14
BAMOS
June 2017
Conference Report: PAGES Open
Science Meeting
Bethany Ellis, Australian National University
It was a warm and sunny week in mid-May when palaeoscientists
from around the world descended upon Zaragoza, the capital of
Aragon in central Spain, for a busy week of all things palaeo.
The Past Global Changes (PAGES) Open Science Meeting only
comes around once every four years and is a great opportunity
for the palaeoscience community to share their latest research.
With over 800 participants, talks and posters spanned a range
of time periods, from the extinction of the dinosaurs up to the
last 2000 years.
Hosting the conference this year was the Pyrenean Institute
of Ecology and the Spanish National Research Council, with
Zaragoza acting as a fantastic locality for the conference. Talks
were hosted in several spaces within the Auditorio de Zaragoza,
with the main conference room in an expansive, tiered concert
hall. The days were broken up by a two hour long Spanish lunch
involving a three-course meal, and typically ended bar hopping
around the old town trying out the local tapas delicacies.
topics were covered by nine plenaries, 344 talks and 650 poster
presentations all within a four-day conference.
As current palaeo proxy data have sparse coverage across
the Southern Hemisphere, I was surprised to see a larger
number of presentations and even an entire session dedicated
to the climate and environmental change of the Southern
Hemisphere. Another large and exciting focus of the conference
was hydroclimate, with many new research projects looking at
the hydrological system during well known dry and wet periods
of the past.
The only downside to the conference was that there were too
many interesting climate-focused sessions running in parallel
which meant a few too many clashing schedules. Overall, PAGES
was a great facilitator of interactions between scientists of all
areas of palaeoscience and at all career levels.
Whilst there to present my own work on Indian Ocean Dipole
reconstructions, the PAGES scope of interest is vast and includes
not only the physical climate system but also biogeochemical
cycles, ecosystem processes, biodiversity and human dimensions
across all regions of the Earth. These broad multidisciplinary
Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza. Image: Bethany Ellis