathering depths, particle size distribution, and gains and losses of mobile soil constituents. Climate-related variations in organic carbon, pedogenic iron oxides, cation exchange capacity, base saturation, and extractable bases are also indicated. Additional studies are underway to evaluate whether these climate-related properties would be useful for refining paleoclimate estimates and taxonomic classifications of pre-Quaternary paleo-Alfisols.

Acknowledgements: This study was supported by a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant no. 0931485, Baylor University Geology Department graduate research grant, and GSA student research grant. I thank the many individuals from USDA-NRCS Centers in Temple, Mount Pleasant, and Caldwell, Texas for their assistance in coordinating field efforts and providing equipment.

Graduate Student Corner: Ashley Losey, Utah State University

Archaeology, Dendrochronology, and Dendroclimatology in Wyoming’s Wind River Range

Situated at 10,700 ft asl in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, High Rise Village is a remarkably unique archaeological site that includes the remains of 52 prehistoric dwellings, abundant surface artifacts, intact subsurface deposits, and evidence of 4000 years of use. Discovered in 2006, the residential nature of the site and its climatically-sensitive, alpine/subalpine setting make it an excellent candidate for studying past human responses to climate change. In particular, the site offers the opportunity to study the role of climate in how and why prehistoric peoples seasonally used high elevation environments.

My research focuses on the effect of climate on diet and food resources. I will assess how changes in human occupation at High Rise Village corresponded to climatically-driven changes in the availability of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and the predictability of its pine nut crops. The whitebark pine nut was likely a critical resource for occupants of the site and changes in the abundance and predictability of this high-calorie resource may have played a crucial role in when and how often the site was used. My study focuses on site use and climate variation during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900-1300.

I am currently working with archaeological and tree-ring data collected this past summer at High Rise Village. I collected soil samples from five previously excavated and dated dwellings and excavated an additional dwelling in an unexplored portion of the site.

These archaeological data will be used to reconstruct plant foods used at the site, evaluate the evidence in support of whitebark pine as an important food source, and further characterize site use patterns through time. The climate portion of the project is informed by the site's climatically sensitive setting. High Rise Village currently straddles the treeline, with MWP-aged remnants of whitebark pine scattered upslope from treeline. I cored 40+ trees and remnants in the hopes of building a sufficiently long chronology to answer my questions about whitebark pine and the MWP. I am interested in how much higher the treeline was during this period to better understand the site’s ecological context and the general availability of whitebark pine. I am also interested in the temporal variability of the climate at High Rise Village. Periods of climate stability could cause Whitebark pine nut production to be relatively consistent and possibly predictable for local hunter-gatherers.

In exploring climate, resource predictability, and high altitude environment use, my research stands to inform future archaeological research in high altitude settings. If climate change proves to have played an instrumental role in the intensified use of High Rise Village during the MWP, it may well have done the same on a region-wide scale. Further, my research stands to inform paleoclimatic understanding of the Wind River Range, specifically the effects of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly on whitebark pine. These data are important for current efforts to understand modern climate change and its effects on whitebark pine in our National Forests and Parks.

Research Report: Addressing rates of landscape change in and along the Front Range, Colorado using both meteoric and in situ 10Be

Miriam Dühnforth, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, LMU Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany, and Bob Anderson, Department of Geological Sciences and INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder

Along the Laramide age Front Range, several km-wide gravel-capped fluvial surfaces etched into Cretaceous shale bedrock record a history of fluvial incision on this western edge of the High Plains (Figure 1). As a research component of the Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory (BcCZO), we establish the time of last fluvial deposition on two of these surfaces, using both profiles of in situ 10Be and inventories of meteoric 10Be1,2. The two 10Be methods agree to within a few 10s of percent. Whereas past mapping of the surfaces has suggested surface ages on the order of 700 ka and > 1Ma, our results indicate that last occupation was much younger than this: 175 ± 27 and 95 ± 10 ka. We suggest that these surfaces are carved by lateral planation during extended periods of time (sometimes several glacial cycles) while loaded with alluvium from weathering processes in the headwaters. The surfaces are abandoned by incision into the bedrock during relatively short periods of time in only very special circumstances – we suggest only when a deep interglacial sufficiently curtails sediment delivery to the channels to allow them to incise into underlying bedrock.

Figure 1. Aerial photo of fluvial surfaces at the western edge of the High Plains. View looking south. In situ 10Be concentration profiles imply last deposition on Table Mountain surface of 95 ka, and on surface behind (south of) Rocky Flats of 175 ka.

In the well-studied Green Lakes Valley, located in the headwaters of a stream draining to the High Plains, we have established the chronology of retreat from the LGM moraine complex using 10Be in glacially polished bedrock from the valley floor (Figure 2). The results echo those in other valleys in Colorado in which this method was developed3,5: retreat from the LGM moraines commences ~20-18ka, pauses briefly at 16ka, and completes before the Younger Dryas. The most rapid retreat coincides with the Bølling Allerød. Numerical models of the retreat support the notion that the dominant driver was temperature, not snowfall, and that the glacial-interglacial swing in air temperature was between 4.5 and 6°C.

Figure 2. Hillshade image based upon LiDAR data of Green Lakes Valley showing the 10Be sample locations and calculated absolute ages of glacier retreat since the LGM. The mapped LGM glacier extent (light blue) in the North Boulder Creek drainage is based on Madole4 and LiDAR. Inset DEM shows the high resolution topography of the LiDAR data emphasizing the distinct lateral moraines.

The two problems are linked in that climate has strongly modulated landscape behavior in the Quaternary; fluvial systems are intimately linked to the sediment sources on hillslopes and glacial valleys in the headwaters. The dominant state of the fluvial system is one of lateral planation across wide flat surfaces rather than incision of narrow corridors in which the modern rivers flow. The variation in sediment supply to these streams that appears to govern their behavior, a major target for study by researchers in the BcCZO, is itself governed by the same climate swings that drive glaciers in and out of their glacially modified valleys.

References Cited:

1Dühnforth, M., and R. S. Anderson, 2011, Reconstructing the glacial history of Green Lakes Valley, North Boulder Creek, Front Range, Colorado, using 10Be exposure dating. Arctic Alpine Antarctic Research 43(4): 527-542. 2011.

2Dühnforth, M., R. S. Anderson, D. J. Ward and A. Blum, in press, Unsteady late Pleistocene incision of streams bounding the Colorado Front Range from measurements of meteoric and in situ 10Be. JGR-Earth Surface.

3Guido, Z. S., Ward, D. J. and Anderson, R. S., 2007, Pacing the post-LGM demise of the Animas Valley glacier and the San Juan Mountain Icecap, Colorado. Geology 35 (8): 739-742; doi: 10.1130/G23596A.

4Madole, R. F., 1986, Lake Devlin and Pinedale glacial history, Front Range, Colorado, Quaternary Research, 5, 43-54.

5Ward, D. W., Anderson, R. S., Briner, J. P., and Guido, Z. S., 2009, Numerical modeling of cosmogenic deglaciation records, Front Range and San Juan Mountains, Colorado. JGR - Earth Surface, doi:10.1029/2008JF00105.

Research Report: New tephra lab and recent projects

Steve Kuehn, Research Assistant Professor and Manager, Electron Microprobe Facility and Tephra Lab, Concord University

In 2010, I moved to Concord University in Athens, WV to manage a new electron microprobe facility, one of the very few located at a small undergraduate university. The lab is based on an older instrument, a mid-1980s ARL SEMQ formerly located at the University of Kentucky, but with current PC automation and analytical software. We have grant support to purchase a new state-of-the-art energy-dispersive (EDS) X-ray detector system to supplement the existing four wavelength-dispersive (WDS) X-ray spectrometers. Installation will be in March. This major upgrade will allow for combined EDS+WDS analysis for improved precision and/or greater sample throughput as well as open up possibilities of new applications for this instrument. We are also pursuing funds for further upgrades including the capability for full remote operation. Being located at an undergraduate institution, teaching is a major objective of the new lab, and we are currently working the microprobe into the curriculum. This includes introductory geology labs, upper-level geology and chemistry courses, and student research projects.

The microprobe also forms the basis for a new tephra lab. Our first data have been published as part of a large, international comparison of volcanic glass analyses incorporating data from 27 instruments located at 24 institutions in 9 nations (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2011.08.022). I have been working on this project over the last 2-3 years, and I am very happy to report that data from the new Concord lab (number 28 in the report) fall into the top tier in terms of both accuracy and precision. The new tephra lab also has a large comparative data set that can be used to identify tephras erupted from sources in the Cascade Range, Alaska, and surrounding areas. These data are supplemented by an extensive and growing collection of reference samples from Mt. St. Helens, WA; Newberry volcano, OR; Summer Lake, OR; and many other localities. I anticipate adding some Icelandic reference samples this fall.

Currently, an undergraduate student is working on the Set C and older tephras (35-250 ka) from Mt. St. Helens. We will be analyzing both proximal reference samples and distal ash samples using a new, enhanced-precision analytical routine that we are developing. Our goal is to better understand the eruptive history and tephra distribution during this time period. In addition, I have two students who will soon begin characterizing a sequence of tephra beds collected from earliest Pleistocene to Pliocene, faulted, fossil-bearing sediments near Summer Lake. We will also be characterizing a series of samples collected at two potential source volcanoes as part of this project, and we hope that this will allow us to tie some of the oldest Summer Lake tephra beds to their eruptive sources.

Sediments with ~260 ka tephra at Cape Horn Creek west of Mt. St. Helens. Scale:10 cm intervals.

Research Report: Aminostratigraphy workshops 2010-2011 and continuing data management

John Wehmiller, University of Delaware, Kirsty Penkman, University of York, and Darrell Kaufman, Northern Arizona University

Over the past several years it has become increasingly evident that scientists in all disciplines must make efforts to preserve data, samples, and records for use by future generations. In the past eighteen months, members of the amino acid racemization (AAR) community have held two workshops to discuss many topics related to these broad issues, including interlaboratory analytical standards, data preservation, and strategies for data interpretation. AAR and other geochronologic methods are an integral part of many terrestrial, coastal, and marine paleoenvironmental studies, many of which involve AMQUA members. In the past decade, however, the number of active labs in the United States has declined substantially, often with loss of information about data and samples.

In October 2010, colleagues from four US AAR labs (Univ. Colorado, Univ. Delaware, Univ. Massachusetts, and Bentley Univ.) met in Boulder, Colorado with representatives from the NOAA World Data Center for Paleoclimatology to develop procedures for long-term data storage. By June of 2011, prior to the recent International Quaternary Association (INQUA) meeting in Bern, Switzerland (where both oral and poster AAR presentations occurred*), several examples of AAR data files were posted on the NOAA site (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/aar.html) so that they could be demonstrated at a day-long AAR workshop at INQUA. Discussions at this workshop focused on many topics, including those related to establishing common formats for data reporting and archival data preservation. Participants agreed to begin adding their laboratory datasets to the NOAA database. The development of an internally consistent database, with expanded information about collections and analyses, will hopefully allow new data syntheses and reconstructions of environmental change. A special issue of the journal Quaternary Geochronology will result from the INQUA workshop and meeting presentations, with data archived at NOAA. Support for this special issue and for the US participants to attend the Colorado and Switzerland meetings was provided by the National Science Foundation.

Because many AMQUA members have conducted field studies that included AAR data in their research, we encourage those investigators to consider how their AAR results can be incorporated into the developing NOAA-WDC database. Typically a dataset represents results from a single publication, and there are many examples on the NOAA site of datasets such as these. The AAR datasets currently posted include results from publications spanning the past 40 years, including examples of AAR data from marine, terrestrial, and coastal stratigraphic sequences. All currently active labs plan to continue to upload data to the site, but others who have used AAR data in their publications should consider including their results in the NOAA database. Scientists interested in contributing data are encouraged to contact the authors. *http://www.inqua2011.ch/?a=programme&subnavi=sessions&id=80

Research Report: Dynamics of the Sagebrush-Steppe Environment: Preliminary Investigations at Dot Cave, Minidoka County, Idaho

Kenneth P. Cannon, Department of Sociology, Social Work, Anthropology, Utah State University

In July 2012 Utah State University (USU) began a multi-year project Understanding Landscape Response to Climate Change through Microfaunal Analysis funded by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The goals of the project are to recover long-term records of microfauna from lava tube sites in southern Idaho to use as proxy for understanding climate and landscape change during the late Quaternary. The initial investigations involved the excavation of a one-meter square unit in Dot Cave, a lava tube formed in the Late Pleistocene Laidlaw Park Kipuka. The cave has been populated by raptors, packrats, and coyotes. Each of these has contributed to a substantial deposit of microfaunal prey species that hand-auguring suggests is at least 3 meters in depth. The core length and the age of the flow suggest there may be a long microfaunal record present in the deposits. Graduate and undergraduate students from USU and undergraduate and high school students from New Jersey participated in the field work. Dr. George Crothers of the University of Kentucky assisted as co-Field Director.

Dot Cave Excavations, 2012

The cave has a main room that is approximately 7 m along a north-south axis and 10 m along an east-west axis. The main room is approximately 8-10 m in height. Two passages are also present to the east. These passages have a low entrance but open into larger rooms. The most southeast of the passages is moist and may have water present during pluvial periods.

Excavations were conducted in 5-cm arbitrary levels with all sediments retained. In order to reduce bulk, sediments were dry-screened through 1/16-inch mesh. A control sample of sediments was retained from the 1/16-inch matrix. Sorting of the materials were conducted in the field and continued during the Fall semester of 2011 as an independent study class by USU undergraduate Martin Welker.

Preliminary investigations at Dot Cave suggest it is an important site for the collection of stratified micromammal remains for reconstructing landscape response to climate change over the course of the Holocene, and potentially, into the Pleistocene. Future work will continue at the site and include other lava tube sites in the region, as well as collaborating with Dr. Andrea Brunelle of the University of Utah on collecting regional pollen records in the sagebrush-steppe. Dr. Emily Jones of the University of New Mexico is co-PI on the project and Dr. Suzann Henrikson of the BLM is the project coordinator.

Microfaunal remains from Dot Cave Excavations

Research Report: Great Lakes stratigraphy and history

Paul Karrow, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo

Our basic stratigraphic framework is built from correlation of distinctive till sheets and inferred ice advances and retreats of Great Lakes ice lobes. Interbedded, sometimes fossiliferous, non-glacial deposits provide records of past environments between ice advances and are the chief source of datable plant material to the 50 ka limit of radiocarbon, as well as the potential application of other methods such as luminescence and amino acid racemization dating. Fossils recovered by wet-sieving commonly yield plant macrofossils, molluscs, ostracodes, insects, and microvertebrates (mammals and fish). Sites presently under study in southern Ontario include Zorra (limestone quarry exposure) and the UW campus site (borehole-based stratigraphy), both revealing intradrift channel fills of probable mid-Wisconsin age.

Studies continue of the perplexing Innerkip site, which, like Zorra, is near Woodstock. A simple stratigraphy of three late Wisconsin tills there overlies a fossiliferous silt, peat and another fossiliferous silt on Devonian limestone, with a total drift thickness of about 10 m. Past dating has yielded varied results from radiocarbon, TL, and U-series, and fossils have indicated past interstadial environments with inconsistent warm elements. More detailed study aims to clarify and hopefully resolve the inconsistencies. This work is conducted in cooperation with staff of the Ontario Geological Survey and several experts on fossil groups.

The Great Lakes history theme is focused on lakes of the Huron basin, with the latest manifestation being in the Bruce Peninsula area between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. George Stanley, who named the lower Algonquin levels, did unpublished work there in the 1930s. Studies of the last decade include shoreline surveys of the Lake Algonquin to Nipissing sequence and documentation of fossil assemblages of the Nipissing phase, the latter of which transgressed part of the area about 5 ka, isolating the northern Bruce Peninsula from the mainland to the south. The large island of the northern Bruce Peninsula was later rejoined to the mainland as outlet downcutting and isostatic uplift lowered Huron basin water level. A ms. describing eroded bedrock Algonquin shorelines at Cabot Head awaits a publication decision and another well-advanced ms. on shoreline surveys and paleobiotic records is in preparation.

As AMQUA is an interdisciplinary organization, perhaps others share my concern over the shrinking human resources for some of this work. Commonly, as experienced specialists retire or die, they are not replaced. This trend is strengthened by the hard economic times where positions close out to help shrinking budgets. Identification of suitable willing specialists has long depended on personal contacts and enquiries, but with the loss of experts, so go the contacts. Could AMQUA play a role in preparing a directory of such specialists, who are willing to do such work? The directory would define qualifications and areas of interest and any necessary funding.

Research Report: Geoarchaeological Investigations of the Submerged Continental Shelf on Florida's Gulf Coast, 2008 to Present

J. M. Adovasio and C. Andrew Hemmings, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, Mercyhurst University, Erie, PA

Since 2007, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in conjunction with a variety of collaborating institutions and principally funded by NOAA and Mercyhurst College, Erie, Pennsylvania, has been conducting geoarchaeological research in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. This research was generated by an exponentially growing interest in the geomorphological history of late Pleistocene coastal environments and the anthropogenic utilization(s) of such, now inundated, late Pleistocene/early Holocene littoral contexts. Moreover, it was directly stimulated by the unraveling of the venerable Clovis-first colonization hypothesis by a series of pivotal terrestrial discoveries throughout the Americas15. Data from sites like Meadowcroft Rockshelter in southwestern Pennsylvania1-8, Monte Verde in Chile10,11, Gault in Texas9, Cactus Hill in Virginia13,14, and a series of early coastal sites in Peru12 conclusively showed that not only were linguistically and genetically disparate populations in the New World well before the so-called Clovis bench mark of 11,500–12,000 RCYBP, but also that their lifestyles and techno-economic adaptations were much more varied than previously envisioned. Since these early populations would have had access to now submerged coastal areas, we determined to systematically investigate one such "case" (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Bathymetric map of survey area.

In 2007, we submitted to NOAA a successful proposal which postulated that now-inundated environments in littoral zones such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico should contain evidence of earlier coastlines with intact beach features, such as dune ridges, as well as indications of the initial anthropogenic use of such coastal environments. We also postulated that it should be possible to identify the channels and related geomorphological features of Florida's west coast karst river systems which intersected these submerged coastlines during the late Pleistocene. As such, rivers would have been magnets for human occupation/utilization and, by extension, early human habitations should be located in close juxtaposition to them. We suggested that the eastern Gulf of Mexico—specifically within an area paralleling the arc of the Ocala Uplift zone—was an ideal locus for the location, identification, and exploration of inundated coastal environments.

The underwater research conducted in 2008 and 2009 has generated a tremendous amount of side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profile data, including over 2,000 targets of interest. In 2009, many of these targets were directly examined and/or sampled by technical diving archaeologists. Highlights of the 2008–2009 field seasons include the documentation of two lengthy paleo river systems and the identification of numerous intact, infilled karst features. A variety of samples were diver-collected from sites 13–40 meters deep and up to 150 kilometers offshore. Of particular importance to our understanding of this inundated Pleistocene landscape is the delineation of the relict Suwannee River channel. This feature has been located in nine separate areas extending nearly 175 kilometers into the Gulf of Mexico on the southeastern edge of the Florida Middle Grounds. The terrestrial expression of this river is replete with Paleoindian sites and it is assumed that the paleo channel is, likewise, flanked by early occupations. Perhaps most interestingly, during the 2009 project, scuba divers recovered bedrock limestone samples from several locations immediately adjacent to the buried Suwannee channel, three of which contain desilicifying chert (Figure 2). Like their terrestrial counterparts, such areas would have been magnets for the prehistoric utilization of this vast submerged landscape.

Figure 2. Divers examining a chert specimen from a now inundated outcrop.

Though the 2010 dive season was curtailed, then aborted, by inclement weather, we successfully relocated the most promising targets which will be investigated during the 2012 field season. We continue to anticipate that this research will shed light on the early human use of North American coastal environments and have significant implications on much broader issues relating to the peopling of the New World.

References Cited

1 Adovasio, J. M., J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1990. The Meadowcroft Rockshelter Radiocarbon Chronology 1975–1990. American Antiquity 55:348–354.

2 Adovasio, J. M., J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1992. Never Say Never Again: Some Thoughts on Could Haves and Might Have Beens. American Antiquity 57:327–331.

3 Adovasio, J. M., J. Donahue, R. Stuckenrath, and R. C. Carlisle. 1989. The Meadowcroft Radiocarbon Chronology 1975–1989: Some Ruminations. Paper presented at the First World Summit Conference on the Peopling of the Americas, University of Maine, Orono.

4 Adovasio, J. M., J. D. Gunn, J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1975. Excavations at Meadowcroft Rockshe1ter. 1973–1974: A Progress Report. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 45(3):1–30.

5 Adovasio, J. M., J. D. Gunn, J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1977. Meadowcroft Rockshelter: Retrospect 1976. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 47(2–3):1–93.

6 Adovasio, J. M., J. D. Gunn, J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1977. Progress Report on the Meadowcroft Rockshelter–A 16.000 Year Chronicle. In Amerinds and Their Paleoenvironments in Northeastern North America, edited by W. S. Newman and B. Salwen. pp. 37–159. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 228.

7 Adovasio, J. M., J. D. Gunn, J. Donahue, and R. Stuckenrath. 1978. Meadowcroft Rockshelter 1977: An Overview. American Antiquity 43(4):632–651.

8 Carlisle, R. C., and J. M. Adovasio (editors). 1982. Meadowcroft: Collected Papers on the Archaeology of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and the Cross Creek Drainage. Prepared for the Symposium "The Meadowcroft Rockshelter Rolling Thunder Review: Last Act." Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Minneapolis, Minnesota April 14–17, 1982.

9 Collins, M. B. 2002. The Gault Site, Texas, and Clovis Research. Athena Review 3(2).

10 Dillehay, T. D. 1989. The Paleoenvironmental Context. Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, vol. 1. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

11 Dillehay, T. D. 1997. The Archaeological Context and Interpretation. Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, vol. 2. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

12 Dillehay, T. D. 2000. The Settlement of the Americas : A New Prehistory. Thomas D. Dillehay. Basic Books, New York.

13 McAvoy, J. M., J. C. Baker, J. K. Feathers, R. L. Hodges, L. J. McWeeney, and T. R. Whyte. 2000. Summary of Research at the Cactus Hill Archaeological Site, 44SX202, Sussex County, Virginia. Report to the National Geographic Society in Compliance with Stipulations of Grant #6345-98. Nottaway River Survey, Sandston, Virginia.

14 McAvoy, J. M., and L. D. McAvoy. 1997. Archaeological Investigations of Site 44SX202, Cactus Hill, Sussex County Virginia. Research Report Series No. 8. Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond.

15 Vialou, Denis (editor). 2011. Peuplements et Prehistoire en Americques. Collection Documents Prehistoriques No. 28. Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Paris.

AMQUA Councilor Profiles

Kim Cobb, Geochronology, Geophysics, Geochemistry Councilor

Kim Cobb is an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Kim was born in Madison, VA, and grew up in Pittsfield, MA. She became interested in oceanography during her sophomore year in high school, when she attended a summer program at the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute. She obtained her BA from Yale University in 1996, majoring in biology and geology, with a minor in art history. In 1994 she attended a summer program at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, in La Jolla, CA, which motivated her to to pursue a graduate degree in Oceanography at Scripps. After earning her Ph.D. in Oceanography in 2002, she spent two years at Caltech in the Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences as a postdoctoral fellow before joining the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2004. Kim has sailed on six oceanographic cruises as part of her research, which is based in the tropical Pacific. She has also led five caving expeditions to the rainforests of Borneo for her research. She is very active in community outreach, giving scientific lectures to a wide variety of groups. In what little spare time she has, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and sewing. Her husband, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, is also an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at Georgia Tech. They have a daughter named Tessa, born in 2007, a son named Isaac, born in 2009, and twin daughters Sasha and Zara, born in 2011.

Steve Holen, Archaeology Councilor

Steven Holen, Ph.D., is curator of archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS). He joined the Museum in 2001 after completing his doctorate in anthropology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Holen has more than 40 years of experience in Great Plains archaeology and extensive experience with public education in a museum setting. His research has focused on the Clovis people—the earliest well-known North American human culture that is 13,000 years old. He has studied Clovis use and long-distance movement of stone tools in the central Great Plains of North America. He has also excavated several pre-Clovis mammoth sites that date between 14,000 and 19,000 years old. These sites are significant because they reveal evidence that humans were in North America long before the Clovis people. This is one of the most hotly debated topics in North American archaeology.

From 1999 to 2001, Dr. Holen worked as state archaeologist and tribal liaison for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in South Dakota, where he directed the agency’s archaeological program and acted as liaison to nine tribal groups in the area. Previous to this position, he was a research assistant professor and public archaeologist at the Nebraska Archaeological Survey at the University of Nebraska State Museum. During his position at the University of Nebraska (1993–99), Dr. Holen directed the archaeological research program and administered a major cooperative agreement between the museum and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to conduct surveys and excavations in Nebraska and Kansas. He also worked closely with the University’s Native American Graves and Repatriation Act compliance efforts, as well as with numerous public groups including amateur archaeologists, museum members, students, local historical societies, and the general public.

Areas of Expertise: Paleo-Indian occupation of the western Great Plains, public education in archaeology, Native American archaeology of the Great Plains, early human occupation of North America, geoarchaeology and paleoecology, and stone tool technology and long-distance movement of stone tools across the Great Plains.

Darrell Kaufman, Terrestrial Geoprocesses Councilor

Darrell Kaufman is a Professor of Geology and Environmental Science at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He holds degrees in geosciences from University of Colorado (Boulder), University of Washington (Seattle), and University of California (Santa Cruz). His research focuses on geologic records of past environmental changes, particularly those related to climate variability on decadal to millennial time scales. He and his students are currently studying late Quaternary climate change and volcanic activity using sediment cores from lakes across Alaska. He combines the lake core data with geomorphic evidence for glacier fluctuations. Kaufman has led large multi-investigator projects leading to major syntheses focusing on climate variability in the arctic and subarctic. Kaufman directs the Amino Acid Geochronology Laboratory, an NSF multi-user facility. The lab analyzes Quaternary fossils for a broad range of geoscience applications, including: deep-sea sediment chronology, mollusk death assemblage time-averaging, sea-level history, terrestrial outcrop chronostratigraphy, and land-snail evolution. He is co-editor for amino acid geochronology for the journal Quaternary Geochronology. He has published more than 100 journal articles and has edited special issues. He teaches courses in Quaternary geology, geochronology, and climate change.

Brent Ward, Geohistory Councilor

Brent Ward is a Quaternary Geologist in the Earth Sciences Department at Simon Fraser University. He received his BSc and PhD from the University of Alberta. Brent spent three years in Ottawa with the Geological Survey of Canada, mapping in the North West Territories. In Prince George he studied landslides and slope stability mapping for the Ministry of Forests. He has been at SFU since 1997.

Most of his research is in the Canadian Cordillera, mainly in Yukon, and focused on resolving glacial history and associated paleoenvironmental reconstructions. He is presently working on scientific questions such as: What were glacier configurations for MIS 4 and 6 for the northern CIS?; What were the ages of initiation of deglaciation for the different lobes of the northern CIS during MIS 2?; and what were the paleoenvironments for MIS 5 and 3 in southern Yukon? His research is field-based with extensive collaboration during analyses to bring a wide range of geochronologic and paleoenvironmental techniques to solve these questions. His graduate students work in the Canadian Cordillera as well as other parts of northern Canada on projects ranging from terrain and surficial geology mapping, stratigraphy/paleoenvironmental reconstructions and landslides.

Brent is also a Councilor on CANQUA and was the main organizer for the 2009 CANQUA-CGRG meeting at SFU. He is also involved in registration and curriculum issues with the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC.

Connie Woodhouse, Paleoclimatology Councilor

Connie Woodhouse is an associate professor in the School of Geography and Development, with joint appointments at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. The main focus of her research is using tree-ring data to investigate past climate variability, including precipitation, drought, streamflow, temperature, and circulation, with a geographic focus on western North America. The main timescale of interest is the past 2000 years. One particular areas of interest has been reconstructing past streamflow to produce information that is not only useful to scientific studies but also to resource planning and management. The result from some of this work, in collaboration with many colleagues, is the TreeFlow web page. Another area of study is the North American Monsoon, and the use of intra-annual tree-ring widths to develop records of past monsoon variability for the American Southwest (see http://monsoon.ltrr.arizona.edu/index.html). Other topics of interest include investigation of the circulation features that influence hydroclimatic variability in western North America; the use of multiproxy approaches to more fully understand past climate; and research on changes in treeline in the central Rocky Mountains based on remnant wood above the current treeline and the modern forest. In addition, Woodhouse is interested in the connection between science and decision making, and how scientists can more effectively engage with resource managers and policy makers. She is especially interested in the need to train graduate students to be effective at working with decision makers. She has developed a graduate certificate program, Connecting Environmental Science and Decision Making to help address this.

Woodhouse earned an MS in geography at the University of Utah (1989) and a PhD in geosciences at the University of Arizona (1996). Her post-doc was funded by a National Research Council fellowship with NOAA in Boulder, and in 1999, she joined the University of Colorado Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. In 2000, she was hired as a physical scientist at the NOAA Paleoclimatology Branch in Boulder, and in 2006, moved to the University of Arizona.

Passings

Dr. Norton G. Miller, emeritus curator of bryology and Quaternary paleobotany at the New York State Museum, and a long-time member of the American Quaternary Association, passed away on December 7th, 2011. A native of Western NY, Norton was born in Buffalo and graduated with high honors in 1963 from the State University of New York at Buffalo (BA, Biology). In 1969, Norton received his Ph.D. in botany from Michigan State University, where he also received graduate training in geology. Reflecting his personal roots, Norton's Ph.D. dissertation focused on late glacial and postglacial vegetation change in southwestern New York which ultimately became a NY State Museum Bulletin (NYSM Bulletin 420, 1973). Norton spent his early career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard University. In 1982, he was hired and spent the rest of his career at the NY State Museum. Norton had an amazingly productive professional career spanning more than 45 years. He conducted field research across the contiguous US, Alaska, British Columbia, the Canadian Arctic, and northern regions of Europe and Asia. He was author, or editor of, eight books and well over 100 research articles published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes right up to his death / the present. For those researchers working in the Northeast, he made enduring contributions to understanding late glacial and postglacial paleoenvironments and landscapes. Norton saw great value in interdisciplinary collaboration to productively address and update Quaternary research questions, as exemplified by his editorship with Richard Laub and David Steadman of the first Smith Symposium Proceedings (Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Paleoecology and Archaeology of the Eastern Great Lakes Region. Bulletin, Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 33, 1988). He served as editor and as editorial board member of a dozen professional journals, and mentored many graduate students in botany and biology. He was a regular participant in annual field meetings of Friends of the Pleistocene (northeastern section). Norton was a man of great energy, good humor, and tremendous intellect -- the world is a poorer place without him.

modified with permission from a notice by Andrew Kozlowski, Robert Feranec, Jonathan C. Lothrop, Lorinda Leonardi, and Carol Griggs

Conference Announcements

International Biogeography Society 6th Biennial Conference

Miami, Florida, January 9-12, 2013

The core of the meeting will be four successive symposia on broad foundational and cutting-edge topics and approaches in biogeography and macroecology, each with a suite of leading international scientists as well as openings for contributed papers:

  1. Conservation paleobiology: using knowledge of past ecosystems to inform conservation priorities
  2. Beyond Bergmann: New perspectives on the biogeography of traits
  3. Island Biogeography: new syntheses
  4. Predicting species and biodiversity in a warmer world: are we doing a good job?

The meeting also has 12 sessions of contributed papers on key topics including and not limited to: neotropical biogeography, climate change biogeography, paleobiogeography, phylogeography, marine biogeography, global biogeography, and disturbance regimes and biogeography. A keynote lecture will be given by the Alfred Russel Wallace Award winner, recognizing a lifetime of outstanding contributions to biogeography. On 9th January, four workshops will be held: spatial analysis in macroecology, phylogenetic analysis in macroecology, communicating biogeography, and Bayesian inference in biogeography. Field excursions to a number of protected natural areas including Everglades National Park will be organized for 9th and 13th January.

For more information, see http://www.biogeography.org/html/Meetings/index.html

XIIIth International Palynological Congress (IPC XIII) and IXth International Organization of Palaeobotany Conference (IOPC IX)

Tokyo, Japan, August 23-30, 2012

The joint congress of IPC/IOPC 2012 will be held at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan, from August 23th to August 30th, 2012. More than forty symposia and sessions, covering a wide rage of topics such as palaeoecology, palaeobotany, palaeoclimatology, geography, ecology and biology from the Paleozoic to the Holocene, are planned. Pre-, mid- and post-field trips are planned in palynological and palaeobotanical sites in Japan and its vicinity. The registration and abstract submission have started in January, 2012. We continuously update the congress web site for information for the congress. http://www.psj3.org/ipc-iopc2012/Welcome.html

Workshop Announcement

Climate Refugia: Joint Inference from Fossils, Genetics, and Models

University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, August 1-3, 2012.

Co-organized by Dan Gavin (University of Oregon), Solomon Dobrowski (University of Montana) and Feng Sheng Hu (University of Illinois)

This workshop brings together scientists for three days of presentations and discussion on the topic of persistence of plant and animal populations through periods of significant climate change. What can be learned from the history of abrupt climate changes that can help gauge extinction risk from ongoing climate changes? Results from distinctly different fields must be simultaneously considered to understand the complex histories of any species. A true "joint inference" from phylogeography, paleoecology, and species distribution modeling/paleoclimatology remains elusive, but recent advances within each field may allow for more explicit interactions between scientists. The workshop is aimed at scientists who have, or wish to, work across at least two of these three disciplines.

Space for attending this workshop is limited, and a limited amount of travel funding is available for early-career and international participants. A preliminary program and applications for attending the workshop (due April 15) are located at: http://geography.uoregon.edu/envchange/refugia/

Newsletter Comments Or Contributions?

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If you have suggestions for content or something to contribute to the newsletter, be it a short announcement or a lengthier research report, please contact either Jessica Blois or Dolly Freidel.

Jessica Blois
Center for Climatic Research
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1225 W. Dayton Rd.
Madison, WI 53706 USA
blois@wisc.edu

Dolly Freidel
Department of Geography and Global Studies
Sonoma State University
525 Duncan Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401 USA
freidel@sonoma.edu