Reports of Meetings

Pedometrics 2007

From August 27 to 30 Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen, Germany played host to the biennial Pedometrics conference. Following previous events at Ghent, Reading and Florida, the 2007 conference covered many topics such as digital soil mapping, proximal soil sensing and geostatistics. The conference hosted approximately 100 attendees from various occupations such as soil scientists, surveyors, geographers, environmental scientists, mathematicians and statisticians.

The conference was preceded by a workshop run by Gerard Heuvelink and James Brown which saw approximately 20 attendees cover many aspects of the theory and application of Spatial Uncertainty Propagation.  The workshop also provided an excellent means for networking, particular as many in attendance where students on their maiden pedometrics conference.

Alex McBratneys keynote presentation “Developing Pedometrics: a history and geography of ideas” on Monday morning got things underway, followed by sessions on digital soil mapping, soil sampling and geostatistics. Upon completion of the day’s oral presentations, a revamped poster presentation session was held where authors were allowed 3 minutes to surmise their work. Overall, the new format was successful in bringing greater focus to the posters albeit with the occasional ‘time penalty’. After a full first day, some opted for the guided tour of the historic town whilst others settled down in the ‘old town’ for a couple of local hefeweizen.

Pedometrics chair, Murray Lark provided some food-for-thought on day 2 with his keynote, “On not data mining in Pedometrics” with oral presentation sessions on digital soil mapping, uncertainty and soil sensing completing the day.  The Tuesday night saw attendees head to the Casino am Neckar alongside the Neckar River for the conference dinner. The pedometrics best paper awards for years 2005 (Savelieva, E., V. Demyanov, M. Kanevski, M. Serre, G. Christakos. BME-based uncertainty assessment of the Chernobyl fallout. Geoderma, 128 (2005): 312-324) and 2006 (Heuvelink G.B.M., Schoorl J.M., Veldkamp A., Pennock D.J. Space-time Kalman filtering of soil edistribution. Geoderma 133 (2006):124-137.) were awarded along with Gerard Heuvelink being named winner of the conference pedometrics quiz.

The conference reconvened for the final day, starting with Dick Brus’ keynote “Sampling for soil survey and Monitoring. Examples from the Netherlands” with fuzzy logic and mixed topic sessions completing the oral presentations.

A brown soil soil derived from basaltic tuff on display in the field (Wilma, open the door!)

Following the completion of the conference proper, a field trip of the Baden-Wurttemberg region was run by conference organisers Thorsten Behrens and Thomas Scholten. The day gave resident soil scientists a chance to get there hands dirty with the trip including numerous soil pits representing some of the more important and interesting soilscapes of the region. The day was completed with a tour of a local cooperative winery and some product testing.

After my first pedometrics conference, I was thoroughly impressed by the comradery of attendees at a professional and social level. Of particular note, question time following oral presentations highlighted the healthy competitiveness amongst the pedometrics fraternity. The keynote speakers are to be congratulated for preparing engaging and interesting talks that applied to all in attendance. Of particular note, I found Murray Larks presentation stimulating in challenging our approach to simulation and modelling.

The resounding success of the conference was due to the organisation of Thorsten Behrens and Thomas Scholten and on behalf of all in attendance I’d like to extend my thanks.

Grant Tranter

The University of Sydney

g.tranter@usyd.edu.au

Paleopedology activities at the INQUA congress in Australia 2007

The Paleopedology commission participated in the XVII INQUA Congress held at Cairns, Australia, 28 July – 3 August 2007.

The commission collaborated in the preparation of three oral and as many poster sessions:

1. “Pedogenic Analysis of Aeolian Deposits”, Convenors: Martin Iriondo and Birgit Terhorst.
2. "Pedogenic carbonate as palaeoenvironmental proxy", Convenors: Konstantin Pustovoytov and
3. Marie-Agnes Courty
4. "Timescales of soil formation", Convenors: Daniela Sauer and Edoardo Costantini

All sessions had a wide participation and a good attendance. Several papers related to Paleopedology were also presented in three other sessions: “Aeolian dust and environmental change”, “Quaternary circum alpine stratigraphy”, and “Dynamics of terrestrial systems: geology, biogeochemistry, climate”.  All abstracts of the Congress have been published in a special edition of Quaternary International (volume 167-168 Supplement) and are available on line.

Business meeting

The Paleopedology business meeting was held on the 30^th of July.

Attendees:
Greg Botha, Marie-Agnes Courty, Geoff Humphreys, Martin Iriondo, Ju Yong Kim, Alexander Makeev, Ahmet Mermut, Konstantin Pustovoytov, Paul Sanborn, Daniela Sauer, Birgit Terhorst, Christoph Zielhofer

Missions of the Paleopedology Commission

The president, Edoardo Costantini, underlined the missions of the Paleopedology Commission, which are:

Coordination: Promoting events, avoiding overlapping, supporting interdisciplinary meetings, keeping relationships between Soil Sciences and Earth Sciences

Dissemination: Proceedings of the meetings, newsletter, mailing list, web site.

Commission overview. The Paleopedology Commission was formed at the 1965 INQUA Congress, and since 1968 has been affiliated to the Soil Genesis, Classification and Cartography Commission of the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) and since 1990 to the Stratigraphy Commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences. These links reflect the increasingly multidisciplinary activity of the Commission's work in relation to the genesis and Quaternary history of non-buried soils and the recognition and interpretation of pre-Quaternary paleosols. Unfortunately, during the XVII INQUA Congress in Reno it was decided to delete Paleopedology Commission and to include it as a sub-commission with INQUA Commission on terrestrial processes (TERPRO).  In 2006 Paleopedology working group was transformed into Paleopedology Commission during the XVIII IUSS Congress in Philadelphia.  Through it’s history, the Commission unites more than 350 corresponding members spread among these three international unions. Some attend the Congresses of all three, which leaves only one year in four available for major Inter-Congress symposia of the Commission. However, many also attend Inter-Congress meetings organized jointly with other INQUA or ISSS Commissions.

The main activities of the Paleopedology Commission of INQUA falls into the following categories:

Meetings. Since 1965 the Commission organized 8 international meetings and field workshops on paleopedology. Besides, the Commission is actively participating in IUSS and INQUA international congresses, conducting 2-4 thematic Symposia during these events. Some Symposia are organized together with INQUA Loess and Tephrochronology commissions, ensuring interdisciplinary activities. The Commission is also organizing paleopedology sessions during Eurosoil and European Geosciences Union (EGU) Congresses and meetings of soil micromorphology and geoarchaeology groups.

Newsletters. The Commission have produced 20 issues of the Paleopedology Newsletter, being distributed among Commission members, since 2003 in electronic format.

Publications. Papers, presented at paleopedology meetings have been published in international scientific journals, such as thematic issues of Quaternary International, Geoderma, Catena and others.

Internet. Since 1995 the Commission is maintaining its web site, that include all the information about Commission activities: Forthcoming meetings and past meetings reports, an archive of paleopedology newsletters, announcements, web forum and mailing list, member database, related links.

INQUA projects. Since 1995, when INQUA Counsel decided to support project-based activities the Commission is trying to apply for INQUA projects. So far, three applications were successful. INQUA also supported a project of Paleopedology Commission, funded by ECSU.

The main result of Commission activities is that it is capable to keep together a group of more then 350 hundred inter-disciplinary scientists and to provide orientation for young scholars in the field of paleopedology.  It is quite obvious, that Commission activities are by far much wider then project-based or focus areas activities.

The president also summarized the main activities carried out by the Paleopedology group in the last four years, since the last INQUA conference of Reno, in 2003. INQUA, Reno, 2003:

• the proceedings of the symposia on Paleopedology held in the past INQUA conference of  Reno, 2003 have been published in the special volume of  Quaternary International 162-163, editors Carolyn Olson, Bruce Harrison;
• the VII international symposium & field workshop on paleopedology “Paleosols: memory of ancient landscapes and living bodies of present ecosystems” was held in Florence, Italy, 7-11 June 2004, the proceedings were published in a special volume of  Quaternary International 156-157, editors Peter Jacobs, Edoardo Costantini;
• Paleopedology sessions were organized in the conference “Global Soil Change”, Mexico city, 2005, and the proceedings were published on
• “Revista Mexicana de Geologia”, v. 24, 2, 2007, editors Christina Siebe and Daniel Richter
• “Catena” (in press), editors Elisabeth Solleiro, Daniel Richter,
• At the 18th World Congress of Soil Science held in Philadelphia, between 9th to 15th of July 2006, two oral sessions, two poster sessions and a theatre session were specifically dedicated to Paleopedology. The themes were: “Imprint of paleoenvironmental change on paleosols”, and “Amazonian dark earth soils (Terra Preta and Terra Preta Nova)”, which was a tribute to Wim Sombroek, The contribute of paleopedology was also important for other some sessions, namely: “Arid soils: genesis, geomorphology and geoarcheology”, “Soils on limestone: their properties, genesis and role in the human societies”, “Soil system behaviour in time” and “Interdependency of soils and soilscapes”. The proceedings are in preparation, to be published on  “Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition”, editor Reinhold Jahn.

Proceedings of the INQUA 2007 Conference

The assembly discussed and approved the idea of collecting all contributions related to Paleopedology presented in the different sessions of INQUA 2007 in a thematic volume of Quaternary International. Geoff Humphreys and Edoardo Costantini agreed to be editors, with the option that other editors could be added. All session conveners will be included in the conception of the volume, which shall report the advances of the different branches of Paleopedology.

Upcoming meetings

The next meeting will be held in Chennai (Madras), India, from 10 January to 14 January 2008. It will be organized by Dr. Hema Achyuthan, Department of Geology, Anna University, Chennai.  The title of the International Conference and Field Workshop on Paleopedology in Chennai is: Paleosols, geomorphic evolution of landscape and Paleoclimate change. Further information are available on the web at: www.int-paleopedologyconf-2008.com

The next Eurosoil congress will be held in 2008 in Vienna. Sessions related to paleopedology will be:

S2      Soils and Climate Change, convenors:  Natasa Vidic and Viliam Pichler

S25     Memory Function of Recent and Paleosols, convenors: György and Adrijan Kosir

S29     Time scales of pedogenic processes for predicting soil changes in time, convenors:  Victor Targulian and Attila Barczi

S30     Micromorphological and mineralogical features (evidence) of soil environmental change, convenors: Karl Stahr and Maria Gerassimova

In the year 2009 the members of the group will meet in the USA, possibly in Nebraska.

The main organizer will be Peter Jacobs, University of Whitewater, Wisconsin. In the year 2010 there will be the congress of the IUSS at Brisbane, Australia. The society has urged the Commission to provide themes for the possible sessions. The proposals are the following:

1. Impact of aeolian sediments on pedogenic processes and soil morphology

This session proposes to investigate how additions of even modest increments of aeolian sediment (such as loess or volcanic ash) to underlying sediments or existing soils has influenced the pedogenic processes that shaped the morphology and characteristics of the modern soil cover or changed the existing soil beneath.  For example, relative to underlying glacial sediments most fine-grained aeolian sediments have low bulk density, weatherable minerals and/or high-charge clays, and readily dispersable clays.  Aeolian sediments can thus influence soil ecosystem properties such as moisture holding capacity, rooting depth, and carbon storage, and can provide clay or soluble salts for migration to subsoil horizons, all of which impact soil morphological expression.

2. Genesis and functions of soils and paleosols in karst environments

Soils of karstic landscapes, being contrastingly different from the “central images” of zonal soil formation, are a product of interaction of in situ pedogenesis, karst erosion and addition of allochtonous silicate materials. This interaction can result in formation of diverse soil bodies - from thick red soils with high productivity to shallow Leptosols with rock outcrops, not suitable for agricultural use. We invite contributions dealing with the factors and mechanisms controlling the realization of different models of karstic soil development under different sets of environmental conditions.

Soil cover of karst landscapes produce specific reactions on environmental change, contemporary and past, natural and anthropogenic, and develops specific paleosol and pedosediment records, related to surface and subsurface karst geoforms. Papers dealing with relict soil bodies and features in karstic landscapes, including their correlation with other karstic records (speleothems) and existing datasets on regional and global environmental change, are welcome.

This will be a joint session of the commissions “Soil Genesis” and “Paleopedology”.

3. Timescales of pedogenic processes

Identification of the nature of pedogenic processes and quantification of their rates may enable us to estimate the age of land surfaces and - in combination with other proxies - to reconstruct landscape history. Examples are the distinction of marine or fluvial terraces and the establishment of chronologies of sand dune formation or glacier retreats, based on different degrees of soil development. The knowledge about how much time is required to form a certain soil in a certain environment is also essential for deciphering correctly the landscape and climate history written in paleosols and paleosol/loess- or paleosol/ash-sequences. An estimation of the timespan required for formation of a certain soil in a specific environment is also needed to evaluate the tolerable soil erosion rate for an environment. For these reasons, it is important to work continuously on increasing our understanding of pedogenic processes, their rates, and the ways in which they are influenced by soil forming factors.

The chair of Division 1, Prof. Ahmet Mermut, points out that each commission may have two sessions plus (intercommissional and interdivisional) joint sessions on the IUSS congress 2010.

Officer nominations

The IUSS urged the commission to nominate candidates for the next term officer positions. The Commission decided to provide the names of Daniela Sauer and Sergey Sedov for the positions of president and vice president. Other nominations from the National societies and single IUSS members are possible.

Handbook of Pedology

Prof. Ahmet Mermut presented his initiative about the Handbook of Pedology, which will illustrate the state of the art regarding all the themes of interest of the first Division, “Soil in space and time”, chaired by Prof. Mermut. The Paleopedology group supports the initiative and is in the process of elaborating a series of paragraphs dealing with the different branches of Paleopedology, in particular:

     Dating of Paleosols

Methods of field and laboratory study

Paleosols and Archaeology

Paleoseismic activity and Paleopedology

Pedostratigraphy and mapping

Rates of soil forming processes

Paleosols and Geomorphology

Loess-paleosol-sequences in northern America

Loess-paleosol-sequences in Europe

Loess-paleosol-sequences in Asia

Loess-paleosol-sequences in the southern hemisphere

Prof. Mermut expressed his wish to collect personally the different contributions and asked the president of the Paleopedology Commission to send him the email addresses of the people who manifested their interest and availability in being the reference authors of the above mentioned paragraphs.

Future projects

The assembly discussed the possibilities offered by the EU 7FP, COST action, as well as INQUA to apply for projects to coordinate and enhance collaboration among the members of the group. Edoardo Costantini, Alexander Makeev, Konstantin Pustovoytov and Daniela Sauer will prepare a first draft for a COST action. Deadline of submission of a preliminary proposal is the 30^th September 2007. The topic, suggested by Geoff Humphreys and accepted by the assembly, is related to soil changes in changing climate.

Meeting of the Terrestrial Processes Commission

On the 1^st of August, the Terrestrial Processes of INQUA had its meeting. During the meeting, it was communicated to the attendance that the structure of the TERPRO Commission has been reformulated, closing all subcommissions and creating focus areas, which correspond to the working groups financed by INQUA. The president of the TERPRO Commission solicited all members to submit project proposals for the next 2007-2011 term. As no projects related to Paleopedology were financed by INQUA, no focus areas on Paleopedology were foreseen. The same was true for the Loess subcommission, among others.

The members of the Paleopedology subcommission who were present at INQUA meeting, as well as others paleopedologists involved in the activities of INQUA who were contacted afterwards, decided to communicate to the president of the TERPRO Commission that they are in favor of the maintenance of the Paleopedology subcommission. In their opinion, the disciplinary activities can not be reduced to the projects supported by INQUA. In addition, the maintenance of the subcommission will help the prosecutions of the research about Paleopedology inside Quaternary Sciences as well as the collaboration with Soil Sciences.

INQUA Post Conference Fieldtrip

Three members of the Paleopedology commission, Edoardo Costantini, Paul Sanburn and Daniela Sauer, took part in a post conference field trip led by the new INQUA president Allan Chivas. The journey from Adelaide to Alice Springs passed from well-watered areas in the South through semi-arid and arid zones receiving little more than 100 mm MAP. In the South, we visited calcretes formed on norite (gabbro) and granite, which is possible due to marine aerosols being the Ca source for calcrete development. The trip then went on along the Flinders Range to the North. On day 3, we visited a remarkable exposure of wetland deposits in Brachina Gorge, including a well developed paleosol (Calcic Stagnic Vertisol). The Ochre Cliffs N of Lyndhurst, an exposure of saprolite of various colors, is used by Aboriginal people for obtaining colors for painting. W of Marree we visited a Gypsisol and our first “gibber plain”. Gibber plains are eroded surfaces covered by gravel of silcrete and ferricrete fragments, which were widespread along our further way. Other highlights of the tour included breakaways, a view on Lake Eyre South, mound springs of the Great Artesian Basin, sand dunes. In Coober Pedy, we stayed overnight in an underground hotel with the walls of our rooms consisting of saprolite. Other main attractions were Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). During the seven days of the excursion we saw a lot of the great and impressive landscape of Southern and Central Australia and learned much about landscape history, geological, hydrological, geomorphological and pedogenic processes in this very special, old landscape.

Daniela Sauer and Edoardo A.C. Costantini

28^th to 30^th May 2007, Lleida (Spain)

The 15th N Workshop www.nitrogen15workshop.udl.es/nitrogen/html/introduction.html) organised by the RUENA (Spanish Network for the Efficient Use of Nitrogen in Agriculture) and the Department of Environment and Soil Sciences of the University of Lleida (DMACS-UdL), as well as by the Fundació Universitat de Lleida (logistics) was held in Lleida (Catalonia, Spain) from the 28^th to the 30^th May 2007. The participants (210 people, see picture) came from UK, The Netherlads, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Canada, USA, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Tunisia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand among others.

Most of the participants in the 15^th N Workshop, Lleida (Spain).

This has been the 15^th edition of the nitrogen workshops and the 25^th year of its celebration. This was, therefore, the ¼ of century of nitrogen workshops anniversary. On this occasion homage was rendered to Dr. Scholefield (IGER, UK) because of having fostered the N workshops through these 25 years and having attended all of them as well as because of his “retirement” in the near future.

The workshop started with an opening session on “Nitrogen research evolution through N workshops” by Dr. J.J. Neeteson. There were other two plenary invited speeches on “Approaches to N management in order to improve N-use efficiency” by Dr. G. Lemaire, “N flows in agricultural systems, grassland and forest systems” by Dr. Claudio O. Stockle, and several other plenary oral presentations on the “Approaches to N management in order to improve N use efficiency”, the “N flow in agricultural systems, grassland and forest systems” and on the “External constrains for nitrogen fertilization”.

Three very interesting parallel technical field trips took place to dryland, irrigated and mixed agricultural systems respectively. The field experiments being performed by the local team of researchers were shown and discussed. These trips also included other visits to introduce into the main characteristics of the Ebro valley agricultural systems to the participants. The working groups were also successful, mainly because the convenors did a very good job, before and during the workshop. The 16^th N Workshop will be held in Italy. See you there!

Note on the Pre-conference Meeting at Chengdu

27^th  May-2^nd June 2007

Following the acceptance in 2004 of China as the host for the next international meeting on soil micromorphology (the 13^th)  Professor Xiubin He approached executive officers in Commission 1.1 Soil Morphology and Micromorphology about a pre-conference meeting to assist in advancing the organization for this conference. This note records the meeting that took place.

The objective of the pre-conference meeting was to discuss the progress in planning of the conference and associated field trips as well as determine the scientific content and organisational structure. The Conference will be sponsored by the Institute of Mountain Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation of China. The location of the conference in China, the first time in the Far East, is especially important since one fifth of the IUSS members are Chinese. Moreover, it will attract the participation of neighbouring countries with a long tradition of soil micromorphological studies.

Two trips were undertaken: a paddy soil and archaeology at Sanxingdui with its splendid museum, and the ancient flood mitigation  works at Dujiangyan, and the ‘purple soil’ country. The latter involved a 3 day >1500km roundtrip from Chengdu to Nanchong, Zhongxian (overnight), Shibaozhai, Chongqing (overnight) and Chengdu with visits to various cultural features (Xishan Park, Shibaozhai temple, Three Gorges Museum) and some stops to examine soils and landuse.

The  field trips and business meetings were well organised  by Prof. Xiubin He, Dr. Hongyi Zhou, Dr. Donhong Xiong, Prof. Yurong He, Ass. Prof. Yangchun Wang and Dr. Yibei Xu (IMHE).

As a result, the web page of the conference (www.imde.ac.cn) was updated and now includes the list of sessions, a call for abstracts and details on conference field trips. The overall outcome of this meeting ensures a successful conference in Sept. 2008.

Left to right: Yanchun Wang, Xiubin He, Geoff Humphreys, Ahmet Mermut, Rosa M Poch, Donhong Xiong.

Tenth International Symposium on Soil and Plant Analysis, Budapest, Hungary

The International Symposium on Soil and Plant Analysis (ISSPA) is the premier gathering and showcase event in soil and plant analysis.  It is sponsored by the Soil and Plant Analysis Council, Inc. (SPAC), an international society of scientists and organizations interested in advancing nutrient analysis of soil, plant, and water.   About 130 scientists from 28 countries participated in the 10th ISSPA held in Budapest, Hungary, June 11-15, 2007.  It was hosted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Budapest. It continued a successful series of symposia held since 1989. The purpose of the biennial Symposium was to bring together agricultural and natural resource scientists from around the globe to share information on soil, plant, and water analyses for the purpose of efficient resource management and environmental protection.  The venue of the Symposium was Hotel Mercure Buda.  The hotel is located in the business district of Buda, across the street from a large park and faces the city's Castle District, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The 192-page Program and Abstracts book (edited by Tamás Németh and Sándor Koós)   was given to all the delegates at the time of registration. The symposium was officially opened by Donald Horneck, SPAC President.  Szilveszter E. Vizi (President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and Sándor Magda (Rector of Károly Róbert College and Member of the Hungarian Parliament) welcomed the participants to Budapest.  Tamás Németh, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee, welcomed the delegates to the Symposium.

The theme of the symposium was "Role of soil, plant, and water analysis in multifunctional agriculture and sustainability”.  A number of highly regarded keynote speakers presented papers in the following seven plenary sessions: Present status and future trends in crop production; Organic matter and soil fertility; Degradation processes influencing soil fertility;  Soil mapping and sampling;  Modeling soil chemical phenomena;  Modeling nutrient management; and Fertilization status in the Eastern European countries. Poster papers were an integral component of the Symposium. The voluntary papers were presented in the following seven poster sessions: Chemical methods for soil-plant relations; Heavy metals and remediation processes; Greenhouse and field methods in soil fertility and plant nutrition; New products for improving the soil fertility; Basic tools for environmental friendly plant nutrient application; Nutrient cycles in the soil-plant system, and Precision farming, present and future. Each poster session was coordinated by a scientist who gave, to whet the appetite, an overall picture of posters being presented in that session.  I am grateful to the Organizing Committee for giving me the opportunity to coordinate Poster Session 3 (Greenhouse and field methods in soil fertility and plant nutrition) on June 12. A new feature of this Symposium was the oral component of the poster sessions. In the time slots scheduled for posters, presenters gave a five-minute overview of their posters.  The oral and poster papers will be published, after scientific reviews, in the Proceedings as a special issue of the Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis (Guest editor: Arri van Vuuren).

The Welcome Reception on June 11 was a unique opportunity to renew old friendships and make new ones.  The Symposium Dinner on June 14 on the Ship Millennium I, while cruising the magnificent Danube river, was a unique experience.  The Budapest panorama at sunset and during the night was spectacular. Following the dinner, Donald Horneck presented the prestigious J. Benton Jones, Jr. Award to John Ryan, a world renowned soil scientist from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Aleppo, Syria, for his significant contributions to the development and advancement of soil and plant analysis. The recipients of the J. Benton Jones, Jr. Award at the previous nine symposia were J. Benton Jones, Jr., USA (1989), Victor J.G. Houba, the Netherlands (1991), Yash P. Kalra, Canada (1993), Nat Dellavalle, USA (1995), Wayne Sabbe, USA (1997), Umesh C. Gupta, Canada (1999), Theodore R. Peck, USA (2001), George E. Rayment, Australia (2003), and Malcolm Sumner, USA (2005).

I was one of the 10 people who took the Pre-Symposium Tour on June 8-10.  The tour stared at 9:00 a.m. on June 8 from Hotel Mercure Buda.  We traveled to Debrecen where we had lunch at the Hotel Villa Debrecen. János Antal was our tour guide for local sightseeing. Debrecen (nickname the Calvinist Rome) is the second most populous city in Hungary. We visited the beautiful campus of the University of Debrecen. The stay at the Thermal Hotel Victoria was excellent.  Relaxation in thermal baths (inside and outside the hotel) was an invigorating experience.  Next day we visited the National Park Hortobágy within the Hungarian “Puszta” (Great Hungarian Plain), steppe, famous for its wildlife and traditional agriculture (a vast area of plains and wetlands in eastern Hungary; the largest continuous natural grassland in Europe). Hortobágy was designated as a national park in 1973 (the first national park in Hungary). We saw the Máta Stud Farm, Horse Breeding Centre. We took a tour on the horse-drawn carriage into the puszta visiting famous Hungarian rare breeds, e.g., grey cattle, Nonius horses, water buffaloes, Racka sheep and the Mangalica pigs. Then we were off to Tojak.  Tokaj-Hegyalia is renowned for its vineyards and wine cellars throughout the world. We tasted the world-famous Tokaji aszú titled “The King of Wines, Wine of Kings". The view from the top of the 514 m Tojak Mountain (Kopasz/bald Mountain) was spectacular.  After dinner at the Hotel Magita, we visited the famous Vivamus winery (3.5 km underground cellar; 200,000 (0.75-liter) bottles plus 24,000 (136-liter) barrels of wine. On the third day of the tour, after sightseeing in Lillafüred (a popular tourist resort), we took a short excursion to Garadna by forestry railway (760 mm narrow gauge). After lunch, we came back to Lillafüred and then to Budapest.

The Mid-Symposium Tour on June 13 was an excursion around the northern lakeside of the Lake Balaton, the largest freshwater lake in Central Europe.   The itinerary included Budapest-Velence-Tihany-Balatonfüred-Tihany-Szántód-Budapest. We saw fields of canola, corn, wheat, and sunflowers. I was impressed by the Analytical Laboratory at the Plant Protection and Soil Conservation Directorate of the Agricultural Office of County Fejér, Velence.

This is the first time that ISSPA was held in Hungary, the gateway to Eastern Europe. Budapest, Hungary's Capital, "The Pearl of the Danube", is on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. The River Danube divides the metropolis of some two million people into two, the hilly Buda and the flat Pest. I found Budapest one of the most beautiful capital cities in the world. 

The Symposium Organizing Committee included Tamás Németh, Sándor Koós, Katalin Sárdi, Péter Csathó, Zoltán Gyori,  János Nagy,  Márton Jolánkai, Lajos Szabó, and Zoltán Izsáki (Hungary), George E. Rayment (Australia), Georges Hofman (Belgium), Yash P. Kalra (Canada),  Jorge Etchevers (Mexico), Roger Hill (New Zealand),  Andries Claassens  and Arri van Vuuren (South Africa), John Ryan (Syria), and Donald Horneck, Mark Flock, Byron Vaughan, Neil Christiensen, Bob Beck, and Bob Deustch (USA).  I congratulate Tamás Németh and his committee on the excellent arrangements. The legendary Hungarian hospitality was remarkable.

The previous nine symposia were held in  Fresno, California, USA (1989), Orlando, Florida, USA (1991),  Olympia, Washington, USA (1993),  Wageningen, the Netherlands (1995), Bloomington, Minnesota, USA (1997),  Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (1999),   Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (2001), Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa (2003), and Cancun, Mexico (2005).  I have the privilege and distinction of being the only scientist in the world to have participated in all the 10 symposia.

The symposium is now held alternately in North America and overseas. The 11th ISSPA will be held in Santa Rosa, California, USA in 2009. Further information will be posted on our web site (www.spcouncil.com). If there is one international meeting that you can go to in 2009, this is the one.

 Yash P. Kalra

Canadian Forest Service

 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

 Email: ykalra@nrcan.gc.ca

International Summer School

An International Summer School FSGC that was held to Campobasso (South of Italy) from 10 to September 22, 2007. The summer school was financed by Italian University Minister (MUR) and it involves five universities partners: Molise, Torino, Palermo, Cordoba and Santiago de Compostela. The summer school had a objective to illustrate new knowledge in the topic of forest soil and the forest resources, addressed to young researchers toward thematic more close to the territory and soil science research. To the summer school participate 19 students of which 13 coming from and 6 from the foreign countries and also  16 national and international experts. Particularly the background of teachers were form soil science, soil biology, forest ecosystems,  remote sensing,  atmospheric processes. Other expert  that participate in the project come from Florence University, National University in Moscow, University in Naples, University in Padua,  Purdue University of USA, University of Tuscia, IREA-CNR Milano, IBAF-CNR Porano, WSL Birsmensdorf, Society Italian of Pedology (SIPe) and Italian Soil Science (SISS).  Many studies of the soil science are excessively limited often by a sectorial approach that can be reduce their impact, in the summer school an interdisciplinary approach proposes an advanced methodologies on soil science. Some lecture in the summer school considered a forest soil as an essential factor for the protection of the global equilibrium of the biosphere for the production of biomass, for the regulation of cycle environmental components (for instance the underground waters, etc.) as substratum of the most greater part of the biological activities understood ivi the human activities, and also as container of information. 

Prof. Claudio Massimo Colombo 
Dipartimento di Scienze Animali, Vegetali e dell'Ambiente 
Via De Sanctis s/n 86100 Campobasso Italy
phone: +39 0874 404654 
fax: +39 0874 404678 
mobile phone: 3471776231 
e-mail: colombo@unimol.it

Annual Meeting of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL PNW, Tacoma, USA

The 27th Annual Meeting of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL Pacific Northwest Section was held at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) in Tacoma, Washington, USA on June 20-21, 2007 under the leadership of Carlos Abeyta, Jr. of the Food and Drug Administration, Bothell, Washington.  Founded in 1888, UPS is a national liberal arts and sciences college. It is located in the charming residential area in historic North Tacoma.   Its beautiful campus, ivy-wrapped brick buildings, spacious lawns, and elegant fountains provide an ideal setting for such events.  We have held our Annual Meetings here since 1998. In the past, the meetings were held on Thursday and Friday.  This year the new feature was that the meeting was held on Wednesday and Thursday. The diverse program was of interest to analytical communities, regulators, researchers, and industry members. The theme of the meeting was “The Use of Biotechnology/Diagnostic Kits in the Laboratory and Epidemiological Investigations”.  In addition to the keynote addresses, papers were presented in the following seminars: Soil and Environmental Chemistry, Pesticide Residues, QA issues for the Chemistry Laboratory, Diagnostic Kits, Microbiology, and Amino Acid Analysis. The Soil and Environmental Chemistry seminars, that I coordinated,  included following presentations:  Pipetting, Ergonomics, and You (Richard Altomare, Rainin Instrument, Woburn, MA), Useful QC Tools for the Soil Lab (Ed Paski, Analytical Innovations, North Vancouver, BC),  Novel Focused Semi-Open Microwave Instrument for Organic Solvent Extraction Studies (Bob Lockerman and Michael Howe, CEM Corporation, Matthews, NC),  Arsenic Speciation: Made Simple and Easy for the Common Laboratory (Marshall Pattee, Elemental Consulting, North Plains, OR), and  Challenges and Opportunities in Soil and Plant Analysis (Yash P. Kalra, Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton, AB).

The following companies participated in the Vendor Expo (an exhibition of scientific equipment, supplies and services) on June 20: Agilent Technologies, Applied Biosystems, Cetac Technologies, Dionex, Extech, Fisher Scientific, Hitachi High Tech, J2 Scientific, Perkin Elmer, Stategic Diagnostics, TRS Scientific Glass and Varian.

The next Annual Meeting will be held on June 18-19, 2008.   Further information will be available on our website (www.aoacpacnw.com). The 2007-2008 Executive Committee consists of Yash P. Kalra (Chair), Jim Hungerford (Chair Elect),  Carlos Abeyta, Jr. (Past Chair),  Mike Grant and Fred Krick (Treasures), and  Nancy Hill (Secretary). The Pacific Northwest Section is committed to serve as a primary resource for timely knowledge exchange, networking, and high-quality laboratory information for the Northwest scientists.

The AOAC INTERNATIONAL is a worldwide facilitator in the validation of analytical methods. It also serves as a primary resource for knowledge exchange among its members. It provides publications (such as the Official Methods of Analysis of AOAC INTERNATIONAL, OMA), hosts technical meetings and conferences, and offers training courses in areas such as laboratory management, quality assurance, accreditation, statistics, and measurement uncertainty. It was founded in Philadelphia in1884 as the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists. In 1965, to recognize the expansion of its scope of interest beyond agricultural topics, the name was changed to the Association of Official Analytical Chemists. In 1991, it became the AOAC INTERNATIONAL, reflecting the expanding international membership and its focus as the "Association of Analytical Communities". AOAC's first Sections were established in North America, beginning with the Pacific Northwest Section in 1981. The Sections program expanded internationally with the founding of the Europe Section in 1989. The Pacific Northwest Section includes four states in USA (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) and two provinces in Canada (Alberta and British Columbia). “Worldwide confidence in analytical results” is AOAC’s vision. Further information on the Association is available from: AOAC INTERNATIONAL, 481 North Frederick Avenue, Suite 500, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877-2417, USA; Telephone: (301) 924-7077 or (800) 379-2622 (toll-free from North America); Fax: (301) 924-7089; Email: aoac@aoac.org.

Yash P. Kalra

Canadian Forest Service

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

          Email: ykalra@nrcan.gc.ca

WRB-Excursion on Technosols and Stagnosols

Germany in August 2007

The soil groups Technosols and Stagnosols which were introduced very recently into the WRB (world reference base on soil resources) have been studied during an eight days lasting excursion throughout Germany. This excursion started in the Ruhr area in North-West-Germany, on-going in the area of Halle and South of Halle in Central Germany, finally forwarding to South-West Germany. Proposals for the improvement of the WRB taxonomy were formulated during the in-door discussion at Hohenheim University at the last day. Twenty-eight participants from twelve countries shared the excursion which traced back to a proposition from A. Lehmann (Hohenheim) during the IUSS conference in Philadelphia in 2006. Hence, he took over the general organization of the tour. The WRB working group of the IUSS (O. Spaargaren/ Wageningen und P. Schad/ Weihenstephan) was invited by the AK Bodensystematik (Working group on soil systematic of the German Soil Science Society, G. Milbert/ Krefeld).

In total 35 main and some additional soil profiles were shown, 26 anthropogenic soils and 9 formed by stagnant water from natural rocks. The time spent on anhtropogenic soils and the time spent on the hydromorphic soils was nearly the same. This, because of longer distances to travel between the different soils with stagnant water.

The first part of the excursion took place at the starting point of the industrialization in Germany. This was in the anthropogenic strongly influenced Ruhr area.

The Technosols shown there were developed from transported soil material with addition of rubble, ashes, slags and mine spoil. These soils differed substantially in points of their functionality, in regard to the amount of in situ accumulated organic carbon, of decalcification, of alteration by stagnant water and in the occurrence of pedogenic formed minerals.

The natural soils influenced by stagnant water shown in the Ruhr area (annual precipitation: 820 to 930 mm, mean annual temperature: 9.6°C) were from unconsolidated sedimentary rock. Either from marine clay covered with fluvial sand and gravel or from Loess. An intense discussion about the interfering definitions of Stagnosols and Albeluvisols arose at the profiles.

In the evening of the second day, the excursion moved by train from the Ruhr area to Halle in Central Germany. There, the tour continued in the following morning. After a sound introduction into the area of Saxony-Anhalt, the excursion focuses on anthropogenic soils. Here, mainly soils developed from lignite ashes and other residues (oil residues and lime) of industrial processing have been discussed. Some discussions focused on the similarity and differences between Technosols from ashes and Andosols as well as of the current definition of artefacts.

The part of the tour in Central Germany was closed by the presentation of a natural soil in the Wermersdorfer forest (annual precipitation: 650 mm, mean annual temperature: 8,4 °C) influenced by stagnant water. There, Gustaf Adolf Kraus (1888-1968) developed the concept of "gleiartige Böden" which leads to the soil type Pseudogley in the German soil classification. Again, the overlap between Stagnosols and Albeluvisols was discussed at this site.

In the afternoon of the fourth tour-day, the group moved to Stuttgart and arrived there at late night. The following day and the morning of the last tour day was dedicated to a wide range of natural soils formed by stagnant water which were located on the Swabian Alb, in Upper Swabia and in the "Obere Gäue". Most of the presented hydromorphic soils were developed under 7-8° C mean annual temperature and 800-900 mm total annual rainfall. Only the hydromorphic soils presented on the following day in Stuttgart experienced 9 to 10°C annual temperature and 700 mm total annual rainfall.

At the last tour day again anthropogenic soils have been the main topic in the city area of Stuttgart. First, a dump site was visited. There, a Garbic Technosol heavily influenced by reductic gases, was developed. Starting from this 25 years old Technosol, three older anthropogenic urban soils have been shown. The oldest Technosol (from wastes and undisturbed for 85 years) showed intense in situ darkening.

Participants of the AK Bodensystematik – WRB Working Group excursion on Technosols and Stagnosols 2007 in the "Lehenpark" in Stuttgart-West

The following day was up to constructive discussion for completions and changes of the WRB-framework. The Techno-/ Stagnosols-Tour was also the 25^th jubilee of the WRB working group, which was initiated from FAO in 1980 as a follow up of the "Soil Map of the World" project and established in 1982 from the ISSS. We all were glad to have the WRB-veterans R. Dudal und H.-P-Blume with us on the Techno-/ Stagnosols-Tour. This, in order to benefit from their long-term memory. Finally, we want to thank the numerous here not namely mentioned contributors for their support during the preparation and running of the excursion. Also, we want to thank the generous sponsors, notably the DFG (German Research Foundation), the Universitätsbund Hohenheim, the Farny- and the Eiselen foundation, the DBG (German Soil Science Society) und the IUSS.

An update of the 200 pages comprising excursion guide is scheduled for December 2007: http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/soil/TechnoStagno2007GuideUpdate.pdf

A. Lehmann, R. Jahn, , G. Milbert, K. Stahr, W. Burghardt, P. Schad

27^th Congress of the Polish Society of Soil Science

on the 70^th jubilee of Society

The 27^th Congress of PSSS was held from 3 – 7 September 2007 at the Agricultural University in Warsaw. The Congress was a celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the foundation of the Polish Soil Science Society. After the opening ceremony hosted by the Minister of the Environment, plenary session lectures were presented by Prof. Stephen Nortcliff – Secretary General of IUSS, Prof. Donald Sparks – Past President of IUSS, Prof. Winfried Blum - President of the European Confederation of Soil Science Societies and Prof. Ahmet Mermut – Chair Division 1 of IUSS.

Some 220 soil scientists from Poland and 25 from foreign countries participated in the Congress  with the theme ‘Soils in Space and Time’.  During the two days following the Opening Ceremony there were four parallel sessions covering many aspects of soil and environmental science and the management of the soil systems. During the Gala Dinner hosted by the Rector of the University, Professor Donald Sparks was made a Honorary Member of the Polish Society of Soil Science and the Golden Award of the Polish Society of Soil Science was made to Prof. Stephen Nortcliff, Prof. Stepan Poznyak (from Ukraine), Dr. hab.  Goryachkin (from Russia) and Doc. Anton Zaujec (from Slovakia). After the Congress three scientific field excursions were held; one to research institutes in the Warsaw region; a one day excursion to examine soils and landscapes in the Warsaw region and a two day excursion to examine soils and landscapes in the south of Poland.

At the General Assembly of the Polish Society of Soil Science delegates elected the new Board for the period 2007-2011:

President                 Prof. Dr Piotr Skłodowski

Vice-President          Prof. Dr Andrzej Mocek

Vice-President          Prof. Dr Bolesław Bieniek

Secretary                Associate Prof. Józef Chojnicki

Treasurer                Associate Prof. Zbigniew Zagórski  

Józef Chojnicki

Secretary of the Polish Soil Science Society

Department of Soil Environment Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Biology

Warsaw Agricultural University

02-776 Warszawa, 159/37 Nowoursynowska Street

Poland

E-mail: jozef_chojnicki@sggw.pl

31^th Brazilian Congress of Soil Science:

Advances and Challenges of the Brazilian Soil Science

The Brazilian Soil Science Society (BSSS) was founded in 1947 to congregate people and institutions for the purpose of promoting and developing the Soil Science in Brazil. It is a scientific and private entity without profit aims, with more than 1,500 active members. To celebrate its 60 years anniversary, the BSSS held her 31^th Brazilian Congress of Soil Science (BCSS) in August 5 to 10, 2007, in Gramado, State of Rio Grande Do Sul, under the theme “Advances and Challenges of the Brazilian Soil Science”.  During this meeting were pointed to the scientists who attended it the main needs in the Brazilian soil science in the near future. We had more than 3,500 attending, a total of 71 lectures and more than 2,400 presented scientific works, with a budget of about US$ 420,000. All lectures and scientific works can be assessed at www.ufrgs.br/cbsc.  This event became the largest scientific event in the agronomy and environmental sciences areas in Brazil.

Main group of professors and graduate students from 31^th BCSS Organizing Committee.

During our general assembly there was the election for the new Directive Council of The Brazilian Soil Science Society  for the period 2007/2009, as follow:  President:  Flávio  A. Oliveira Camargo; 1º Vice-President: Fernando Felipe Ferreyra Hernandez; 2º Vice-President: Víctor Hugo Alvarez V.; Secretary: João Carlos Ker ; Finances:  Reinaldo Bertola Cantarutti ; Councilers : Mateus Rosas Ribeiro (past president); Ricardo Simão Diniz Dalmolin; Renato Roscoe; Hedinaldo Narciso de Lima; Luciano da Silva Souza; Paulo Vidal Torrado.

Flavio Camargo

President of the 31^th BCSS

fcamargo@ufrgs.br

E-mails received after the 31^th BCSS:

Dear Flavio,

First of all congratulations on organizing an excellent  conference, which was very well attended and contained some outstanding papers describing the cutting edge of soil science in Brazil. You and the members of your Organizing Committee must be commended for an outstanding job. I thank you for inviting me to the meeting. I had an excellent trip. All arrangements were outstanding. Attention was paid to the minutest details, especially with regards to the hotel in Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. Everything worked out just fine. All flights were on schedule and I arrived Columbus on time. Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to participate in the conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Soil Society of Brazil. It was done in a highly professional manner to be proud of. You will make an outstanding president of this very prestigious society.

Best regards to you and your family.

Rattan Lal

Professor of Soil Science, SENR

Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, OARDC/FAES

President, Soil Science Society of America

Dear Flavio:

I want to take a few minutes to thank you again for your kind invitation and for the great time I had in Brazil. I wish I could have stayed longer, but the little time I spent in Gramado definitely made me want to know Brazil better. I was particularly impressed by the efficiency with which you organized the meeting. I don't think I have attended a conference that was better organized. Congratulations!!!! 

Thank you again!!

Very best regards.

Philippe Baveye