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The Quaternary Period in Earth History

The Quaternary Period spans the last 2.6 million years of the Earth's history.

The Quaternary is an interval with dramatic and frequent changes in global climate. Warm interglacials alternated with cold ice ages. The Earth is right now entering a time of unusually warm climate. Significant and potentially rapid environmental changes could pose major challenges for human habitability.
The expertise of Quaternary scientists is to interpret the changing world of the glacial ages and their impact on our planet's surface environments. Quaternary palaeoclimatic investigations play a key role in the understanding of the possible future climate change on our planet.

Click HERE or on the image above to download INQUA's statement on climate change

The next (XXVIII) INQUA Congress will be held in Bern, Switzerland 20th July - 27th July, 2011. Further details will be posted here in early 2009.

It is with great regret that INQUA notes the passing away of Professor Liu Tungsheng on the 6th March, 2008, in Beijing. Liu was a past President of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and a founding member of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme on Past Global Changes (PAGES).
Liu Tungsheng was President of the Chinese INQUA committee and had made a tremendous contribution to the research of loess stratigraphy in China and the entire world. The correlation between loess stratigraphy and deep sea boreholes has been regarded as a valuable heritage in the history of Quaternary studies, which paved the way for research on past and modern environments and climatic changes.  Liu Tungsheng had a great personality and it will be hard to find someone to fill the gap his passing has left in both academic research work and talented thought on the theories of environmental evolution and the genetics of loess formation. Liu was honored with numerous prizes and awards for his scholarly research. He was honoured three times with awards from The National Natural Science Prize of China. He received the Chen Jiageng Award for Natural Sciences (Geology) in 1989 and a distinguished award from the China Green Prize of Environmental Science and Technology in 1993. In 1991, he was elected as a fellow of Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He was a recipient of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize in Earth Sciences in 1995 and was named an Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences (IEAS) in 1996.  Acadamician Liu won the Tyler prize for environmental achievement in 2002, and the highest honor State Preeminent Science and Technology Award of China in 2003.  In 2006, he was named as the Laureate of National Supreme Award of Science and Technology of China and a postage stamp was issued in his honor.

The Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal for outstanding young Quaternary scientists

INQUA has established the Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal in recognition of the many contributions of Nick Shackleton, a giant in the field of Quaternary science. The medal will be awarded once every four years to an outstanding young Quaternary scientist, chosen by his or her peers and evaluated by a blue-ribbon committee of distinguished scientists. The medal, INQUA's first, honours Nick's distinguished career in Quaternary geochronology and paleoclimatology, which spanned 40 years and was based on isotopic studies of deep-sea sediment. Shackleton was showered with honours by his peers and the wider scientific community, thus a medal in his name seems appropriate and necessary. Nick served INQUA for 12 years, first as a Vice-President, then, from 1998 to 2003, as President, and most recently as Past-President.

For the first award of the medal the standard of the nominations has been exceptionally high and our panel of scientific advisors have had a considerable amount of work in order to evaluate the nominations and come to a final decision.
The panel awarded the medal to Chris Turney:

"...for his pioneering research breakthroughs across a range of Quaternary topics, and among them paleoclimatology and geochronology, publishing a prodigious number of high quality scientific publications, and for being inordinately active in promoting Quaternary science to a wide international audience."
INQUA would like to extend heartiest congratulations to Chris and wish him all the best in his ongoing work.

Click on the image below to download INQUA's current issue of it's newsletter, Quaternary Perpectives updated to Volume 16(2) January, 2007.

XXVII INQUA Congress The XXVII INQUA Congress was held in Cairns, Australia 28th July - 3rd August, 2007. A full report of the Congress is available here: congress report.doc or congress report.pdf

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