The newsletter of the CAMBRIDGE QUATERNARY

ISSUE 32 MICHAELMAS 2005

Goodbye Godwin Institute

for Quaternary Research,
Hello Cambridge
Quaternary!
Cambridge Quaternary (CQ) officially replaced (Earth Sciences), Dr Richard Preece (Zoology), Dr
the Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research Maryline Vautravers (British Antarctic Survey and
(GIQR) on October 1st 2005. This new grouping Geography), Professor Roy Switsur (Godwin Lab),
represents a more informal structure than the Professor Martin Jones (Archaeology) and Dr Eric
GIQR but at the same time incorporates a wider Wolff (British Antarctic Survey).
range of research groups both within the University
and beyond.
We hope that you will want to participate fully in
The CQ provides a co-operative umbrella the day to day running of the organisation and
organisation including over 40 people. Its continue to make Cambridge the centre for
constituent research groups being based in the excellence in Quaternary science that it has been
Departments of Geography, Earth Sciences, for the last 8 decades or thereabouts.
Archaeology and Zoology, whilst links also exist
with the Departments of Physics and
All the normal functions of the GIQR will continue
Bioanthropology, the Scott Polar Research Instituteunder the new CQ structure, including the
and the British Antarctic Survey. The research Quaternary Discussion Group seminars, the
environment at all levels is fostered by the staff,CAMQUA newsletter etc, and hopefully some new
post-doctoral workers, and both Ph.D. and M.Phil. events will emerge. The website is also being
students pursuing interdisciplinary research in a updated and will include announcements of
wide range of Quaternary fields. This environment relevance to CQ members, including the QDG
is unique in Britain, offering opportunities for information. It is open for any groups to add
research training unequalled elsewhere, in terms ofinformation, links etc., so please use it. You will
the range and quality of the expertise available in a
also be able to download versions of the logotype
single institutional setting. which we hope you’ll use on posters and other
presentations to help spread the word and to help
The CQ is managed by an Advisory Committee that us present a united face to the public.
meets annually. It includes Professor Phil Gibbard
(Geography - chair), Dr Tom Spencer (Geography), Phil Gibbard
Professor Nick McCave (Earth Sciences), Dr David
Pyle

Cambridge Quaternary website: http://www.quaternary.group.cam.ac.uk/

 Dates for your Diary
Michaelmas 2005

October

25th ESC: Jake Lowenstern, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Intrusion, deformation and gas
discharge at the Yellowstone Caldera
26th SPRI Professor Atsumu Ohmura (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich)
"Mass balance change of glaciers and ice sheets during the 20th century"

November

15th ESC Don Canfield (Odense, Denmark) Neoproterozoic ocean chemistry

16th SPRI Dr. Doug Mair (University of Aberdeen) "The challenge of determining change in the
percolation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet"
22nd ESC Rainer Zahn (Barcelona) Oceanic records of climate change

30th SPRI Dr. Dag Ottesen (Geological Survey of Norway) "Ice sheet dynamics and palaeo-ice
streams on the Norwegian shelf based on bathymetric and 2D and 3D seismic data"

QDG talks are yet to be finalised – watch the website

ARCH talks also yet to be finalised – watch their website too!

ESC seminars: 5 pm in the Harker Room. Wine in the common room from 4.45. All welcome. Full
details: www.esc.cam.ac.uk/~dmp11/seminars
SPRI seminars to be held in the Scott Polar Research Institute Lecture theatre.
Full program: http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/research/seminars/physical/ Enquiries contact: Jeff Evans,
(3)36570, (jeffrey.evans@spri.cam.ac.uk)
ARCH Talks of the George Pitt-Rivers bioarchaeology laboratory are held in the McDonald Institute
lecture room (ground floor).
Full program: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/pittrivers/GPRtalks.html Enquiries contact: Rachel Ballantyne,
(3)33537, (rmb51@hermes.cam.ac.uk)
QDG talks to be held in West Court, Clare Hall, Hershel Road.
Full program: http://www.quaternary.group.cam.ac.uk/events/qdg/ Enquiries contact: Luke Skinner
(luke00@esc.cam.ac.uk)
A New Home
After more than 17 years on the New Museums Cavendish Laboratory, would have to be
Site, the Godwin Laboratory is being packed up vacatedwithin the next few years in any case, because
for relocation and incorporation into the the University's use of the area is changing. On the
Department of Earth Sciences. Mass downside, space is going to be much more restricted
Spectrometers, computers, microscopes and on the "other side". Some hard decisions are going to
books are being carefully stowed in 2,000 boxes have to be taken about equipment and books for
for transportation across the road to the second which there will not be room in the new facilities.
floor of the Department of Earth Sciences. The
Godwin Lab's familiar corridor, with its Sequoia Space has been made available for sample storage -
tree-trunk section and array of rooms down but with material having to be moved out of the
either side, will soon fall silent and dark - the Department as well as well as from the Godwin, it is
retirement of Nick Shackleton has signalled a unclear whether enough space will in fact be
sea-change for the laboratory. The available. Relocating Mass Spectrometers - which are
administrative reorganisation that transferred notoriously sensitive to any kind of disruption - is a
the Laboratory from the Department of Plant difficult business in any case, and it will take some
Sciences to the Department of Earth Sciences weeks before the units are operational in their new
has ultimately led to the physical incorporation homes. The bulk of the move out of the laboratory is
of the laboratory into the Department of Earth expected to occur in early December, after a
Sciences on the Downing Site. reschedule from mid-November.

In part, this is a cost-cutting move on the part of This is not the first time that the Godwin Laboratory
the Department of Earth Sciences. The transfer has changed location. The original University
of the Laboratory facilities will free up some fifty Radiocarbon Laboratory was sited on Station Road.
thousand pounds per year for Departmental use.
What everyone hopes is that the magic of the Godwin
However, there are potential gains in terms of Laboratory - its productivity and capacity for scientific
the closer integration of the Godwin Lab's work achievement - will survive the move. And what will
with that of others in the main Department, in the laboratory be called in its new location? That, it
particular with the Geochemistry group. It was appears, remains to be decided.
expected that the buildings currently occupied by
the Godwin Laboratory, which are part of the old Simon Crowhurst

NEWS: emeritus CAMQUA editor moves to France

Having successfully defended his thesis last month, Will Fletcher will be taking up a one-year
post-doc funded by the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) at the
Département de Géologie et Océanographie, Université Bordeaux 1, France. He will be working
with Maria Fernanda Sanchez Goñi on marine pollen from cores MD95-2042 and MD95-2043
from the Atlantic Iberian margin and the Alboran Sea, focusing on isotope stages 2 and 3. The
work will contribute to the RESOLuTION project, a four-year European Science Foundation (ESF)
project commencing this year which aims to relate the terrestrial, marine, ice-core and
archaeological data for stages 2 and 3.
 INQUA-SEQS 2005 meeting in Bern, Switzerland
4th – 9th September 2005
The annual meeting of ICS’s Sub commission on correlated to MIS 11 and older, because they
European Quaternary Stratigraphy (SEQS) took contain Pterocaria pollen. The field-meeting also
place in Bern. Part of Bern had suffered some discussed evidence for extensive glaciation in Plio-
major flooding two weeks before, but at our arrival Pleistocene times. In the alpine record the early
no noticeable damage remained – so we didn’t Pleistocene is a big gap and so is the Pliocene. In
have to feel disaster-tourists and could start the the alpine foreland there is some evidence for
meeting reasonably undistracted. We participated glaciation at the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition, in
in two days of presentations and discussions, and 3 the form of gravels found at high levels
days of excursions to the NE (Alpine foreland), (‘deckenschotter’ forming table mountains, visited
centre (Alpine midlands) and SE (Inner Alps) of during excursion). Also from heavy minerals in
Switzerland – under very pleasant weather Rhine deposits of the Upper Rhine Graben down to
conditions. Thirty oral presentations covered the North Sea basin, the establishment of a
themes such as: New results of dating sediments drainage connection with the Alpine area at that
from the Alpine region; High-resolution archives of time is clear. One can wonder if in Early Pleistocene
Quaternary climate change; Glacial dynamics and times following this time the Alps were glaciated to
sedimentology, Palaeozoology and environmental as large extends as during the ‘first’ plio-pleistocene
change; and Glacial stratigraphy from the T/Q glaciations and later Middle-Late Pleistocene
boundary to the Holocene. glaciations. Sediments in Quaternary depocentres
in the Upper Rhine Graben may hold a semi-
The majority of the talks were on Swiss, Italian and continuous record for this period and therefore a
Bavarian Alpine Quaternary sites and their major collaborative project involving three >500-m
stratigraphic context, many of which were also deep boreholes near Heidelberg that is in progress
visited in the excursions. A consistent picture of last now. Jumping to the most recent deglaciation: in
glacial dynamics of the alpine ice cap emerged from the last decades from below some mountain
evidence that includes provenance and exposure glaciers a lot of Middle Holocene stems of trees
datings of erratic boulders, trimline mapping in the appear, indicating that at some point during the
higher Alps, moraine mapping and dating in the Holocene (~6-8 ka BP) glaciers were even smaller
foreland and post LGM retreat phase dating in the than they are now (after the 2003 extreme
midlands and higher valleys upstream, including summer).
Holocene ice-front oscillations such as the little ice
age. The sedimentary record of pre-LGM glaciations The talks on other European stratigraphic issues
in the alpine midlands was also discussed in that completed the meeting should not be left
presentations and at excursion sites. Thick unmentioned. They covered topics such as the
accumulations of pre-last glacial sediments (mainly Pleistocene stratigraphy of the Russian plain and
lake deltas) occur as pockets filling glacial-eroded Ural foreland and the framework available for
structures within the LGM ice margin. For some of palaeontological and palynological zonation; the
the sites, optical dating (of quartz sand and silt) Pleistocene of the North Sea Basin where there is
now has confirmed palynology-suspected ages new insight regarding Rhine and Meuse and
attributing deposit to the penultimate glacial/last- regarding ice-lakes and lake deltas during the
interglacial deposits (equivalent to MIS-6/5). At Elsterian glaciation; Mountain glaciation in Turkey
other sites, Early-Middle Würmian ages (equivalent and Romania; the Eemian in Scandinavia; and
to MIS-4) are now attributed to pre-LGM outwash more. If you would like more information, ask one
deposits. At other sites, middle of the following people for a list of
Pleistocene/deglaciations are now recognised. In- presentations/speakers: Kim Cohen (Utrecht), Phil
filled lake sites that produced an alternating Gibbard or Charles Turner.
palynological sequence (warm/cold/warm/cold) and
previously were considered to cover several Kim Cohen
interglacials are now reinterpreted to reflect
alternations within one glacial at most sites:
multiple cycles have seldom preserved at one site.
Nevertheless, the oldest middle Pleistocene to be