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Call for Horizons contributions: Deadline 31 January 2023

Call for Contributions for the PAGES magazine - Past Global Changes Horizons: Picture the past. Change the future.

Many of you have probably seen the first two issues of the new magazine published by PAGES: Past Global Changes Horizons: Picture the past. Change the future.

Past Global Changes Horizons is a popular science magazine aimed primarily at the younger generation, budding scientists, and all those enthusiasts both young and old who are interested in, or want to learn more about, the science of the past.

We are now very happy to share with you this call for contributions to the next Horizons issue, to be published in September/October 2023.

While a few contributions are expected to be focused on past environmental changes, most of the contributions should address the central theme for this third issue of Horizons: how studying past extreme wet and dry phases aids our understanding and informs future action on floods and droughts under the current global change.

We welcome highly illustrated articles, comics or any other form of illustrated communication (e.g. a photo report of your work in the lab, your collection of specimens, or your adventures and discoveries in the field).

Please consider the following questions when preparing your contribution: How can studying the past help us understand hydrological processes and current environmental issues during wet and dry phases? What are the paleoenvironmental approaches to do so, and what kind of information do we get from them? How do I translate that information into something relevant for our current and future sustainability and hazard mitigation goals?

The aim is to illustrate how the varied climatic and environmental information stored in natural climate archives, together with results from numerical models, allow scientists to paint a comprehensive picture of how the different components of the Earth system will change the hydrology of the planet, particularly considering processes and mechanisms involving long response times.

Note that we welcome contributions on a variety of timescales, from the historical to those focused on the Quaternary and deeper times.

Details regarding the different contributions, their requested format, and to whom they should be sent can be found below in this email.

The first drafts of your contributions should be submitted by 31 January 2023.
If you would like any further information, do not hesitate to contact us via email pages@pages.unibe.ch.

On behalf of the PAGES Horizons editorial team,

Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas
Gerardo Benito
Sarah Eggleston
Graciela Gil-Romera
Marie-France Loutre
Ray Lombardi
Keely Mills

* Contributions and questions should be emailed to:

Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas: juan.ballesteros@mncn.csic.es
Gerardo Benito: benito@mncn.csic.es
Graciela Gil-Romera: graciela.gil@ipe.csic.es
Ray Lombardi: rlmbardi@memphis.edu
Keely Mills: kmil@bgs.ac.uk



Types and formats of contributions that can be submitted to Past Global Changes Horizons

All contributions will be reviewed by scientists, education/communication professionals, and the editors. Due to the limited number of pages, not all submitted contributions can be published in this issue.

Short, illustrated article
The purpose of a short paper is to present a unique concept, experiment or result and to communicate it in a straightforward manner with a simple take home message.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a main text of maximum 800 words;
- 3-4 illustrations: drawings, sketches, photos, or diagrams that are eye-catching and easy to understand.
Short illustrated articles will be published in a 2-page format.

Long, illustrated article
A long illustrated article aims to explain a theory, to report on a topic from different points of view, or to tell a story in several steps in order to communicate in depth the scientific knowledge of the past. It provides a "complete" perspective that can be considered as basic scientific knowledge on a question related to past climate and environmental changes.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a main text of maximum 1600 words;
- 6-8 illustrations: drawings, sketches, photos, or diagrams that are eye-catching and easy to understand.
Long, illustrated articles will be published in a 4-page format.

Photo report
A photo report aims to present a brief story illustrated with high quality photos, where the central message is the images. Stories may vary from organisms under study, fieldwork or even laboratory procedures that are better understood when explained with photos. In short, the purpose of a photo report is to make any aspect of your science attractive to a younger audience using photos.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a story line of maximum 500 words explaining your photo series to the editors and the story line behind it;
- 15-25 photos;
- a caption of maximum 150 characters (including spaces) for each photo.
The photo report will be published in a 6- or 8-page format.

Comic strip
A comic should tell a story mainly based on drawings. It can include dialog between characters; however, the total length of the text, including voice-over parts, should be strictly limited to the minimum necessary.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a comic strip of 1-6 pages with each page already laid out (please note: for this type of contribution, a preliminary version of the comic will suffice, but it must be sufficiently elaborated to be understandable).

Back cover comic
The editors of Horizons wish to maintain a one-page comic on the back cover of the issue, as published in volume 1 and volume 2. The editors propose to keep the same concept for this page but possibly with a different title: the back cover comic aims to tell the magazine’s audience how paleosciences can be used to help us care for the future of the Earth, and adopting a long-term point of view, as expressed for instance, in the dialogue between the comet and the moon in the last issue.
In order to take up and create a new final, back cover page for PAGES Horizons volume 3, you are invited to submit your idea in the proposed format.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a one-page comic already laid out (please note: for this type of contribution, a preliminary version of the comic will suffice, but it must be sufficiently detailed to be understandable).

Cover
The cover of PAGES Horizons includes a full-page drawing inspired by the theme of the issue, the name of the magazine (PAST GLOBAL CHANGES - PAGES Horizons), the slogan of the magazine (Picture the past. Change the future.), the title of the issue (not yet decided) and a few promotional figures from the articles. The fonts and colors of all cover texts are the responsibility of the editorial team.

For such a contribution, please submit:
- a drawing (please note: for this particular contribution, a preliminary version of the drawing can be submitted, but it must be elaborate enough to be understandable to the editorial team).