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Climate Change, The Karst Record (KR9 Conference)

Location
Innsbruck, Austria
Dates
-
Workshop report
https://doi.org/10.22498/pages.30.2.127
Contact person
KR9 organizers
E-Mail address
@email
Working groups
Meeting Category

The PAGES-supported 9th International Climate Change: The Karst Record Conference (KR9) will be held from 17-20 July 2022  in Innsbruck, Austria.

Peripheral activities will run from 16-25 July 2022.

Update from the organizers as per February 2022:

"In light of the ongoing COVID crisis and uncertain travel situation that many of you face, we have decided to extend a number of deadlines for 'Climate Change, The Karst Record (KR9)'. The new deadlines are as follows:
Submissions for financial support are possible until 27th March, 2022, 23:59 (CET)
Early-bird registration is possible until 10th April, 2022, 23:59 (CET)
Abstract submissions are possible until 1st May, 2022, 23:59 (CET).

Please note that there will not be any further extension to the abstract submission date. Please also note that this abstract deadline is after the early-bird deadline. Please register in time to meet the early-bird rate if you require this. Conference registration and abstract submission can be completed at different times.

The KR9 organisers hope that this extra time allows more of you to make a decision about your participation. We are trying to be as flexible as possible under these challenging circumstances but hope you understand that we also need to move forward with planning and organisation."

"

Venue

The main conference location will be the Centre of Chemistry and Biomedicine (CCB) at the University of Innsbruck.

We anticipate that in-person attendance will be possible under current COVID event- and travel restrictions. Links to updated government information are provided on our website (https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/information/#covid). Furthermore, we are working with a professional company to make KR9 a hybrid event. This means that it will be possible to remotely participate in oral sessions both as a speaker and as a member of the audience.

A discounted early-bird registration fee is available until 1 April and is independent of abstract submission and type of participation.

Logistics

Organizers are aiming to be certified by Green Tirol as a "Green Conference". Childcare will be available on-site at no cost during the main conference.
Awards will be given for best student poster, best student presentation, as well as the Karst Waters Institute Karst Award to Prof. Stein-Erik Lauritzen.
Travel support is available for early-career researchers and those from developing countries. See "Financial support" section below.

Description

The KR9 meeting will bring together scientists from around the globe to share the latest progress in the rapidly developing field of cave-based paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental research.

Deadlines (extended)

Submissions for financial support: 27 March, 2022, 23:59 (CET)

Early-bird registration: 10 April, 2022, 23:59 (CET)

Abstract submissions: 1 May, 2022, 23:59 (CET). 

Sessions

The full list of sessions can be accessed here: https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/scientific-programme/sessions.html.en

Workshops

Workshops will run simultaneously. Please only select one.

Speleothem Data Analysis using the SISAL Database
Convenors: Kira Rehfeld (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Janica Bühler (University of Heidelberg, Germany) and Josefine Axelsson (Stockholm University, Sweden) 

Description: The goal of this workshop is to provide training to interested researchers in using the SISAL database on Speleothem Isotopes (www.pastglobalchanges.org/sisal; Atsawawaranunt et al., 2018).  First, you will be introduced to the SISAL workbooks, which provide the standardised means to submit and upload new speleothem records to the database. You will actively enter data, which can be new speleothem records which you could bring along or synthetic records that we will provide for the purpose of the workshop. Second, you will learn how to run quality control scripts to ensure that the spreadsheets contain all necessary information. Then, you will learn to query and screen the database using R and python. Based on your selected sites, you will plot time series and maps. Further, you will do some statistical analyses to the data such as applying temporal filters and computing correlations.

Participants with need to bring their own laptop. Instructions will be sent prior to the conference regarding software installation. It will be important to install and test the software prior to the conference as there will not be time on-site to sort technical issues.

Date: Tuesday 19 July, 2022 - Afternoon (1 session)

Participant Limit: 20

Cost: €20

Speleothem Petrography and Microstratigraphy: from the Micro to the Nanoscale
Convenors: Andrea Borsato & Silvia Frisia (The University of Newcastle, Australia)

Description: Crystallization processes (nucleation and growth) have a role in the “kinetic” incorporation of isotopes and trace elements in calcium carbonate crystals. Non-equilibrium incorporation of chemical species can be explained by ultra-high resolution investigation and allows advances in our capability of interpretation of climate proxies to be made. Therefore, if we strive towards an accurate interpretation of speleothem proxy data, we should start from petrographic observations to check for the presence of non-equilibrium fabrics and possible diagenetic modifications.

This petrography workshop is divided into three sections. In the first part the participants will learn how to recognise the most common types of speleothem fabrics and hiatuses, as well as to understand their characteristics and the known climate and environmental parameters underpinning their development. They will also learn about the most technically advanced techniques for nano-scale investigation, what information they provide and where to access them. The second part will focus on the construction of the petrographic log. There will be an open discussion about different approaches utilised to convert petrographic observations in numerical values in order to compare petrography with speleothem geochemistry. High resolution scanning of polished speleothem slabs will be introduced as one of the best tools to construct fast petrographic logs from very long stalagmite samples or flowstones. In the third part, the participants will observe under a petrographic microscope thin sections of the most common speleothem fabric. We also encourage participants to bring their own thin sections and/or polished speleothem slabs, or other types of continental carbonates.

Date: Tuesday 19 July, 2022 - Afternoon (2 sessions)

Participant Limit: 15

Cost: €30

The Depth-Age Model
Convenors: Stacy Carolin (University of Cambridge, UK) & Sebastian Breitenbach (University of Northumbria, UK)

Description: A robust chronological framework is the foundation for any palaeo-environmental reconstruction. Age-depth modeling refers to the process of assigning ages to all proxy values measured along a profile. Normally, the number of known dates (be it radiometrical dates or layer counts or other independently determined values) is much smaller than the number of proxy measurements along the depth axis of a palaeo-environmental archive, which necessitates the use of inter- and extrapolation schemes to derive proxy time series.

Multiple interpolation schemes have been employed in speleothem science to assign ages to proxy measurements: linear interpolation, spline interpolation, StalAge, OxCal, COPRA, and others. In this workshop we will begin with an overview on depth-age modeling. We will then introduce two select programs available — COPRA and OxCal -- by guiding participants on how to install the software, import data, and produce depth-age models in each. Once participants are confident in their abilities to use these programs, we will investigate chosen example U/Th sample sets and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two interpolation schemes given each example U/Th datasets’ limitations. The investigative analysis presented can be applied to other age/proxy interpolation schemes for further comparisons.

Date: Tuesday 19 July, 2022 - Afternoon (2 sessions)

Participant Limit: c.40

Cost: €30

The Value of Radiocarbon in Speleothem Science
Convenors: Franziska Lechleitner (University of Bern, Switzerland) and Petra Bajo (Croatian Geological Institute)

Description: Radiocarbon is one of the most versatile isotopes in environmental science. Its applications in different climate archives as a dating tool and environmental tracer forms the backbone of climate research. The use of radiocarbon in speleothem science is greatly increasing and its potential is becoming widely acknowledged.

This workshop on radiocarbon will be split in two sections. One part will focus on the use of radiocarbon for dating stalagmites, in particular when U-Th methods fail. Presently, there are some approaches available, which are able to provide appropriate age-depth relationships for speleothems using radiocarbon, despite the potential variations in the reservoir effect. We will discuss these approaches and compare their performance. In this part of the workshop, we will also encourage participants to bring their own datasets and establish radiocarbon-based chronologies for their stalagmites. The second part of the workshop will provide an overview of the strength of radiocarbon as an environmental tracer, which is related to various climate parameters. Important progress has been made within the last decade to decipher the various processes affecting stalagmite radiocarbon concentrations, e.g., soil organic matter age and carbonate dissolution conditions. We will also introduce the use of software that is able to estimate the initial radiocarbon concentrations at the time of carbonate deposition and to disentangle these processes. In this part of the workshop you will also have the opportunity to test the software on your own datasets.

Date: Tuesday 19th July, 2022 - Afternoon (2 sessions)

Participant Limit: c. 20

Cost: €30

Keynote speakers

Heather Stoll (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Session: Karst Records of Climate Variability on Orbital Timescales
Preliminary Title: Stalagmite records of meltwater release and temperature change in the North Atlantic

Ashish Sinha (California State university Dominguez Hills, USA)
Session: From Decadal to Seasonal Resolution: Speleothem Records on Human Timescales
Preliminary Title: The "Black Swan" events in speleothem palaeoclimate record

David McGee (MIT, USA)
Session: Data-Model Integration for a better understanding of Past Climatic and Environmental Dynamics

Hagit Affek (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Session: Method and Technical Developments in Speleothem Science

Robyn Pickering (University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Session: Cave Records of Human History
Preliminary Title: Shaking up our human family tree: U-Pb dating speleothems from the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa

Registration and abstract submission

Registration is open. Deadline is 1 March: https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/registration/

Financial support

PAGES has provided some financial assistance for the attendance of early-career researchers and researchers from developing countries. All details: https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/information/financial-support.html.en

Applications for financial support will only be accepted if both the abstract and support application have been submitted by this deadline.

Further information

For all details about the in-person conference, go to the official website: https://www.uibk.ac.at/congress/kr9/
Questions can be emailed to: kr9conference-geology@uibk.ac.at

PAGES working group workshop

SISAL: Speleothem data analysis using the SISAL database
Convenors: Laia Comas-Bru (University of Reading, UK) and Kira Rehfeld (University of Heidelberg, Germany)

The goal of this workshop is to provide training to interested researchers in using the SISAL database on Speleothem Isotopes (Atsawawaranunt et al. 2018). First, you will be introduced to the SISAL workbooks, which provide the standardised means to submit and upload new speleothem records to the database. You will actively enter data, which can be new speleothem records which you could bring along or synthetic records that we will provide for the purpose of the workshop. Second, you will learn how to run quality control scripts to ensure that the spreadsheets contain all necessary information. Then, you will learn to query and screen the database using R and python. Based on your selected sites, you will plot time series and maps. Further, you will do some statistical analyses to the data such as applying temporal filters and computing correlations.