We evaluate the relationships between geodiversity, limnological conditions, and freshwater ostracodes from southern Mexico to Nicaragua. Geological, limnological, geochemical, and mineralogical characteristics of 76 systems reveal two main limnological regions and seven subregions. Water ionic and sediment composition are the most influential. Geodiversity strongly influences limnological conditions, which in turn influence ostracode composition and distribution.

Previous glaciations eroded below the ice deep valleys in the Alpine foreland, which, with their sedimentary fillings, witness the timing and extent of these glacial advance–retreat cycles. Drilling such sedimentary sequences will thus provide well-needed evidence in order to reconstruct the (a)synchronicity of past ice advances in a trans-Alpine perspective. Eventually these data will document how the Alpine foreland was shaped and how the paleoclimate patterns varied along and across the Alps.

This study provides the first regional earthquake catalogue of the eastern Alps spanning 16 000 years by using three lake paleoseismic records. Recurrence statistics reveal that earthquakes recur every 1000–2000 years in an aperiodic pattern. The magnitudes of paleo-earthquakes exceed the historically documented values. This study estimates magnitude and source areas for severe paleo-earthquakes, and their shaking effects are explored in the broader study area.

This study provides amphibious investigations of debris flow fans (DFFs). We characterize active DFFs, combining laser scan and sonar surveys at Plansee. We discover a 4000-year debris flow record in sediment cores, providing evidence for a 7-fold debris flow frequency increase in the 20th and 21st centuries, coincident with 2-fold enhanced rainstorm activity in the northern European Alps. Our results indicate climate change as being the main factor controlling debris flow activity.

We use seismic, electromagnetic, and geoelectrical methods to assess sediment thickness and lake-bottom geology of two karst lakes. An unexpected drainage event provided us with the unusual opportunity to compare water-borne measurements with measurements carried out on the dry lake floor. The resulting data set does not only provide insight into the specific lake-bottom geology of the studied lakes but also evidences the potential and limitations of the employed field methods.

This study presents insights into the remote cryosphere of a mountain range at the Tibetan Plateau. Small-scaled studies and field data about permafrost occurrence are very scarce. A multi-method approach (geomorphological mapping, geophysics, InSAR time series analysis) assesses the lower occurrence of permafrost the range of 5350 and 5500 m above sea level (a.s.l.) in the Qugaqie basin. The highest, multiannual creeping rates up to 150 mm/yr are observed on rock glaciers.

This study highlights the use of the software Flow-3D in reproducing landslide-generated impulse waves. Due to the available data and the possibility of comparing the results with other previous works, a numerical modelling investigation on the 1958 Lituya Bay tsunami event is proposed. It is noted that the rockslide impact into the waterbody has a key role in the wave initiation and thus its propagation. The concept used in this work can be applied to prevent such phenomena in future.

Due to the high elevation, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is affected more strongly than the global average by climate warming. As a result of increasing air temperature, several environmental processes have accelerated, such as melting glaciers, thawing permafrost and grassland degradation. We review several modern and paleoenvironmental changes forced by climate warming in the lake system of Nam Co to shape our understanding of global warming effects on current and future geobiodiversity.

We evaluated how freshwater ostracode species responded to long-term and abrupt climate fluctuations during the last 155 kyr in the northern Neotropical region. We used fossil records and species distribution modelling. Fossil evidence suggests negligible effects of long-term climate variations on aquatic niche stability. Models suggest that abrupt climate fluctuation forced species to migrate south to Central America. Micro-refugia and meta-populations can explain survival of endemic species.

MexiDrill, the Basin of Mexico Drilling Program, recovered a continuous, high-resolution 400 000 year record of tropical North American environmental change. The field location, in the densely populated, water-stressed, Mexico City region, gives this record particular societal relevance. The record also contains a rich record of volcanic activity; knowledge of the history of the area's explosive volcanic eruptions will improve capacity for risk assessment of future activity.

CHADRILL aims to recover a sedimentary core spanning the Miocene–Pleistocene sediment succession of Lake Chad through deep drilling. This record will provide significant insights into the modulation of orbitally forced changes in northern African hydroclimate under different climate boundary conditions and the most continuous climatic and environmental record to be compared with hominid migrations across northern Africa and the implications for understanding human evolution.

We explored the potential of a sedimentary sequence in Valle d'Aosta (Northern Italy) as a natural archive of hazards. Our results suggest that this sequence is regionally the most sensitive to earthquake shaking with the record of 8 earthquakes over the last ~270 years and that it well represents the regional and (multi-)decennial variability of Mediterranean summer–autumn floods. Hence, this sequence offers a great potential to extend chronicles of regional floods and earthquakes back in time.

The long-term response of the flood activity to both Atlantic and Mediterranean climatic influences was explored by reconstructing the Foréant record. Both influences result in a higher flood frequency during past cold periods. Atlantic influences seem to result in more frequent high-intensity flood events during past warm periods, suggesting an increase in flood intensity under the global warming. However, no high-intensity events occurred during the 20th century.

We summarize the findings of the IODP Workshop Tracking the Tsunamigenic slips Across and Along the Japan Trench (JTRACK) held in Tokyo, May 2014. The workshop recommended a program of drilling to investigate the physical and chemical controls on coseismic slip in the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake and to develop new methods for determining the recurrence interval of tsunamigenic earthquakes in the sediment record. One full- and one pre-proposal with these goals were recently submitted to IODP.