This is the story of Loess Letter, an INQUA newsletter which started life at the DSIR Soil Bureau in New Zealand in 1979 and was replaced in the new electronic world by the Loess Ground blog in 2015. It is a story of adventure and romance- no its not its a tale of obsessive bibliography and the evolution of loessic studies at an interesting time in the development of Quaternary Research. Loess Letter has an ISSN number 0110-7658 and all the issues are available online at www.loessletter.msu.edu. Large efforts by Dr.Randall Schaetzl and dedicated helpers at Michigan State University have ensured online access to the complete oeuvre.
cover concatenation by Balazs Bradak
Its a tale of several parts; start at the NZ Soil Bureau in 1979; a newsletter for the Western Pacific Working Group of the INQUA Loess Commission. Issues 1-7 were produced by the Soil Bureau, printed by the NZ Government Printer in Wellington and distributed by the Bureau (1979-1982). Then a move to Canada, to the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Issues 8-16 from Waterloo, supported by NSERC (1982-1986). Then to the University of Leicester; issues 17-34, some initial support from the Royal Society (1987-1995). Issues 35-65 were produced at Nottingham Trent University (1996-2011, a mighty effort by NTU), and then the final sequence 66-72 back to Leicester University. The whole sequence was published online by Michigan State University and all issues can be accessed via www.loessletter.msu.edu. The transitions were 7 Ap 82 > 8 Oc 82; 16 Oc 86 > 17 Ap 87; 34 Oc95 > 35 Ap 96; 65 Ap 11 > 66 Oc 11; 72 Oc 14.
Loess Letter 1-10 was published as a compilation by Elsevier Geobooks in Norwich; ISBN 0 86094 218 X 1987. Very few copies were printed; if you come across a copy in your local second hand bookshop it will be a surprise (it may not be valued now as a rare book- but in the future: who knows?). OCLC only lists one copy in a library: in Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) Hannover 30167 Germany.
title by Liu Tungsheng written at NZ Soil Bureau 1980
Supplements. A series of supplements was produced and given limited circulation. The supplements were initially produced as a contribution from the Loess Commission to the 12th INQUA Congress held in Ottawa in 1984. It was an erratic series of items, a few of which may have lasting value. A translation of the Pyaskovskii paper on deep soil formation which was produced at the Soil Bureau was eventually published as LLS 3, and in view of its significance again as LL72. The LL72 republication means that it is readily available online. Professor Edward Debyshire's inaugural lecture in the Geography Department at Leicester University on 28 April 1987 was published as LLS 21.
The most ambitious supplement, the most ambitious item in LL publishing history, was the reissue of John Hardcastles's Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury; originally published in 1908 by the Timaru Herald and republished, with editorial apparatus and maps, by LL in 2014 . The Hardcastle supplement was well circulated in NZ and reached a goodly distribution of universities and institutions (with assistance from the South Canterbury Museum).
The Supplements
1. Loess & Agriculture. Kwong & Smalley. Oct.1983
2. Dust mantles in Australia. A.J.Dare-Edwards
3. B.V.Pyaskovskii, Loess as a deep-soil formation. July 1989.
4. The loess formation in Bulgaria
5. The hydrogeology of loess 1883-1982
6. Loess in Pleistocene soils on Mount Kenya. W.C.Mahaney
7. Geotechnical investigations of loess in the USA. Alan Lutenegger et al.
8. Lyell on Loess. A section from Principles of Geology 4th ed.1835
9. Dokuchaev and the Russian approach
10. Kriger. A section from Kriger 1965 (in Russian)
11. Obruchev. A translation of the Obruchev article in Novi Mir- a popular account of loess
12. The Quaternary of the Great Hungarian Plain
13. Kriger again. This is the bibliography from Kriger 1965- the most important Cyrillic loess bibliography available, critical for the study of historical Russian loess investigations.
14. Yeliseyev 1973 translated
15. Vaskovsky
16. Tutkovskii sampler
17. Kondratov's Arctic Lands
18. M.P.Lysenko
19. Pelisek
20. Seventy Books on Loess: March 1991
21. E.Derbyshire. The skin of the Earth and the way of the World
22. E.Derbyshire. Loess and the Argentinian Pampa.
23. John Hardcastle. 100 years of loess stratigraphy.
Hardcastle. Hardcastle as the pioneer of loess stratigraphy. John Hardcastle of Timaru as a significant pioneer of Quaternary Studies. LL supported JH- his bibliographical uncovering coincided exactly with the launch of the Western Pacific Working Group and his visibility has increased as loess stratigraphy has grown in extent and achievement. Supplement 23 was published for the 13th INQUA Congress in Beijing in 1991 and its widespread circulation placed JH nicely into a proper niche in geohistory. Supplement ns2 was published for the 19th Congress in Nagoya Japan in 2015-this was the climax of the LL/JH project- a republishing of his book Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury.
Its a tale of several parts; start at the NZ Soil Bureau in 1979; a newsletter for the Western Pacific Working Group of the INQUA Loess Commission. Issues 1-7 were produced by the Soil Bureau, printed by the NZ Government Printer in Wellington and distributed by the Bureau (1979-1982). Then a move to Canada, to the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Issues 8-16 from Waterloo, supported by NSERC (1982-1986). Then to the University of Leicester; issues 17-34, some initial support from the Royal Society (1987-1995). Issues 35-65 were produced at Nottingham Trent University (1996-2011, a mighty effort by NTU), and then the final sequence 66-72 back to Leicester University. The whole sequence was published online by Michigan State University and all issues can be accessed via www.loessletter.msu.edu. The transitions were 7 Ap 82 > 8 Oc 82; 16 Oc 86 > 17 Ap 87; 34 Oc95 > 35 Ap 96; 65 Ap 11 > 66 Oc 11; 72 Oc 14.
Loess Letter 1-10 was published as a compilation by Elsevier Geobooks in Norwich; ISBN 0 86094 218 X 1987. Very few copies were printed; if you come across a copy in your local second hand bookshop it will be a surprise (it may not be valued now as a rare book- but in the future: who knows?). OCLC only lists one copy in a library: in Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB) Hannover 30167 Germany.
Supplements. A series of supplements was produced and given limited circulation. The supplements were initially produced as a contribution from the Loess Commission to the 12th INQUA Congress held in Ottawa in 1984. It was an erratic series of items, a few of which may have lasting value. A translation of the Pyaskovskii paper on deep soil formation which was produced at the Soil Bureau was eventually published as LLS 3, and in view of its significance again as LL72. The LL72 republication means that it is readily available online. Professor Edward Debyshire's inaugural lecture in the Geography Department at Leicester University on 28 April 1987 was published as LLS 21.
The most ambitious supplement, the most ambitious item in LL publishing history, was the reissue of John Hardcastles's Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury; originally published in 1908 by the Timaru Herald and republished, with editorial apparatus and maps, by LL in 2014 . The Hardcastle supplement was well circulated in NZ and reached a goodly distribution of universities and institutions (with assistance from the South Canterbury Museum).
The Supplements
1. Loess & Agriculture. Kwong & Smalley. Oct.1983
2. Dust mantles in Australia. A.J.Dare-Edwards
3. B.V.Pyaskovskii, Loess as a deep-soil formation. July 1989.
4. The loess formation in Bulgaria
5. The hydrogeology of loess 1883-1982
6. Loess in Pleistocene soils on Mount Kenya. W.C.Mahaney
7. Geotechnical investigations of loess in the USA. Alan Lutenegger et al.
8. Lyell on Loess. A section from Principles of Geology 4th ed.1835
9. Dokuchaev and the Russian approach
10. Kriger. A section from Kriger 1965 (in Russian)
11. Obruchev. A translation of the Obruchev article in Novi Mir- a popular account of loess
12. The Quaternary of the Great Hungarian Plain
13. Kriger again. This is the bibliography from Kriger 1965- the most important Cyrillic loess bibliography available, critical for the study of historical Russian loess investigations.
14. Yeliseyev 1973 translated
15. Vaskovsky
16. Tutkovskii sampler
17. Kondratov's Arctic Lands
18. M.P.Lysenko
19. Pelisek
20. Seventy Books on Loess: March 1991
21. E.Derbyshire. The skin of the Earth and the way of the World
22. E.Derbyshire. Loess and the Argentinian Pampa.
23. John Hardcastle. 100 years of loess stratigraphy.
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