The efficacy of using luminescence dating on glacial deposits is tested for a portion of the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 Laurentide Ice Sheet margin in southwestern Indiana. We assess small-aliquot quartz optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and feldspar infrared-stimulated luminescence (IRSL) dating of glaciofluvial, glaciodeltaic, and aeolian sediments against a well-established soil stratigraphy and a cosmogenic 10Be depth profile. Results indicate that standard blue-light OSL regenerative protocols used on MIS 2 glacial sediments in the region warrant caution when duplicated for MIS 6 sediments. Quartz OSL ages underestimate age by up to 50% compared with cosmogenic and feldspar post-IR IRSL200 ages. Presence of unstable or hard-to-bleach OSL signal components that cannot be removed with modified preheat protocols yields unreliable data. While dates obtained using post-IR IRSL200 protocols on feldspar are affected by partial bleaching and anomalous fading, these factors can be accounted for. Discrimination of negligible-fading small-aliquot data allowed us to obtain post-IR IRSL200 ages between 103 ± 12 and 241 ± 28 ka. Post-IR IRSL200 ages are mostly consistent with 10Be depth-profile dating and stratigraphic constraints and represent a viable option to study glaciofluvial sedimentation during MIS 6 and older glaciations in the region.

In light of contemporary geoengineering proposals to mitigate the impact of mining and climate change on glaciers in Chile, this article analyzes how imaginaries of glaciers have changed in recent decades. It focuses on recent proposals by consultancies and mining companies to relocate glaciers, including the transportation of over thirty thousand tons of ice to a valley with low exposure to the sun in 2007 to “save a glacier,” carried out under the auspices of Andina, a branch of Codelco, a national mining company that has the largest impact on rock glaciers in the world. This effort resonates historically with a mitigation strategy that the mining company Barrick Gold proposed in 2001 for Pascua-Lama, which in 2006 triggered an international controversy that resulted in the world’s first draft glacier bill, still under debate in the Chilean Congress, and which subsequently informed a proposal for a new constitution in Chile, rejected in 2022. This article argues that the underlying assumption behind glacier relocation initiatives is that glaciers are detachable elements from the landscape, composed of homogeneous and inert ice, the transformations of which are reversible. This assumption contrasts with conceptions of glaciers arising from earth system science and contemporary biology, which conceive of them as heterogeneous ecosystems bound to their surroundings, the eventual destruction of which is ultimately irreversible. The differences between these conceptions resonate with contrasting narratives of the place humans occupy in Earth’s history, which we term anthropocentric and planetary, according to which humans are conceived of, respectively, as masters of or in precarious balance with Earth’s history.

The Sauce Grande River Basin (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina) presents a late Pliocene–Holocene sedimentary succession that preserves key evidence of Quaternary paleoenvironmental change in the southern Pampas. This study integrates stratigraphy, sedimentology, paleopedology, geochemistry, mineralogy, and stable isotope data to reconstruct paleoenvironmental evolution from the late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene. Three paleosol types (Calcisols, Calcic Protosols, and Protosols) were identified and characterized through field descriptions, micromorphology, and molecular indices. Their development reflects shifts in landscape stability, sediment supply, and soil moisture regimes, consistent with glacioeustatic fluctuations and climatic oscillations during the late Plio-Pleistocene transition and the Quaternary. Stable isotope analyses of pedogenic carbonates reveal a trend from C₃-dominated vegetation under more humid conditions in the late Pliocene–Early Pleistocene, to more arid Late Pleistocene–Holocene environments, with increased δ13C values indicating reduced vegetation density and a higher potential contribution of C₄ plants. These findings align with palynological and faunal evidence, highlighting the value of paleosols as sensitive indicators of environmental change. The multiproxy approach adopted here provides new insights into soil formation dynamics and Quaternary palaeoecological transitions in non-glaciated midlatitude settings of South America.

“El futuro del libro es el álbum, así como la ruina es el futuro del monumento”, propone Barthes en La preparación de la novela (Barthes 2005, 257). Según él, el álbum en tanto forma daría cuenta de un universo sin jerarquías, disperso y fragmentario, “puro tejido de contingencias”. Pero el álbum también tiene una relación, compleja, con la memoria. En parque das ruínas de Marília Garcia y El sistema del tacto de Alejandra Costamagna, el collage de restos diversos y heterogéneos—fotografías, cartas, noticias del periódico— activa una supervivencia a menudo fantasmal y paradójica. En la grieta abierta entre esos restos se cuela una visión del tiempo contemporáneo sombría y atravesada por violencias de diverso origen. Expandiendo la noción trabajada por Roland Barthes de libro álbum quisiera pensar los textos de Garcia y Costamagna, no tanto, o no solo, a partir de la noción de forma-álbum apropiada para secundar el mundo, sino sobre todo como una forma que en sus relieves cársticos deja aparecer la imagen de un tiempo presente dañado, atravesado por la violencia. Se trataría, por lo tanto, de formas contemporáneas construidas con esquirlas más que memorias, apropiadas para la escritura de un tiempo sombrío.

This article analyses samples of unexplored photographic series produced by US photographer Alan Fisher (1913–88) in Brazil between 1950 and 1953. These images are part of visual reports produced for the United States Information Service (USIS) documenting the screening of newsreels, short films and cartoons in factories and rural communities in Brazil. The article repositions Fisher as a key figure for understanding US information warfare in mid-century Brazil. It theorises these screenings as political-performative events and develops an approach that accounts for the persuasive (and deceptive) dimension of these campaigns while acknowledging the audience’s agency and strategic complicity.