PROTOCOL of Paleopedology Commission Business Meeting at V International Symposium and Field Workshop in Suzdal, Russia, July 10-17, 2000

Chairpersons: Arnt Bronger, Alexander Makeev.

Present: 36members

Introduction

Paleopedology Commission still keeps it’s status as a full commission at INQUA and as a working group in IUSS

The Commission structure, approved at the business meeting during XV INQUA Congress in Durban and approved by INQUA general Assembly looks as following:

Commission officers:

President: Prof. Dr. Arnt Bronger (Germany)

Vice-President: Dr. Alan Palmer (New Zealand)

Secretary: Dr. Alexander Makeev (Russia)

Paleopedology Commission liase with INQUA Vice-President Prof. An Zhizheng (China).

Commission full members:

R. Amit (Israel), G. Botha (RSA), J.A. Catt (UK), R. Kemp (UK), D. Krohling (Argentina), R. Langohr (Belgium), R. Morrison (USA), D. Nettleton (USA), M. Singer (USA), B. Van Vliet-Lanoe (France), L. Zoller (Germany)

Commission corresponding members: more than 400. (www.fadr.msu.ru/list_of_members.html). Commission is trying to keep this list updated and ask the memebrs to inform the secretary (makeev@fadr.msu.ru) about all changes in the contact addresses.

Paleosol mailing list subscribers: 147

Paleosol web board visitors: up to 2000 hits per month

Commission working groups:

  1. Definitions and terminology, chairman J.A. Catt

  2. Classification of paleosols, chairman W.D. Nettleton

  3. Pedostratigraphy, chairman R. Morrison

  4. Methods of field and laboratory study, chairman R. Kemp

  5. Diagenesis of paleosols, chaiman B. Van Vliet-Lanoe

  6. Alluvial pedogenesis, chairman Whitney Autin

  7. Dating of paleosols, chaiman L.Zoeller

  8. Paleosols and Paleoclimatic Change in Eastern and Central Asia (PPCECA), chairman X-M Fang

  9. Inter-American group on Paleopedology, chairman M. Singer and R. Morrison

  10. Geoarchaeology, chairman A. Bettis

Communication with members is based mainly on Internet. Commission web site address is www.fadr.msu.ru/inqua. Commission bulletins are produced on an annual basis and distributed both electronically and in paper version. Commission keeps it’s paleosol mailing list (paleosol@fadr.msu.ru), combined with the web-board (www.fadr.msu.ru/inqua/discussions), relying on the activity of it’s members.

 

Commission publications

It was reported, that Commission is trying to ensure publication of full texts of papers, presented on it’s meetings. All the papers of the previous Commission meetings have been successfully published. The latest publications includes:

- Publications of the IV ISFWP (Lanzhou, China, 1998, thirty-eight reviewed papers) were published in Chinese Science Bulletin in July 1999 (vol.44,Supplement 1, pp. 1-263).

- Proceedings of the III ISFWP in Rauischholzhausen, Germany, 1997. Catena v. 41, # 1-3.

Preface and contents for these publications are included below.

Publication of papers, presented at Suzdal meeting was discussed. It was decided to publish the volume with meeting proceedings in a respected international journal. An editorial board for preparation of papers was approved as following:

F. Fabio Terribile, Italy (terribile@stat0.ispaim.na.cnr.it) - authors from Europe, Africa and both Americas

A.Makeev, Russia (makeev@fadr.msu.ru) – for authors from Russia, NIS, Asia and Australia

Soon after the meeting we got a nice offer from Prof. Norm Catto, Chief editor in Quaternary International, to publish the papers in a special volume of this journal in a shortest possible time.

Future meetings

Rather intense program of Commission meetings for the period till the next INQUA Congress was discussed. The following meetings are planned:

    1. VI ISFWP in Mexico-city, Mexico, October 7-17 2001. (Second Circular included below).
    2. XVII International Soil Science Congress (Bangkok, Thailand, 14-21 August 2002). It's General Theme is:"Soil Science: Confronting New Realities in the 21st century” "Commission will convene Paleopedology Symposium # 49 “Paleosols as a memory for understanding landscape history and environmental problems” (Convenor: A. Bronger). For further information please keep up with the Congress web site at http://www.17wcss.ku.ac.th.
    3. XVI INQUA Congress in Reno, Nevada, USA, August 2003. Desert Research Institute and the University and Community College System of Nevada have been selected to host the 16th Congress of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) in Reno, tentatively scheduled for July 28-August 6, 2003. The tentative theme of the 16th Congress is "Frontiers in Quaternary Research." The Congress is an ideal venue to learn about the latest research from around the world, on topics as diverse as:
  • ice ages and global warming
  • ice cores, marine cores, corals, tree rings, and speleothems
  • paleoclimates and climatic modelling
  • ocean circulation, ENSO, and the ocean-climate linkage
  • sea-level changes and coastal evolution
  • geomorphology, paleohydrology, and landscape evolution
  • neotectonics, volcanism, and tephrochronology
  • geochronology and stratigraphy
  • loess, soils and paleosols
  • paleoecology and paleontology
  • global carbon budgets
  • human evolution and archaeology

Congress organizers encourage all prospective participants to contribute to Symposium program. Please forward your vision on Paleopedology Commission Symposium title and program to our president Arnt Bronger. You may also follow the Congress news at http://www.dri.edu/Projects/INQUA.