Western Med sea-level paper

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Published: Tuesday, 26 January 2021 09:52

A new paper, which benefited from discussions held at PALSEA workshops, was recently published in Scientific Reports.

Authors, led by Oana-Alexandra Dumitru, present Neogene and Quaternary sea-level snapshots using phreatic overgrowths on speleothems from caves on Mallorca, Spain, in their paper "Sea-level stands from the Western Mediterranean over the past 6.5 million years".

Their research findings on global mean sea level estimates provide important constraints for the past evolution of sea level and show that local sea level prior to the Messinian Salinity Crisis was similar to the highest stand during the Pliocene, with a markedly lower position afterwards.

Access the paper here.

Find out more about PALSEA and how to join its activities here.

Propose a new working group

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Published: Monday, 25 January 2021 16:27

Does your heart pound for paleoscience? Know others who feel the same?

Propose a new PAGES' working group to address a scientific question in an internationally coordinated way. The application deadline is Monday 12 April 2021.

You must contact a member of the PAGES Scientific Steering Committee to discuss your plans at least two weeks before you submit the proposal (i.e. by 29 March).​ Applications received without SSC member notification will not be looked upon favorably.

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Read the latest e-news

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Published: Wednesday, 20 January 2021 17:10

Read about the latest PAGES' news, meetings, and opportunities from around the world in this month's e-news.

Highlights include Scientific Steering Committee announcements and call for applications; final call for PAGES memories for our 30th anniversary magazine; announcement of two new PAGES' working groups; 4th PAGES webinar, on 8 February, with Hominin Dispersals Research Group (HDRG); IPCC AR6 updates; take the PAGES Survey; application deadlines to propose new working groups or apply for workshop support; extensive working group news, products, webinar recordings, and rescheduled meeting information; ECN news; and other paleo announcements.

Human Traces group launches

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Published: Monday, 18 January 2021 15:24

PAGES welcomes the new Human Traces working group to the fold.

Human Traces will focus on the long legacy of pre-Anthropocene human impacts and aims to address the knowledge gap about spatial and temporal variations in early human impacts.

Leader Nathalie Dubois said the group will start with a paleolimnological approach and will continue the work started by PAGES' former working group Aquatic Transitions.

"Human activities in the Paleoanthropocene had regionally asynchronous impacts that manifested differently in various parts of the world," Nathalie said.

"Our new working group aims to create a global synthesis of human traces in geologic archives, to place the Anthropocene within a longer temporal context.

"We welcome scientists from any discipline working with or searching for human traces in the stratigraphic records. To encourage participation from all over the world, we will rely on online meetings and workshops at larger international conferences such as the PAGES OSM."

Follow the group on social media and join its mailing list to be involved. All details.

Future Earth-WCRP statement

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Published: Tuesday, 22 December 2020 12:14

Future Earth and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) have announced a joint statement to address major societal challenges.

WCRP and Future Earth are initiatives that are driven by visions of creating a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient world. Future Earth is the parent organization of PAGES, and WCRP is our scientific partner (find out more here).

WCRP coordinates international climate science to address key research areas that are either too large or too complex to be tackled by a single nation, agency, or scientific discipline. Future Earth develops the knowledge and tools that government, communities, and companies need to meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

There have long been areas of synergy between the two initiatives on many levels, but this has largely taken place organically and on an ad hoc basis.

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New DiverseK group launch

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Published: Thursday, 17 December 2020 14:35

PAGES is pleased to announce the launch of the new working group DiverseK. It is a network of environmental and social scientists working to develop recommendations for the most pressing environmental and social justice issues.

Worldwide, the loss of biodiversity through increased land-conversion, regional climate changes and catastrophic wildfires are causing irreversible consequences for habitats and livelihoods. This calls for a reassessment of environmental policies in many areas under protection, particularly where conservation plans lack the full knowledge base to solve existing conflicts between restoration targets, local livelihood/traditions, and ecological processes in the context of their long-term variability.

DiverseK working group leader Daniele Colombaroli believes the time is right to tackle the group's goals and objectives.

"There is an urgent need to integrate diverse knowledge coming from (paleo)ecological and socio/cultural disciplines to tackle complex sustainability challenges in the future," he said.
 
"We welcome people interested in bridging disciplines (paleoecology, traditional ecological knowledge, dendroecology) and contributing to our group discussion with case studies from their study regions related to biodiversity conservation, fire impacts, ecosystem management and restoration."

Find out more about DiverseK and sign up to its mailing list here.

The groundwork for DiverseK was established in the last years of the PAGES Global Paleofire Working Group 2 (GPWG2) and they released a Policy Brief in 2019.