4 Jan 2018

Dear tephrochronologists and supporters of INTAV

A happy new year to you all. I am writing to briefly update you on forthcoming activities of INTAV and to ask for some information to help me compile my annual report to INQUA and to support an INQUA funding application due at the end of January 2018.

1. Update "Crossing New Frontiers" conference in Romania June 2018
All should be aware now of the pending specialist tephra meeting "Crossing New Frontiers: Tephra Hunt in Transylvania", 24-29 June, 2018, Romania. A 1st circular was provided via JISCMail and Facebook (INTAV) and is on our INTAV website. The LOC, with Daniel Veres at the helm, is working on the 2nd circular which is essentially the final development of a conference website on which you can register, upload abstracts, book your place on field trips, get information about accommodation, apply for student/ECR travel support etc. That site is going to be ready soon (later this month) so please keep an eye out for its announcement. We have received considerable interest in the conference. Please keep those dates free so you can join us in Romania. The 3-day postconference trip will take place from 29 June to 1 July inclusive.

2. INQUA Congress Dublin 2019
The INTAV committee (Takehiko Suzuki, Britta Jensen, Peter Abbott, Siwan Davies, David Lowe) is currently working on proposals for 3 tephra-focussed sessions/symposia to be held during the full INQUA Congress in Dublin 25-31 July 2019. More information on these sessions will be announced soon.

3. INTAV IFG report for 2017 and funding application for "Crossing New Frontiers" Romania 2018
It is a requirement of all INQUA International Focus Groups (IFGs), such as INTAV, to provide an annual report summarising activities and accomplishments. Continuing recognition of IFGs or projects by the INQUA Executive Committee is contingent upon the submission of an annual report. I am therefore asking for your support in helping me (David Lowe) to compile a report for INTAV, and the attendant project EXTRAS (EXTending tephRAS as a global geoscientific research tool stratigraphically, spatially, analytically, and temporally) for last year (2017).  I am also completing an application for funding from INQUA to support the "Crossing New Frontiers" meeting in Romania, 2018. A preliminary aplication was made in October 2017; I am now updating this application.

I require from you just brief notes as follows:

(a) A short note of any activities that involved INTAV and/or EXTRAS, such as symposia or workshops held during conferences/meetings in 2017. Please advise the name of the convenor and activity and (if feasible) approximate numbers in attendance. If a symposium or session targeted one or more of the 7 objectives of the EXTRAS project (see http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/intav/Extras.html) then it would be useful to note that connection. US colleagues organised an important meeting in Portland in August last year (“Best practices in tephra collection, analysis, and reporting – leading toward better tephra databases”), which was supported by funding from INQUA - I already have the necessary details of that meeting for my report to INQUA.

(b) Publications from 2017 or in press that refer to INTAV in acknowledgements (these may specifically note the EXTRAS project, or simply INTAV). I know of a number of papers already including all the papers in the special tephra issue Lane et al. (2017) published in Quaternary Geochronology last year.

My deadline for receiving information from you is Monday 22 January 2018, please. My email is [log in to unmask]
(The completed reports are due at INQUA by 31 January, 2018.) Note that I am currently on leave until 15 Jan 2018 and so won't be writing the reports/funding application until then.

Please ask your students and colleagues with an interest in tephras and tephrochronology to sign up to JISCMail + Tephra and to our Facebook site ("International Focus Group on Tephrochronology and Volcanism": https://www.facebook.com/groups/INTAV/?ref=bookmarks) so they can keep up to date. Contact and other details are available on the INTAV website as well: http://www.comp.tmu.ac.jp/tephra/intavtmu/pg772.html

Thank you in advance for your help and support. Looking forward to a very interesting year and to meeting up with many of you at the conference in Romania.

All the best for 2018.

David Lowe
Immediate past-president (on behalf of of INTAV committee/exec)
Hamilton, New Zealand