Advances in Karst Research international workshop will be organised as online under the Communication strategy (C3) planned for the EU-funded SPELEOTOLIA Project and will be held between 8-9 October 2021. SPELEOTOLIA is a 2-year (2019–2021) Marie Skłodowska Curie Project (no: 842403), which has been carried out in the Department of Geological Engineering at the Middle East Technical University (METU). Full title of the project is “Holocene climate reconstructions from western Anatolia based on speleothem data” The coordinator/PI of the project is Dr. Ezgi Ünal İmer with Prof. İ. Ömer Yılmaz from the same department as supervisor.
SPELEOTOLIA integrates speleothem (cave deposits) geochemical records to resolve Holocene climate variations in western and west central Anatolia. The primary objectives of this study are: (1) constraining the driving factors of Holocene climate changes in the region and throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, (2) understanding the possible impacts of climate variability on the ancient Anatolian civilizations (e.g., Roman/Byzantine and Ottoman Empires), and (3) distinguishing between volcanic and anthropogenic impacts on stalagmite growth. An extensive dataset has been generated through a multi-proxy approach of detailed isotope and trace element geochemistry using Holocene-aged (U-Th geochronology) stalagmites.
Turkey has widespread karst regions, which have been an important part of a combination of scientific research, such as paleoclimatology, archeology, hydrology, geography, biology, and many others. Approximately 40% of Turkish land is comprised of karstic rocks (limestone, dolomite, and gypsum), in some areas these rocks reach elevations up to 4000 meters a.s.l. Accordingly, cave studies have been underway and are gaining much-deserved attention among karst research. Online international workshop Advances in Karst Research primarily aims to share the research results within the community of geologists and geographers who have been conducting scientific research on topics such as speleothems, karst proxies of climate change, paleogeography, karts biology, karst hydrology/modelling, cave monitoring, and archeology in karst terrains. This workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers that advance karst and cave data. Registration form for the workshop is available via SPELEOTOLIA website (http://speleotolia.geoe.metu.edu.tr/). Presentations will be in oral format and will be given by invited speakers and the organizing committee.
The list of invited speakers and their presentation titles are available on http://speleotolia.geoe.metu.edu.tr/
We are delighted to invite you to participate to the workshop either as speaker or listener.
Best regards,
On behalf of the organizing committee,
Ezgi Ünal İmer (PhD)
eunal@metu.edu.tr