1999-2000 Catalog

Research Institutes and Centers

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Research

Alaska Quaternary Center

The Alaska Quaternary Center (AQC) was established in 1983 to serve as the focus for interdisciplinary research in Quaternary studies at UAF. The Quaternary period spans the past two million years and encompasses glacial epochs, warm interglacials, changing biotic assemblages and human adaptations. Pleistocene fossil faunas, floras and sediment sequences are the physical bases for paleoecological and paleoclimatic reconstruction. Climate and ecosystem models establish the modern analogs for interpretation.

The AQC is associated with the University of Alaska Museum. The center sponsors seminars and workshops and hosts visiting faculty from throughout the world. Quaternary scholars from UAF regularly correspond with Soviet colleagues and travel to Siberia and the Soviet Far East to work in the field and at the institutes of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. With the Arctic Research and Policy Act of 1984 and other programs (e.g. global change and biodiversity) focusing on the importance of interdisciplinary research in high latitudes, the AQC will play an increasingly important role in the organization of northern science.