The Skill Enhancement Fund will help trigger a much need South American scientific collaboration, through encouraging networking, exchanges of information and techniques, and training in some fieldworks seeking to strengthen a formal Group.
The project allows individual scientists to promote the attendance and active participation of active early-career researchers and developing-country researchers to workshops, and to support the attendance to the programmed workshops of the group of scientists residing in South America. Also, the funding helps with the participation of young scientists in fieldwork run by experienced scientists of the Group providing a training opportunity, for the involvement of early career scientists, for the production of web resources and, for the consolidation of the South America Focus Area Group initiative.
Main activities in the years 2012-2013
The hosting of annual workshops of the Group at national and international conferences in South America offer local scientists the possibility to exchange ideas and data. Crossing boundaries between different countries and cultures implies a great effort and in particular when the goal is to link scientific communities that do not usually work together. Hence, the participation in regional meetings is critical to pass-on the information to the largest possible section of the South American scientific community. Also, research plans and objectives, structure and activities of the project are discussed there. The promotion of innovative contributions on the application of new methodological approaches mainly related to the generation of a geological database is taken account..
For the first year of the existence of the Group, one or two days workshops within the framework of some of important congresses and conferences in Argentina, Brazil and Peru provide a good opportunity to increase the interaction between geologists from each South American country, and between those working in other areas of the Quaternary research. A main goal of the meetings is to achieve an enriching and fluid communication among local quaternarists in order to promote and stimulate research on topics related to the environmental reconstruction during the last interglacial-glacial cycle. One of the main objectives is to review the advances on the study of aeolian-fluvial-lacustrine-coastal- paludal-glacial- palaeopedological archives within the large environments of SA in order to discuss innovative approaches aiming to enhance our understanding of those records. All processes that have created significant landform-sedimentary associations are considered. We specially target paleaoenvironmental and palaeoclimatical records retrieved from fluvial-paludal-lacustrine systems (e.g. the Pantanal and Bananal wetlands, the Chaco and Beni alluvial plains, the Parana, Amazonas, Uruguay and Orinoco rivers, the Pampean and Patagonian lakes) and covering both a wide temporal and spatial resolutions. Also, the research activities are based on the extension of the recent advances reached on the study of aeolian processes and deposits in different settings of Argentina, particularly based on the study of the late Quaternary records of the Chaco-Pampean region, including also the aeolian input to lakes preserving rich information of long-term aeolian deposition. The research of multiple sources areas of the fine materials to the largest South American plain is addressed by fieldworks in specific areas and by sedimentological, geochemical and chronological analyses.
The 1225 S project allows sponsoring some international meetings organized in Latin America through travel grant stipendium for active participants of South American countries and closely related to some of the thematic subgroups. For the year 2012, the confirmed meetings are:
- Annual Symposium of the IGCP 582-Tropical Rivers (Hydrophysical processes, impacts, hazards and management), Iquitos (Upper Amazon Basin, Perú), 9-11th August, 2012. http://www.crearamazonia.org/tropicalrivers2012. Both members of the organizing committee (Dr. E. Latrubesse and Dr. J. Stevaux) are also responsible for the fluvial area on the SA Group.
- 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 International workshop on Active Tectonics, Paleoseismology and Archaeoseismology, Morelia (México), 19-24th November, 2012. www.acambay1912.org
The creation of interactive websites helps to connect specialists and also to assist young scientists in specific techniques. Another activity is focused on the compilation of Quaternary geological data with the mid- to long-term objectives of creating a public-access database of Quaternary records of South America. The ArcInfo-GIS will be used to develop a database for recording spatial geological data. Also, the Blog http://samgeoqua.blogspot.com.ar/ is active.
A series of activities in order to consolidate the Group are in progress, maximizing the chance to prepare a successful INQUA project for 2013. It is intended to propose on that an international joint field meeting in NW Argentina-Chile (2013). The integration of scientists working in different thematic areas of the Quaternary Geology of that region and also the training of young researchers is in progress thinking on that field meeting. It will constitute a long transect that allow discuss in situ outcropping sequences and landforms belonging to representative major Quaternary geological settings of a large region of the Central Andes (Puna-Atacama plateau). It is a unique place in the world, for the wild landscapes and extreme volcanic/aeolian/tectonic processes occurred during the Quaternary. Also a field course comprising a long transect in the central area of Argentina (Pampean Ranges, Mar Chiquita lake, North Pampa) is planned for 2013.
