International Focus Group (IFG):
The IFG is mainly composed of researchers in Quaternary Geology from low-GDP countries based in South America (SA) that initially participated in the SAm-GeoQuat Skill Enhancement Initiative in the year 2012 (INQUA 1225S). With an open list of active participants, the main activity for the period 2013-2015 focuses on the hosting of workshops of the group at national and international congresses and the organization of field courses and field meetings in order to reinforce the integration and the planned scientific work in multiple areas of the continent. The research is centered on the interactions and feedback between tectonics, climate and surface processes that influenced actively the landscape. It is addressed mainly by field discussions along representative transects comprising some of the main morphostructural domains in SA (the Andes and the extra-Andean regions) and the close interaction during international workshops.
Aware of the potential of SA to disentangle the role of multiple factors ruling Quaternary dynamics, this IFG aims to bring together scientists working on research areas that address the Quaternary Geology of large SA environments with the objective of distinguish features caused by major climatic changes from those created independently of exogenetic processes. Nowadays, the progress in drawing a broad view of the Quaternary Geology often suffers from the lack of coordination and interaction between the groups working on endogenetic processes and those studying surficial processes. Also, the integrated information has a rather "patchy" distribution on the continent. Hence, a main goal is to increase the existing communication between geoscientists and to develop new contacts among local researchers in order to stimulate multidisciplinary research mainly based on field discussions covering both climatic and tectonic-volcanic influences on the analyses of terrestrial processes and their deposits in representative environments of SA and particularly spanning the entire last interglacial-glacial cycle.
Some of the specific objectives of the IFG are:
(i) To link the scientific geologic communities from SA and dedicated to the research of the Quaternary that do not usually work together.
(ii) To bring field active specialists together and interested in the Quaternary period, with study areas in the continent and to allow researchers with different backgrounds to meet (especially in the field), to interact and exchange data and interpretations and also discuss common approaches for studying geological processes along a variety of tectonic settings, with the aim of achieving integrated results.
(iii) To obtain cross-disciplinary and cross-regional correlation of geological records in different settings of SA with the aim of seeking international forums to discuss results and to review the advances on the studies that link research on Quaternary continental environments and tectonics. The results will contribute with information useful to programs of mitigation of societal impacts from natural hazards in SA.
(iv) To organize workshops and field meetings to discuss innovative approaches aiming to enhance our understanding of the interplay between tectonic and climatically controlled processes that have created landforms and sedimentary sequences of representative regions of SA and spanning the last interglacial-glacial cycle.
(v) To compile and interlink fluvial, glacial, lacustrine, colluvial and coastal records, because of their widespread distribution on the continent, and their value in registering comparatively rapid response to tectonic and climate influences.
(vi) To advance on the palaeoenvironmental assessment of aeolian-paleosols sequences and pyroclastic/volcaniclastic sequences of key selected regions of SA.
(vii) To produce, as a collective of authors, a series of research results and papers that exceeds the capacity of individuals.
