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Dates: From 07 Nov, 2004 till 10 Nov, 2004

Location: USA

New and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Dating Cave Deposits A Topical Session to be held at the 2004 National Meeting of the Geological Society of America (November 7-10) Topical Session #30 Sponsored by the Karst Waters Institute, and the GSA Archaeological Geology Division Conveners: Donald A. McFarlane (Claremont Colleges, California) and Joyce Lundberg (Carleton University, Canada). Resolving the ages of autochthonous and allochthonous deposits in caves is pivotal to a wide spectrum of research including archaeology, paleontology, paleoclimatology, and geomorphology. Although enormous advances have been made over the past 40 years, many challenges remain. This Session aims to bring together researchers at the forefront of relevant technological and methodological advances, and those who are experimenting with, or successfully integrating multiple and/or innovative techniques to resolve long and complex speleological records. The session will begin with a historical overview and summary of challenges and future directions by Professor Derek Ford. We then will explore three areas: (1) recent advances (and limitations) of established core techniques for dating cave deposits (eg. U-Th, ESR, thermoluminescence, 14C, and paleomagnetism), including hardware and data analysis techniques. (2) Emergent techniques, such as 10Be/26Al dating of cave sediments,36Cl and 210Pb dating of fossil bones and speleothem, advances in the understanding of AAR in fossil teeth and speleothem, progress in the application of U-Pb dating to speleothem, and annual lamination chronology. (3) Case studies in which combinations of techniques have been successfully applied to complex cave deposits spanning long periods of time, or which have been recalcitrant to dating for other reasons. It is hoped that this technical session will form the basis for a GSA Special Publication; currently, no book or monograph is available which brings together multiple techniques for dating cave deposits. There will be both ORAL and POSTER sessions. The deadline for electronic abstract submission is July 13, 2004. The submission forms are available April 1 - July 13, through the GSA's web site (http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2004/). GSA requires that a speaker present only one abstract. If an author submits more than one volunteered abstract with the same person as speaker, all abstracts listing that speaker may be rejected. The abstracts are maintained and archived on the GSA's website. Questions may be addressed to Donald McFarlane (dmcfarla@jsd.claremont.edu) or Joyce Lundberg (joyce_lundberg@carleton.ca)

31 Dec, 1969 - 31 Dec, 1969,