Shortly after the creation of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University Brussels) in 1970, currently labelled as VUB, a Department of Quaternary Geology was installed within the Faculty of Science in 1974. At the beginning it dealt mainly with the study of periglacial loess deposits of the Pleistocene Glacial Period in Central Belgium and with coastal deposits in relation to sea level rise during the warm Holocene period covering the last 10,000 years, in which the dawn of civilization took place step by step. Today the same research teams widen their scope of interest: they are...