LoessFest 2009:
A grand new LoessFest will be held in Novi Sad in 2009. Ten years on from the marvellous LoessFest 1999 in Heidelberg and Bonn. If you are interested in any aspect contact Slobodan Markovic at zbir@im.ns.ac.yu. The timing is now fixed; the meeting will take place 31 August-4 September 2009 at the University of Novi Sad. Short field trips are planned to see the loess at Stari Slankamen, and Ruma brickyard, and other interesting places.

DIRTMAP 2

Dust Indicators and Records of Terrestrial and Marine Palaeoenvironments Database a.k.a. Dirtmap. The first Dirtmap project was launched at the 1999 Loessfest- and now Dirtmap 2 is up and running. A major event in the Dirtmap programme was the meeting at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemie in Jena in 2000, organised by Karen Kohfeld and Sandy Harrison. This led to the publication of a special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews (vol.22, nos.18-19, Sept.2003, ed E.Derbyshire) which was, in effect, the culmination of Dirtmap 1.

Now Dirtmap 2 exists, as INQUA Working Group Project 0802 http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/research/LU_themes/inqua_working_group.php

The chief organiser is Prof. Barbara Maher at the Lancaster Environment Centre, University of Lancaster, Farrar Ave., Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK b.maher@lancaster.ac.uk. LLO particularly likes the look of objective 5 which includes the need to incorporate better characterization of dust properties such as particle size distribution, mineralogy and particle shape into the programme.

AGU American Geophysical Union December 2008:

A loess session organised by Helen Roberts, Eric Oches, Lai Zhongping & Bjoern Machalett at the Fall Meeting of the AGU at San Fransisco 15-19 December 2008.

Loess 2.0-  Renaissance in the Study of the Terrestrial Dust Record. Contact Bjoern Machalett b.machalett@nakula.de if you wish to participate. Some more details on the AGU website.

IAS International Association of Sedimentologists:
The IAS 26th Congress was held in Bochum, Germany 1st September- 3rd September 2008. Details at www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ias2008/. Session T1d 'The Glacial Sedimentary Record' organised by T.Stevens t.stevens@kingston.ac.uk and C.Rose: there maybe some loess papers here- there have been hints of a glacial: loess connection.

DEUQUA 2008: [with special Danubian Loess session]
The DEUQUA Annual Meeting for 2008 was held in Vienna 31st August- 6th September 2008.Details at www.baunat.boku.ac.at/10215.html. For general information on DEUQUA go to www.deuqua.de. We think that this is the first time that DEUQUA has been to Vienna since Julius Fink organised the 1978 meeting.

There was a special 'Danubian Loess' session at DEUQUA 2008; organised by Ludwig.Zoeller@uni-bayreuth.de. The Loess field trip was on 4th Sept 'Loess in der Wachau'. On 31st August - the Welcome Event; papers on 2 & 3 Sept.(see publications section and home page).

17th INQUA Congress:
Cairns Queensland Australia, 28th July - 3rd August 2007
Details from: www.inqua2007.net.au
General information on the INQUA website at: www.inqua.tcd.ie. A set of abstracts from this meeting was published in Loess Letter 58 (October 2007).

18th INQUA Congress:
The 18th INQUA Congress will be held at Bern, Switzerland 20-27 July 2011. The theme will be 'Quaternary Sciences- the View from the Mountains'. This is the 18th Congress, not the 28th as appears on the official website (tricky things Roman numbers).

Novi Sad '06:
A meeting of the Loess Stratigraphy INQUA Subcommission was held at the University of Novi Sad, 29th September - 2nd October 2006. A special issue of Quaternary International will contain papers from this meeting. For some details of the meeting you should visit the Loess Lexicon website at www.loess-lexicon.net. The papers for the QI volume are being refereed (Oct 1 2008) and the publication process is proceeding. See QI website for papers published on the internet.