The EUROCK 2020 Organizing Committee are closely monitoring the coronavirus crisis, as it may affect our conference. How, and to what extent EUROCK 2020 will be affected is highly uncertain at the moment. Following a meeting of the EUROCK 2020 Organizing Committee March 17 it was decided that, until further notice, the symposium is proceeding as planned.

However, considering the very uncertain situation in Norway and around the world, we suggest all registered delegates, for their own sake, to make their travel plans accordingly, i.e. to either await any travel arrangements, or to make sure to only book refundable travels, in the undesirable event of a cancellation of our conference at a later stage. For various reasons, postponing EUROCK 2020 is unfortunately no option. For the same reason, we have closed the possibility to register to the conference for the time being, we will come back with more information on 30 March.

The EUROCK 2020 Organizing Committee is in close dialog with the ISRM regarding our upcoming event, and updated information on the status of EUROCK 2020 will be published on our website at latest on 30 March, following a public statement from the Norwegian Directorate of Health. This information will also be distributed by Infomails from the ISRM.

We will continue to carefully monitor the situation via the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), and we will keep you posted on any developments. We thank you all for your patience during these special times.

The EUROCK 2020 Organizing Committee.

The 2019 NORDQUA excursion will be held in the northwestern and middle part of Norway. The excursion will be organized jointly by the Geological Survey of Norway and the University of Bergen. The excursion will be made a Master- and PhD course from the University of Bergen, and we hope to have a good mix of students and professionals attending.

The main topics of the excursion are glacial and sea-level history, and records of avalanches, from quick clay slides to rock failures. We will start from the city of Ã…lesund on the coast of western Norway and end up in Trondheim in Norways middle part. The excursion will take us through beautiful coastal scenery of the strandflat, via dramatic alpine fjord and valley topography to the open, undulating landscapes of raised marine clays in mid Norway. Scientific highlights include:

• The Skjonghelleren cave that made history both in terms of glacial geology and palaezoology
• Marine to lacustrine sequences with Vedde ash
• Stacked raised deltas separated by till
• The Mannen rock avalanche cluster and unstable slope
• Rock avalanching onto ice and into ice free valleys
• Holocene rock slope deformation that lead to a partial catastrophic failure while large deformed parts today still threat the valley
• The Ivasnesen rock slope instability and the Norwegian system to classify hazard and risk of unstable rock slopes
• The 2012 Byneset quick clay slide within a marine terraced landscape

Information about registration, travel, costs etc. will be announced later. For now, set aside the dates June 9-12, 2019 for a scenic and scientifically interesting excursion with friends and colleagues. We hope to see as many as possible of you next year.

Reginald Hermanns, Paula Hilger, Eiliv Larsen, Inger-Lise Solberg and John-Inge Svendsen

NORDQUA Excursion 2020_low res