QRA MEETINGS : 2008/2009

NON-QRA MEETINGS - click here

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NOTE: Offers to arrange meetings are always welcome and should be forwarded to the Meetings Officer:
Dr David Roberts
Department of Geography,
Durham University,
South Road,
Durham,
DH1 3LE
Email: d.h.roberts@durham.ac.uk

19th - 22nd August 2008 : QRA Postgraduate Symposium, University of Liverpool

8th - 11th September 2008 : QRA Short Field Meeting, Glen Roy and Adjoining Areas : a contribution to the International Year of Planet Earth, in association with Scottish Natural Heritage

5th - 7th January 2009 : QRA Annual Discussion Meeting, University of Oxford. The human dimension in rapid environmental change.

September 2009 : QRA Short Field Meeting, Canada (Joint with CANQUA)

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19th - 22nd August 2008
Quaternary Research Association Postgraduate Symposium

University of Liverpool


Building upon the recent successes from past national and international QRA Postgraduate Symposia, The University of Liverpool invites you to attend the Quaternary Research Association’s 7th International Postgraduate Symposium situated in the heart of the European Capital of Culture 2008.

Abstracts are welcomed from the full range of Quaternary sciences and all are encouraged to present either an oral or poster presentation in this relaxed, friendly and informal atmosphere.

Participation is particularly encouraged from those at an early stage in their academic career wishing to gain experience in presenting to a friendly audience and foster links with like-minded Quaternary scientists.

For more information please see: http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~qra2008

 

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5th - 7th January 2009

QRA Annual Discussion Meeting

The Human Dimension in Rapid Environmental Change

Research Laboratory for Archaeology, University of Oxford

 The Research Laboratory for Archaeology, and the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, will host the QRA’s Annual Discussion meeting in January 2009. The main focus will be the role that abrupt environmental changes have played in the direction and pace of human evolution and adaptation, during the Quaternary. Papers and posters will be invited which address a range of topics relevant to this theme, including: (a) hominin evolution, interactions and extinctions; (b) the rise to dominance of Homo sapiens sapiens; (c) abrupt environmental influences on behavioural innovations, including the agricultural ‘revolution’; (d) the biological (DNA) evidence for human dispersal and development; (e) the geographical (landscape) backdrop to the human colonisation and abandonment of different parts of the world; (f) the links between abrupt environmental change and ‘step changes’ in human development and/or dispersal; (g) the degree to which human development has been ‘forced’ by abrupt climatic or other environmental changes – including the need for high precision archives of environmental and human change. These topics are by no means exclusive: other topics will also be considered providing they are relevant to the general theme. Submissions which set out innovatory strategies for interrogating the relationship between human adaptation and environmental change will be particularly welcome. The meeting will be multi-disciplinary in focus and scope. It will encourage interaction and debate between archaeologists, palaeobiologists, chronologists, Quaternary stratigraphers/ palaeoecologists, and anthropologists. It is hoped that the meeting will be co-sponsored by one of the main Archaeology societies. We also intend that the conference proceedings will be published in an appropriate journal.

The meeting will be of three days duration and will run from 5th to the 7th January, 2009. The conference will be based at St Anne’s college, Oxford, in an auditorium which holds over 150 seats, and there will be appropriate adjacent space for displaying posters and for informal meetings. Accommodation will be available in St Anne’s, while there is plenty of scope in Oxford for some delegates to make private arrangements for accommodation. Buffet lunches will be available during the conference and formal conference dinner will take place in St Anne’s dining hall. Registration will include a book of abstracts, lunches, teas and coffees, but evening meals will be optional.

Full details of the meeting, registration and abstract submission forms will be available in the next issue of Quaternary newsletter and will also be linked to the Research laboratory for Archaeology website (http://www.rlaha.ox.ac.uk/) later in 2008.

The Local Organising Committee for the proposed meeting comprises Simon Blockley, Nick Barton, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Peter Ditchfield, Christine Lane, Mark Pollard and Anna Oh, all based in the School of Archaeology, Oxford. Non-Oxford personnel will be invited to join the science organising committee in due course.

Please contact simon.blockley@rlaha.ox.ac.uk for further details.

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September 2009

(Please note: these are provisional details only. The organising team are in the process of confirming the trip schedule and this will be posted here on the website as soon as possible)

Proposed joint QRA/CANQUA trip to the Canadian prairies

David J.A. Evans (Durham University) & Rene Barendregt (University of Lethbridge) (co-leader Hester Jiskoot, University of Lethbridge)

Location: Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan (accommodation in different towns between Wellsch Valley, Saskatchewan and Waterton, Alberta).

Date: September 2009 (10 days)

Maximum participants: 50

Travel: Flight to Calgary and then transport in minibuses or coach.

Itinerary and content:
Overall theme: Late Tertiary - Quaternary stratigraphy, glacial geology/geomorphology, landscape development and archaeology of SW Canada.

Sub themes:

  • Tertiary/early Quaternary river systems and the deposition of preglacial fluvial deposits.
  • Evidence for the earliest glaciations in westernmost North America based on biostratigraphy and palaeomagnetism.
  • The sedimentary and stratigraphic evidence for the coalescence of Cordilleran and Laurentide ice in Alberta and the status of the “ice-free corridor” (including chronology of events based on biostratigraphy and CN dating).
  • Till sedimentology and glacial geomorphology of the SW Laurentide Ice Sheet, focusing particularly on:
    • palaeo-ice streams and lobes;
    • till deposition;
    • the pros and cons of the megaflood hypothesis for glacial landform development;
    • glacial landsystems;
    • glacitectonic landforms and structures
  • Postglacial evolution of the prairies focusing on:
    • palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from lake sediment records;
    • palaeo dunefields;
    • spillway and early river incision and badlands development.
  • The archaeology and Holocene environmental history pertaining to the people of the first nations, including visits to the interpretive centres at Writing-on-Stone and Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump.
  • Paraglacial landslides and rock slope failures, including visits to Frank Slide in the Rockies and to the rotational failures developed in Quaternary valley fills on the prairies.

Day 1 - Dinosaur Provincial Park area (pre-glacial Empress Group sediments and multiple tills + tour of the Dinosaur badlands)

Day 2 - Wellsch Valley Sections (pre-glacial and early Quaternary stratigraphy + first evidence of prairie glaciation)

Day 3 - Medicine Hat sections (pre-glacial sediments and glacial and glacilacustrine sediments, particularly multiple tills with interstadial deposits)

Day 4 - Cypress Hills (glacial geomorphology and sediments at the margins of Tertiary monadnock/Quaternary nunatak + Late Quaternary & Holocene landslides + Holocene lake sediments)

Day 5 - Bow Island, Wolf Island, and Taber sections (glacial sediments, including multiple tills and spectacular glacitectonic structures in bedrock)

Day 6 - Milk River Canyon and Laurentide ice sheet meltwater channels; Pakowki Holocene sand dunes; Red Rock Coulee; push moraines sequences, flutings and glacitectonzed bedrock; Writing on Stone Park archaeological site

Day 7 - Del Bonita Tertiary monadnock and nunatak with periglacial structures; hummocky terrain and moraines of possible subglacial squeeze origin; Lethbridge city sections (multiple tills, bedrock mega-rafts & preglacial sediments); Milk River Ridge Paleosol site

Day 8 – Brocket Section (multiple Laurentide & Cordilleran tills); Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump archaeological site; Frank Slide historical rock slope failure

Day 9 – Waterton National Park (glacial landforms and sediments) and Castle River sections (multiple Cordilleran tills)

Day 10 - Travers Dam/Lake McGregor glacial landforms and sediments including the esker system near Claresholm (central to the Shaw & Munro et al. subglacial megaflood hypothesis)

NB – there will be plenty of scope for discussions with local and UK based researchers about future collaborative research on the vast wealth of the Quaternary geology and geomorphology of the region.

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8th - 11th September 2008

QRA Autumn Short Field Meeting 2008

Glen Roy and adjacent areas: a contribution to the International Year of Planet Earth, in association with Scottish Natural Heritage

Organisers : Adrian Palmer, John Lowe, Jim Rose

Contributors: Colin Ballantyne, Doug Benn, Chao-Yuan Chen, Derek Fabel, John Lowe, Alison Macleod, Adrian Palmer, Jim Rose, Brian Sissons

Guest of Honour : Brian Sissons

Focus:
The 2008 autumn short field meeting will be based in Spean Bridge and will focus on the late Quaternary of Glen Roy and adjacent areas. Four field days are planned, during which some of the classic geomorphological and sedimentological features associated with the former ice-dammed lakes in Glen Roy, Glen Spean and Loch Laggan will be re-examined in the light of new evidence. Major developments since the QRA last visited the region in May, 1989 (Peacock & Cornish, 1989) include the construction of a varve chronology for the Roy and Laggan lakes, revision of Loch Lomond Readvance ice limits based on geomorphological mapping, new interpretations of the nature and genesis of ‘hummocky moraine’, cosmogenic nuclide dating of landforms and the parallel road surfaces, and the discovery of Icelandic volcanic ash layers in a number of lake sediment sequences. The new results enable refinement of the sequence, timing and duration of the ice-dammed lakes and of associated palaeoenvironmental events during the Lateglacial period. The programme will address and encourage debate on a diverse range of themes, including:

  • landscape evolution during the Lateglacial period
  • NEXTMAP digital terrain mapping: use in evaluating the Glen Roy evidence
  • reconstructions of the extent of ice cover in the Spean and Truim Valley and surrounding areas during the Loch Lomond Readvance
  • comparisons of the ice limits based on field mapping with numerical models of ice-cap development
  • controls over the timing of changes in lake levels during the Lateglacial
  • comparisons of the sequence of palaeoclimatic events in the Scottish Highlands with those inferred from other records obtained from the North Atlantic region, including the Greenland ice-core records
  • the tephrostratigraphy of the Lateglacial in Scotland: benefits and problems
  • application of cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating methods to the dating of surfaces within Glen Roy
  • the timing and impacts of abrupt climatic events in Scotland during the Lateglacial.

Provisional Programme:
Sunday September 7th: Travel to Spean Bridge
Evening introductory lecture

Monday 8th September: Pass of Drumochter and Upper Truim Valley
Topics: glacigenic landforms and sediments in Pass of Drumochter, Loch Garry area, Coire Mhic Sithe; Late Devensian ice sheet disintegration features and Lateglacial-early Holocene pollen and tephra records in Loch Etteridge; varved sediment and tephra records from eastern Loch Laggan
Contributors: Colin Ballantyne, Doug Benn, Simon Carr, John Lowe, Alison Macleod, Adrian Palmer

Tuesday 9th September: Glen Roy main valley
Topics: Termination of Loch Lomond Readvance in the vicinity of the Glen Roy ‘Viewpoint’; the age and genesis of major debris fans within the valley; evidence for paraglacial activity; indurated till; varved sediment sequences and their significance; cosmogenic nuclide exposure dates and their significance.
Contributors: Colin Ballantyne, Chaoyuan Chen, Derek Fabel, John Lowe, Alison Macleod, Adrian Palmer, Jim Rose

Wednesday 10th September: Glen Turret and adjacent upland
Topics: the Turret fan; ice-marginal landforms and sediment exposures in Glen Turret; evidence of radial ice flow and fluted landforms on the uplands adjacent to Glen Turret; the limits of the Loch Lomond Readvance in Glen Roy and tributary valleys
Contributors: Doug Benn, Chaoyuan Chen, John Lowe, Adrian Palmer, Jim Rose

Thursday 11th September: Caol Lairig
Topics: extensive exposures in this valley provide particularly good access to a complex suite of sedimentary formations; the day will entail a long circuit around a number of key features and exposures which collectively provide new insights into the sequence of events in lower Glen Roy during the last glacial stage.
Contributors: Chao-Yuan Chen, Adrian Palmer, John Lowe, Jim Rose

Friday 12th September: Depart.

It should be noted that all days of the field meeting will involve some long hikes over mountainous and potentially waterlogged terrain, remote from any modern convenience or amenity.

The programme is subject to alteration, with the possibility of contributions from other personnel. An up-dated programme, details of costs (including registration fee) and a booking form will appear in the February 2008 and June 2008 circulars.

Further details on the field trip are available on the QRA website (http://www.qra.org.uk) or can be obtained by contacting Adrian Palmer (e-mail: a.palmer@rhul.ac.uk; Telephone: 01784-443507)

Reference:
Peacock, J.D. & Cornish, R. (Editors). 1989. Glen Roy Area Field Guide. Quaternary Research Association, Cambridge, 69pp.

Suggested party size: 45 participants

Accommodation:
This will be centred on Spean Bridge, a village on the main Fort William to Inverness and Skye roads, just 10 to 15 minutes drive from the entrance to Glen Roy. A local guest house and restaurateur will organise accommodation to our specifications, ranging in type and price from bunk house through BnB to Guest House. Prices will range from ca. £17 to £70 per night. For food, there is a hotel, a Little Chef and a couple of small restaurants in Spean Bridge, two hotels offering meals in Roy Bridge (5 to 10 minute drive away) and lots of choices in Fort William (20 minutes from Spean Bridge by car).

Travel:
Spean Bridge is at the junction of the A82 and A86, some 10 Km NE of Fort William (O.S. grid reference NN 224 818). The railway line from Glasgow to Fort William also passes through, and stops at, Spean Bridge and nearby Roy Bridge, though there are only a couple of services per day. Travel by train is not expensive if booked well in advance. Where possible, we will arrange to pick up from Roy Bridge and Spean Bridge stations. IMPORTANT NOTE: Travel during the excursions will be by hired minibuses only. Private cars must not used because there is single lane access throughout the length of Glen Roy, very limited parking space, and it is a National Nature Reserve managed by SNH.

Evening meetings:
We will have exclusive use of a local Village Hall for evening lectures and social gatherings. On one of the evening we will stage a public lecture for local residents and tourists, as part of our engagement with IYPE. This, we hope, will be followed by a Ceilidh.

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