Andy Baker

The Australasian Quaternary Research Association meets this week on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). This is possibly the most friendly conference series and group of people that I have had the pleasure of attending.

At AQUA2024 I am fortunate to be involved with three presentations at the conference, presented by Pauline Treble, Micha Campbell and myself. The common theme is the use of cave records to understand past environments, from fire history to groundwater recharge. We are reporting the results of Australian Research Council projects that have investigated stalagmite records of past fire history, and infrastructure to monitor groundwater recharge across Australia.

For all the conference abstracts, you can read the program. And for an overview of the paper behind the presentation on groundwater recharge, there is an article published today in The Conversation.

And for me, it was also a rare occasion where I could travel conveniently overland to an interstate conference, walking out of my house to catch a night train, followed by a local train and a ferry to get to Minjerribah.