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In September 2016, the annual meeting of the International Union for Quaternary Research’s Loess and Pedostratigraphy Focus Group, traditionally referred to as a LoessFest, met in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. The 2016 LoessFest focused on “thin” loess deposits and loess transportation surfaces. This LoessFest included 75 registered participants from 10 countries. Almost half of the participants were from outside the United States, and 18 of the participants were students. This review is the introduction to the special issue forQuaternary Researchthat originated from presentations and discussions at the 2016 LoessFest. This introduction highlights current understanding and ongoing work on loess in various regions of the world and provides brief summaries of some of the current approaches/strategies used to study loess deposits.

The Nussloch loess-palaeosol sequence (Rhine Valley, Germany) is considered to be one of the most complete records of the last glacial period in Western Europe due to its very high sedimentation rate and its good chronological control. This sequence is therefore a good framework in which to develop new proxies for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. In this study, we explore, for the first time, the potential of earthworm calcite granules as a new bio-indicator and climatic proxy of absolute air and soil temperature in the context of Last Glacial loess. These granules are composed of rhomboedric calcite crystals, organized in a radial crystalline structure. As these granules are individually generated by earthworms at a relative fast rate, they are expected to record intra-annual variations in the available sources of oxygen: percolating waters of meteoric origin. We extracted thirty earthworm calcite granules from 11 of 5 cm layers thick from tundra gley and brown soil horizons previously, dated at 45 to 23 ka. Oxygen isotope ratios were measured on each individual granule. The δ 18 O of calcite granules and interlinked transfer functions between water cycle, air and soil temperatures allowed us to estimate air temperatures ranging from 10 to 12 ± 4 • C, which most likely reflect the warm periods of the year when earthworms were the most active.

Deciphering the complex interplays between climate, uplift and erosion is not straightforward and estimating present‐day erosion rates can provide useful insights. Glaciers are thought to be powerful erosional agents, but most published ‘glacial’ erosion rates combine periglacial, subglacial and proglacial erosion processes. Within a glaciated catchment, sediments found in subglacial streams originate either from glacial erosion of substratum or from the rock walls above the glacier that contribute to the supraglacial load. Terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCN) are produced by interactions between cosmic ray particles and element targets at the surface of the Earth, but their concentration becomes negligible under 15 m of ice. Measuring TCN concentrations in quartz sand sampled in subglacial streams and in supraglacial channels is statistically compliant with stochastic processes (e.g. rockfalls) and may be used to discriminate subglacial and periglacial erosion. Results for two subglacial streams of the Bossons glacier (Mont Blanc massif, France) show that the proportion of sediments originating from glacially eroded bedrock is not constant: it varies from 50% to 90% (n = 6). The difference between the two streams is probably linked to the presence or absence of supraglacial channels and sinkholes, which are common features of alpine glaciers. Therefore, most of the published mean catchment glacial erosion rates should not be directly interpreted as subglacial erosion rates. In the case of catchments with efficient periglacial erosion and particularly rockfalls, the proportion of sediments in the subglacial stream originating from the supraglacial load could be considerable and the subglacial erosion rate overestimated. Here, we estimate warm‐based subglacial and periglacial erosion rates to be of the same order of magnitude: 0.39 ± 0.33 and 0.29 ± 0.17 mm a−1, respectively. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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International audienc

Cosmogenic nuclide dating of glacial landforms may lead to ambiguous results for ice retreat histories. The persistence of significant cosmogenic concentrations inherited from previous exposure may increase the apparent exposure ages for polished bedrocks affected by limited erosion under ice and for erratic boulders transported by glaciers and previously exposed in high‐altitude rock walls. In contrast, transient burying by moraines, sediments and snow decreases the apparent exposure age. We propose a new sampling strategy, applied to four sites distributed in the Arc and Arve valleys in the Western Alps, to better constrain the factors that can bias exposure ages associated with glacial processes. We used the terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide 10Be (TCN) to estimate the exposure time from paired sampling of depth profiles in polished bedrock and on overlying erratic boulders. For a given sampling site, the exposure ages for both the polished bedrock and boulder are expected to be the same. However, in six cases out of seven, boulders had significantly higher 10Be surface concentrations than those of the associated polished surfaces. In present and past glacial processes, the 10Be distribution with depth for boulders and bedrocks implies the presence of an inheritance concentration of 10Be. Our study suggests that 10Be concentrations in erratic boulders and in polished bedrocks provide maximum and minimum exposure ages of the glacial retreat, respectively. © 2019 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd