Quaternary International

• 1. Introduction

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  Quaternary International is a peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to quaternary science, published by Elsevier on behalf of the International Union for Quaternary Research. It was established in 1989, and since then it has served as a venue where researchers bring the full spectrum of physical and natural sciences to bear on questions about the quaternary period. The editor-in-chief is Min-Te Chen of National Taiwan Ocean University. By 2017, Journal Citation Reports recorded a 2016 impact factor of 2.199 for the journal, a measure that reflects how frequently its articles are cited by other researchers.

• 2. Scope and Science

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  The quaternary period is the slice of geological time that includes the present day, and Quaternary International draws on the full range of physical and natural sciences to address its puzzles. That breadth is deliberate. Problems in quaternary research rarely yield to a single discipline; they demand geology, climatology, ecology, and archaeology working in concert. The journal's founding in 1989 under the International Union for Quaternary Research gave it an institutional home within one of the oldest international scientific bodies dedicated to this period. Min-Te Chen, based at National Taiwan Ocean University, guides the editorial direction of the publication today.

• 3. Reach and Recognition

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  Journal Citation Reports recorded an impact factor of 2.199 for Quaternary International in 2016, as reported in the 2017 edition of that index. Impact factors measure how often articles published in a journal are cited by researchers in other publications over a two-year window. A figure above two places the journal within a competitive tier for earth and environmental science publications. Elsevier, the commercial publisher distributing the journal, provides the production and distribution infrastructure that brings its articles to a global readership of researchers working on questions of climate, landscape, and human prehistory.