Friederike Grimmer

From 7-9^th May, the PAGES Young Scientist Meeting (YSM) took place in Morillo de Tou, Spain, and from 9-13^th May, the PAGES Open Science Meeting (OSM) took place in Zaragoza, Spain.

The YSM is a rather small meeting with about 80 participants (PhDs and Post Docs). It is organized every four years to bring together early career researchers for scientific exchange, but also to discuss about future developments in paleo-research and the scope of PAGES in general. The venue, Morillo de Tou, was an abandoned village which is nowadays a holiday resort. Its remote location in the Pyrenees with nothing else around but beautiful landscapes made it an ideal place for three days of intense scientific exchange. The topics of oral and poster sessions covered a wide range of proxies and modelling approaches on different time scales. I presented a poster about early Pliocene vegetation change in western equatorial South America and its implications for hydrology and Andean uplift. Everyone was asked to provide feedback on three other presentations, which was very helpful. In addition to the oral and poster sessions, we were divided into small groups and had some time to discuss topics like how to better communicate our science to the public, writing funding proposals, if and how leaving academia is possible, etc. It was interesting to get some insights and advice on these themes from the senior scientists, but also to see what the other young scientists think about this as we are all more or less in the same situation.

The organizing committee had also planned some social activities for the evenings (star gazing with information about celestial bodies, live music from a local band with dancing). These gatherings were a good opportunity to better get to know the other young scientists.

After a short visit to the nearby medieval village Ainsa on the last day, we returned to Zaragoza for the Open Science Meeting. This conference was much bigger with about 900 participants. Every morning, there were some plenary talks, followed by six parallel oral sessions. Poster sessions took place in the evenings. What I found very positive was that it was always easy to meet someone I already knew from the YSM. During the three days, some of us had already made friends and so we never felt lost or alone during the OSM. Also regarding the scientific scope of this meeting, the OSM was one of the best conferences I attended so far. It covered a broad range of topics, but at the same time there were many palynologists like me, so I was able to see my work in a broader context. The session “Pliocene climate variability over glacial-interglacial timescales (PlioVAR)” where I also presented my poster was particularly interesting for me.

Overall, it was a successful and enjoyable week for me and I would like to kindly thank GLOMAR and PAGES for providing financial support to attend these meetings.