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PAST Gateways 2018

April 16 - 20, 2018, Durham, UK

Summary

The PAST (Paleo Arctic Spa­ti­al and Tem­po­ral) Gate­ways is a six year program with a goal to un­der­stand and re­con­struct Arc­tic en­vi­ron­men­tal chan­ges. The 2018 conference took place from 16 to 20 April in University of Durham, Durham, England. More than 60 International sci­en­tists from Eu­ro­pe, Rus­sia, Ca­na­da and the USA were in­vol­ved in this conference. Like previous years, Scientists from all over the world met this year too in a mul­ti­di­sci­pli­na­ry conference to dis­cuss new re­se­arch re­sults and im­pro­ve­ments in the un­der­stan­ding of Arc­tic en­vi­ron­men­tal chan­ge. There were four major themes for this year meeting, 1. Growth and decay of Arctic Ice Sheets, 2. Arctic sea ice and ocean changes, 3. Holocene Arctic palaeo-environmental change, 4. Non-glaciated Arctic environments including permafrost and other topics.

With my Phd research focus, I am dealing with the topic 2 and 3. It was first time for me to visit England, but I really enjoyed the opportunities for networking and presenting my fresh results about my PhD research and later I had interesting discussion with many interesting people working in other areas of the Arctic. Conference organizers also brought us to a full day field trip to English ‘Pennines’ mountains to study the Glacial and Quaternary geomorphological features carved by late glacial ice sheets in northern England. We saw probably the largest drumlins and valleys formed by those ice moving structures. Later, we also visited the ancient Hadrian wall built by Romans in 122 AD between Scotland and England. The last days we had many presentations from scientists dealing with Arctic environmental changes.

Conference activities and benefits

The first evening started with the conference dinner in Durham castle (also the University building) where we got to know many people in relaxing atmosphere. The next day we had the full day filled with lots of interesting presentation and interesting discussions afterwards. We also had two days to present our poster in relax atmosphere and discuss it with many interesting people working in similar research areas. It’s a small conference with less than hundred people that gives a chance to discuss it in detail. Also, I met a number of people who I knew before, who were involved in the previous expedition. I also got good feedback from several renowned scientists. I also had a chance to discuss my project with my supervisor and other people involved in similar projects. Last but not the least, I liked the Durham and New castle city very much. We were in the Durham castle, where Harry Potter was filmed, some scenes actually along with the Durham cathedral, which was interesting in many ways too. It was a very exciting experience to see such a good organization. I personally feel, scientifically and personally more motivated and experienced a bit more now to discuss my research with big audiences. I would like to be thankful for ArcTrain for giving me this great opportunity, guidance and funding resources.

Jeetendra Saini