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Newsletter 2011-2

Chairman : Dr. David Bridgland University of Durham United Kingdom [email protected]

Secretary : Dr. Stéphane Cordier Université Paris Est Créteil Val de Marne France [email protected]

Executive members Prof. Jef Vandenberghe (Past Chairman) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Netherlands [email protected]

Prof. Juergen Herget University of Bonn Germany [email protected] visit our Website : http://tolu.giub.uni-bonn.de/herget/FLAG/

1 Please send to Stephane Cordier any information (workshop, field-trips, PhD defense or report etc) you would like to read in our next Newsletter!

Update of the FLAG-membership list If you wish not to receive the next FLAG Newsletters please just send a “no” reply to: [email protected]

CONTENTS

- Report of Jef Vandenberghe's retirement symposium (Amsterdam, 1st April 2011) - FLAG session at INQUA : the programme - Special issue of the FLAG session at INQUA: call for papers - Announcement : FLAG business meeting at INQUA - Palaeoflood session at INQUA : the programme - Information about the LUCIFS research group - Information about the Geologists' Association meeting on Geoconservation (September 2011) - for your agenda : FLAG 2012 in Luxemburg

2 Report of Jef Vandenberghe's retirement symposium

The symposium in honour of our past Chairman Jef Vandenberghe was held in Amsterdam the 1st of April 2011. Over 60 colleagues and friends attended, mainly from the Netherlands but also from Europe (including Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Serbia) and abroad. This one day symposium included two main sessions and eleven talks. The morning session, chaired by Kees Kasse, was composed of five invited talks focusing on the main topics which dominated Jef's research during his fruitful career. The talk of Hugh French (University of Ottawa, Canada) focused on the cryostratigraphy in periglacial systems, while those of Huayu Lu (University of Nanjing, China) and Slobodan Markovic (University of Novi-Sad, Serbia) were devoted to synthesis about loess, both in China and in Europe (mainly Serbia), with an attempt to unravel the links between loess sedimentation and climate change. In between, Phil Gibbard (University of Cambridge) provided an overview of the fluvial response of temperate rivers to Pleistocene climate cycles. This presentation, mainly based on case studies from England, underlined the high influence of cold periods on fluvial activity and the importance of thresholds in the explanation of climate forcing. Finally, Gert Verstraeten (Leuven University, Belgium) established a link between Jef's research and the geomorphological modelling performed at Leuven. The final, well illustrated lecture was provided by Jef himself. He demontrated the importance of using a multi-analysis approach in event correlation instead of a multiproxy approach, in other terms to take into account all the components of a sediment study (sedimentology, stratigraphy, chronology) to underline the possible occurrence of thresholds or delayed responses, and also to avoid miscorrelations. The afternoon session was chaired by Hans Renssen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). It provided the opportunity to some of Jef's former PhD students to present their past and present research. The presentations were arranged in chronological order, with Kees Kasse, Jef‟s first PhD Student (1985), as first speaker. Kees presented several case studies of his research focusing on the connections between fluvial activity, Holocene climate change and vegetation (palynology). Rene Isarin, who achieved his PhD in 1997, then reported about his job as a geoarchaeologist (specializing in environmental archaeology) in the Netherlands, presenting Jef as a necessary complement of Indiana Jones to underline the importance of performing palaeoenvironmental studies of archaeological contexts. Sasha Keestra (PhD in 2006) brought us back to the fluvial system, but focusing on present-day activity and the importance of both field work (including anecdotes derived from recent field work with Jef) and modelling. In contrast, fluvial archives were the main emphasis in the talk of Freek Busschers (PhD in 2007), dealing with the Rhine sedimentary complex in the Netherlands. This talk was illustrated by various 3D animations, providing the opportunity to discover the country "from all sides", and highlighting the necessary connections between fundamental research on fluvial archives and applied geosciences. The last talk was again given by Jef, and offered a well-illustrated overview of his research worldwide, leading us from America (Surinam, Canada) to Western and Central Europe (Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Poland etc) and Asia (Indonesia, Siberia, China). The session was closed by a short speech by Bauke Oudega, the Dean of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, who honoured Jef's involvement in the administration of the Faculty and underlined Jef's support of field trips with students.

A friendly reception closed the symposium, which (as during the coffee breaks and lunch) provided the opportunity for informal discussion amongst participants and, above all,

3 to pass informal congratulations to Jef. On behalf of the FLAG community, the executive board associated itself with all colleagues who attended the meeting, to wish to our past Chairman a pleasant, fruitful, and definitely 'fluvial' retirement.

Stéphane Cordier

Jef in the field with his PhD student Xianyan Wang

5 FLAG session at INQUA : the programme

Here is the content of Session 53 of INQUA (“Palaeohydrological archives, fluvial environments and surface-groundwater flow processes”) which was organized jointly by the FLAG and the GLOCOPH (Global Continental Palaeohydrology) research groups. The session will take place on Monday (25th) and Tuesday (26th) and include four oral subsessions (with one invited talk per session) and one poster subsession. The first two subsessions will be mainy devoted to palaeohydrology, the two last focusing on fluvial archives. The programme for oral presentations is as follows :

Subsession 1 (Monday 25th, 8.30-10.10) A.G. Brown - Uplift, Palaeoehydrology and Pleistocene Fluvial Sequences. A Comparison of Adjacent Catchments in Southern England. (invited talk) Jian Wang - Estimation of water discharge of Yangtze River at Nanjing reach in the Last Glaciation Maximum. Anna Sim - Hydrological variability in the Sydney region: A proxy record constructed from floodplain sediments of the Hawkesbury–Nepean River, south-east Australia. Stephen Chilcott - Effects of anthropogenic hydrological change on a dryland river: investigating the recent history of floodplain lakes (billabongs), Macintyre River, Australia. Marta Baró - Late Holocene flood frequencies and climate variability in high mountain environments inferred from Lütschine fan delta sediments, Swiss Alps.

Subsession 2 (Monday 25th, 10.50-12.30) Leszek Starkel - Rainy periods and floods recorded in continental facies as background for the Holocene climatostratigraphy (key study from Poland) (invited talk) Gerardo Benito - Rainfall-runoff modelling and palaeoflood hydrology applied to reconstruct centennial scale records of flooding and aquifer recharge in ungauged ephemeral rivers Laurent Devriendt - A 50 ka hydrological record from northern Australia inferred from the chemistry of ostracod valves: implications for the Australian monsoon Renzo Valloni - Hydrostratigraphy of Pleistocene alluvial fan and river plain deposits of the Po foreland basin Abi Stone - Recharge investigations above the Stampriet Aquifer in semi-arid Namibia using geochemical methods and environmental tracers; sand, salt and water. Vincenzo Picotti - Paleohydrology of the Salar de Atacama (Chile) in the last 70 ky from river terraces and halite cave morphology and deposits.

Poster subsession (Monday 25th, 14.45-15.50) The list of posters is available at : http://www.inqua2011.ch/?a=programme&subnavi=abstractlist&sessionid=53

Subsession 3 (Monday 25th, 15.50-17.30) Cornelis Kasse - Climate-driven fluvial changes and channel-belt abandonment during the last glacial-interglacial transition (Oude IJssel-Rhine valley, Germany) (invited talk) David Bridgland - Late Cenozoic Fluvial Archives: evidence for coupling between climate and landscape evolution Alessandro Fontana - LGM sedimentation in NE Italy: the continuity of alluvial systems from the Alpine glaciers to the Adriatic floor Stéphane Cordier - Geochronological reconstruction of the Pleistocene fluvial incision of the Moselle River and its main tributaries the Meurthe and Sarre Rivers (France, Germany) Falko Turner - Late Glacial climatic shifts and fluvial-environmental expressions: a multidisciplinary case study from middle Elbe river valley, Northern Germany

6 Cyril Castanet - Holocene fluvial responses to external drivers in the Northwestern Mediterranean Africa: contributions of the study of Oued Sebou in the Gharb alluvial plain (Morocco)

Subsession 4 (Tuesday 26th, 8.30-10.10) Danielle Schreve - A revised stratigraphy for the early pleistocene terrace sequence of the Gediz River, western turkey (invited talk) Alpa Sridhar - Fluvial response to major Holocene climate events: a comparision from river basins of Gujarat, western India Bao-tian Pan - The relationship of surface erosion and tectonic uplift in the northern Qilianshan Mountain, Northwest China. Toshihiko Sugai - Last 600 ka terrestrial environment changes reconstructed from analysis of the Uwa Basin-fill Sediment, SW Japan. Jane Richardson - Climate Change and Holocene Fluvial Activity in Northland, New Zealand Stephanie Jane Kermode - The limited impact of Quaternary sea level rise on the Shoalhaven River, southeastern Australia.

We hope to see many of you in Bern!

7 Special issue of the FLAG session at INQUA : call for papers

As indicated in our last Newsletter, a special issue will be published after the FLAG session at the INQUA Meeting to be held in Bern (20-27th July), with David Bridgland and Stéphane Cordier as guest editors. Following our special issues in Proceedings for Geologists' Association and Geomorphology, this publication will take place in the journal "Geomorphologie : relief, processus, environnement", which is the journal of the French group of Geomorphology and publishes papers both in French and in English. More information about the journal and the instructions to authors can be found at : http://geomorphologie.revues.org/index701.html#tocto1n2

We invite all the colleagues who will present either a poster or an oral communication in the session 53 of INQUA (“Palaeohydrological archives, fluvial environments and surface- groundwater flow processes”) to propose a publication. The schedule for this special issue is as follows : -31th July 2011 : deadline for declaration of interest. This should be done by sending an e- mail to Stephane Cordier ([email protected] or [email protected]), providing a title and author list. -31th october 2011 : deadline for manuscript submission -Summer/Autumn 2012 : publication of the special issue.

8 FLAG business meeting at INQUA

The FLAG session (“Palaeohydrological archives, fluvial environments and surface- groundwater flow processes”) will be held in Bern on Monday, 25th and Tuesday, 26th of July. Following our tradition a business meeting will be organized (detailed timing and place provided during the INQUA Meeting). The Business Meeting should in particular include the following points : -question of the participation to the next EGU Meetings -participation to other symposiums -relations between FLAG, GLOCOPH, and LUCIFS (see information about LUCIFS below) Even if you are not able to attend the INQUA Meeting feel free to contact David Bridgland for any suggestions of point to be debated at the occasion.

9 Palaeoflood Session at INQUA : the programme

As previously announced, there will also be a session titled « Palaeofloods in Earth‟s history » at INQUA 2011. The poster presentation will take place on Tuesday, 26th of July (14.30- 15.30 hrs), while the oral presentations will be given on Wednesday, 27th (08.30 – 12.30 hrs). To fill the gap between the poster and the oral presentations during the final hours of the congress, the convenors organised an informal meeting after the poster presentation in a beergarden near the conference hall (so make sure not to miss the poster session!). According to the available information by the end of May 2011, the following oral presentations will be given:

Samuel Toucanne: Pleistocene Fleuve Manche palaeoriver discharges: response to glacial oscillations and climate changes (invited talk) Janine Meinsen: Middle Pleistocene lake outburst floods in the Münsterland Embayment (NW Germany): magnitudes and impacts Petteri Alho: 2-D hydraulic modeling of the largest Glacial Lake Missoula draining(s) Paul Carling:Megaflood sedimentation in the Altai Mountains of Siberia: what can we learn about generic processes? Valery Zemtsov: Simulation of hydraulic characteristics of diluvial floods from the Chuya and Kuray glacial-dammed lakes in the late post glacial, Altai, Russia Andres Diez-Herrero: Using scars on trees for roughness calibration of floodplain and palaeoflood reconstruction with hydraulic modelling

Tina Swierczynski: High variability of European floods during the last 4000 years: A seasonal record of runoff events from varved sediments of Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) (invited talk) Lothar Schulte: Trying to understand mountain flood dynamics from multi-proxy data: a 4600-year high resolution record from the Swiss Alps Hongbo Zheng: Holocene Flooding History in the Yangtze River Drainage as Recorded by Subaqueous Delta Sediments Chunchang Huang: Extraordinary Floods Occurred during the Holocene Climatic Events in the Qishuihe River Valley, Middle Reaches of the Yellow River, China Mateja Ferk: Holocene paleofloods on the Planina karst polje, Slovenia Libor Elleder: Historic floods in the city of Prague – a reconstruction of peak discharges

All poster presentations are given in a review at: http://www.inqua2011.ch/?a=programme&subnavi=abstractlist&sessionid=90

Also a special issue on the session‟s topic will be published in the journal « Hydrology Research » (http://www.iwaponline.com/nh/default.htm). Deadline for announcements of interest to submit a contribution is July, 2011 (during the conference). Anyhow, you are welcome to make such declaration already in advance by sending an email to Neil Macdonald ([email protected]). Manuscripts must be submitted by the end of October, 2011, while the entire 2-course review process will be finished by April 2012, when the final version will be submitted to the publisher.

In case of any question on the session, please do not hesitate to contact either Juergen Herget ([email protected]) or Neil Macdonald ([email protected]).

10 Information about the LUCIFS research group

In large parts of the world, Holocene fluvial systems are characterised by strong human impacts. Such impacts range from deforestation and cultivation of the hinterland (sometimes already in pre-historic times) to engineering of fluvial systems later on. In many cases, these impacts altered the rivers to completely human-dominated systems. Since rivers are evolutionary systems and their present day functioning is strongly dependent on their history, a complete understanding of fluvial change often requires a long-time perspective - centuries to millennia - derived from palaeofluvial, documentary and archaeological records. The IGBP-PAGES program LUCIFS (Land Use and Climate Impacts on Fluvial Systems) is a global network of researchers that study the long-term impact of humans on fluvial systems.

LUCIFS is focusing on reconstructing fluvial environments during the period of agriculture, thereby integrating records on the history of human activity, climate and fluvial change. The main aim is to understand fluvial change in response to external forcings (climate and humans). Questions that are considered are (amongst many more): can we decipher between the impact of climate and the impact of land use on fluvial systems? When did anthropogenic effects first occur? How do we deal with autogenic adjustments and internal feedbacks in fluvial systems that obscure the external signal? What are the total quantities of sediment (with nutrients such as P, N, and C) reaching the coast?

Just like in 2009 and 2010, LUCIFS organised a session at the 2011 EGU general assembly, which was held in Vienna from April 3rd to April 8th. The LUCIFS session „The changing geomorphic effectiveness of hydrologic events‟ was co-chaired by LUCIFS-members Andreas Lang (the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom) and Bastiaan Notebaert (University of Leuven, Belgium). The well-visited session allowed scientists from geomorphology, hydrology, climatology, geo-archaeology and environmental history to meet each other and to discuss the presented results. This year‟s focus was the increase in hydrologic and mass-movement events (floods, debris floods, flash floods, debris flows, snow avalanches, rockfalls, landslides, etc.) as result of increasing human pressure on the landscape. In addition, changes in climate, sediment availability and other factors affect the impact magnitude and recurrence of hydrological events and leads to changing magnitude-frequency relationships. The oral presentations covered a wide range of subjects, including reconstructions of snow avalanches using tree rings, and studies on debris flow databases. For LUCIFS- and FLAG-members alike, the most interesting presentations came from Aleksander Borejsza who showed that prehispanic agriculture not only affected the hillslopes in Mexico, but also the fluvial valley floors. Annegret Larsen studied the development and stratigraphy of a German gully system in detail, and identified several periods of erosion and accumulation, which relate to high-magnitude/low-frequency storm events until human occupation during the Late Holocene became more important. Muñoz-Salinas used a portable OSL reader for her study on fluvial sedimentation resulting from the arrival of Europeans in Australia. The oral session was followed by an extensive poster session with 18 contributions.

As a follow-up, LUCIFS is organising a session at the INQUA meeting in Bern, which is conveniently scheduled for Tuesday the 26th of July, right after the FLAG session. The LUCIFS session, with the title „Quantifying and modelling human and climatic impacts on hillslope and fluvial sediment dynamics during the Holocene‟ gives the latest results on the human impact and sediment dynamics relation, including both field and modelling studies. The bi-annual LUCIFS workshop will directly follow the INQUA meeting. During the three day workshop (July 28th to July 30th) at the university of Bern, we will discuss the changes in (fluvial) sediment and carbon fluxes under human impact and climate change, in a series of

11 presentations, working group meetings and in the field. If you want to join this workshop, please visit the LUCIFS website (http://www.lucifs.uni-bonn.de/) for more information about registration.

We hope to see you in Bern!

Thomas Hoffmann, chairman (Bonn University, Germany) Gilles Erkens, secretary/co-chair (Utrecht University/Dutch Geological Survey, The Netherlands)

12 Geologists’ Association meeting on Geoconservation

FLAG members might be interested in a meeting in Worcester, UK, organized by the Geologists‟ Association (9 and 10 September 2011), entitled: “GEOCONSERVATION FOR SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: AN AGENDA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY”. The Quaternary Research Association and the British Society for Geomorphology are joint sponsors. FLAG Chairman David Bridgland is a co-organizer.

For your agenda : FLAG 2012 in Luxemburg

FLAG members are reminded that our next meeting will take place in Luxemburg between the 2nd and the 7th of September 2012. The two-days of presentations will be followed by a three-day excursion jumping the border between Luxemburg, France and Germany. More information will be provided in a subsequent newsletter.

The Luxembourgian Moselle valley North of Schengen