Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland - Elements ...

SOCIETY NEWSwww.minersoc.orgMineralogical Society ofGreat Britain and IrelandFROM THE PRESIDENTA colleague recently referred with approval to a ‘wind ofchange’ at the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain andIreland, and it has been exciting for me to have beenPresident when the Society was eager for some change.When I commenced office there was a general realizationthat the Society was not increasing its membershipand maintaining involvement with its members, and asmall group called the Strategy Committee met to discuss these andother matters. This group made a number of straightforward proposalswhich, with the strong support of MinSoc Council, we have put intoeffect in the last 18 months.With the greatest pleasure, at leastfor the moment, we have witnessedthe enrolment of nearly 150 newstudent members in 2007. I say‘for the moment’ because thissuccess is undoubtedly due to usoffering something for nothing,namely free membership;nonetheless it remains a greatpleasure to discover the interestof young people in our science.We hope that this involvement inthe Society will continue andgrow, and we encourage this byoffering continuing studentmembership for only £10.I think one of the inherentstrengths of the MinSoc is thegreat breadth of its interests inmineralogy, petrology andgeochemistry. These are pursuedthrough seven special interestgroups (SIGs), covering studies atthe extremes of pressure andtemperature as well as in theenvironmental and applied aspectsof our science. Each of these groupsprovides a special communitywhere people may hold formaland informal meetings, includinglab-based and field-basedworkshops. At the same time, theSIG substructure leaves the parentsociety free to follow a moreinternational programme. This waswell demonstrated by the verysuccessful Frontiers in MineralSciences meeting, organized bythe MinSoc and held in Cambridgein June as a joint meeting of theAmerican, Canadian, French andBritish-Irish mineralogical societies.Another pleasure in the last 18months has been seeing theeagerness with which existingmembers are prepared to supportthe Society in its endeavours. Thishas been well shown in the creationof an Awards Committee and there-introduction of a DistinguishedLecturer programme. Over the pasttwo years, ten experienced membersoutside Council have readilyagreed to form part of a committeeassessing the nominations for theSociety’s Schlumberger and MaxHey Awards. Two DistinguishedLecturers, Jon Blundy and DavidVaughan, are currently giving aschedule of presentations across theland, from Galway to East Angliaand Glasgow to Brighton (seeopposite page for further details).Support for Mineralogical Magazineand Clay Minerals has come fromscientists being prepared to widenthe board of associate editors. Anew production editor has alsobeen appointed. However, we dohave to be wary that our journals,like those of other not-so-largelearned societies, do not sufferfrom the current preoccupationwith impact factors. We mustencourage members to submitpapers to Society journals – I amputting a memo to this effect onmy own desk!Last, I wish to express the Society’sthanks to Adrian Lloyd-Lawrence,our recently retired ExecutiveSecretary, who promoted theactivities and oversaw the affairsSOCIETY MEDALLISTS FOR 2008of the Society for eight years. Adinner to pay tribute to Adrian’scontributions was held inNovember. In his place we welcomeKevin Murphy. With Kevin asExecutive Director and MichaelCarpenter as incoming President,I am sure the Mineralogical Societyis in good hands.Ben HartePresidentWe are delighted to announce that the Society’s medal winners for2008 have been selected, with the assistance of the newly appointedAwards Committee, chaired by Michael Carpenter.The Schlumberger Award winner for 2008 isProf. David Rubie of Bayerisches Geoinstitut.Prof. Rubie started his career studying high-pressuremetamorphic rocks, when he became fascinatedby the processes and conditions of mineraltransformations. In order to extend and advancehis ideas into the deeper interior of the Earth, hewas led into high-pressure experimental sciences,and he has remained at the forefront of researchin that field for the past 20 years. To further hisDavid Rubieinvestigations, he built the first European multianvillaboratory at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut,which enabled him to diversify his interests into most aspects of mantlephysics and chemistry, such as reaction kinetics, transport properties,phase transformations and element partitioning. In addition,through his conscientious efforts in funding this laboratory as aEuropean User Facility, he helped high-pressure research to blossomand expand in Europe, not only in many aspects of Earth science, butalso in materials science, physics and chemistry.The Max Hey Medal winner for 2008 is DrDiego Gatta of the University of Milan. Dr Gattais well known for his high-pressure studies ofnatural zeolites. Despite the fact that zeolites arefound in low-pressure metamorphic rocks (zeolitefacies), the value of high-pressure studies ofzeolites is that they allow the recognition of significantcorrelations between framework topologyand physical behaviour, extending earlierwork on feldspars and analcime. Three thematicDiego Gattapapers by Dr Gatta on the structural behaviourof edingtonite illustrate his skill in making subtleyet significant insights into mineral behaviour. His work on zeoliteshas had a significant impact on research directions in this field andimpinges on industrial applications of zeolite/microporous materialstechnology.The medals will be presented at the conference dinner of the Society’s2008 annual meeting, ‘Geochemistry of the Earth’s Surface 8’, to beheld in London in August 2008.CLAY MINERALS GROUP MEETINGALUMINIUM AND SILICON IN SOILS AND THE ENVIRONMENTThe meeting is being held to commemorate the life and work of V. C. Farmerwho during his career at the Macaulay Institute made major contributionsto our understanding of the mineralogy and chemistry of aluminium andsilicon in soils, as well as pioneering the use of infrared spectroscopy in theidentification, characterization and reactivity of the amorphous or poorlycrystalline secondary minerals involved. The latest developments in theseissues will be addressed by a number of eminent keynote speakers. Moredetails from www.minersoc.org/pages/groups/cmg/cmg.html and inforthcoming issues of Elements.E LEMENTS 424DECEMBER 2007

SOCIETY NEWSSOCIETY BURSARY REPORTSThe Society offers £6000 per annum in student and senior bursaries to beused for field work, travel to conferences, etc. Below are extracts fromreports received from three recent awardees. Their full reports are availableat the Society’s website www.minersoc.org/pages/awards/bursary.html.Ping LuoPing Luo of Nottingham University (UK)attended the 3 rd International Conference onEnvironmental Science and Technology 2007,which was organized by the American Academyof Sciences. This four-day conference was packedwith 15 major platform sessions, two poster sessionsand four registration exhibitions. Ping’stalk on permeable reactive barriers was wellreceived, and she has forged links with colleaguesin a number of other institutes as a resultof attending the meeting.In June 2007, Robert M. Hough (CSIRO) travelledto Europe from Australia for the Frontiers inMineral Sciences meeting in Cambridge, UK,and the International Applied GeochemistrySymposium in Oviedo, Spain. The bursary contributedtowards his flight from Australia andprovided assistance for his attendance at bothmeetings. He gave two oral presentations at eachof these meetings and, in addition, two posterpresentations at the Frontiers meeting. The talksRobert Houghand posters were based on detailed studies ofgold, both primary and secondary. In particular,he detailed a new occurrence of colloidal, nanoparticulate gold, attractingwidespread attention and acclaim at both meetings. While in theUK, Robert also visited London, where he gave an invited talk at theEarth Sciences Department of Imperial College on new developments ingold research in Australia.Victoria VryVictoria Vry (Imperial College, London) used her bursary to attend theSGA (Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits) meeting inDublin where she presented her poster ‘Microanalysis of Ore-FormingFluids at El Teniente, Chile’. Victoria welcomed the opportunity to meetwith many industry representatives present at the meeting.ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERSAt the end of 2007, Ben Harte (President), Neil Fortey (Treasurer), AndyRankin (Custodian Trustee), and Andrew Kerr and Jim MacDonald(Council members) will complete their terms of office (which varyfrom two to six years in length). We are hugely indebted to them allfor the time and energy they put into the Society. Progress in the manyfacets of the Society’s activities would not be possible without theefforts of these people.Michael Carpenter (President), Chris Stanley (Treasurer), Adrian Jones(Council), Norman Moles (Council), and Tony Law (Council) will fillthe vacancies from the beginning of 2008, though some have alreadybecome involved in the workings of the Society.In September 2007, two new staff members joined the Society. We welcomeMartin Hughes (Administrative Assistant, admin@minersoc.org)and David Mole (Production Editor, david@minersoc.org), who joinRussell Rajendra (Finance Manager, russell@minersoc.org) and KevinMurphy (Executive Director, kevin@minersoc.org).GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE 8 (GES8)Updated information on this meeting is provided elsewhere in thisissue of Elements (see ad on page 427) and also at the conference website(www.ges8.com) where online registration will be available beginningon 1 January 2008.MINERALOGICAL SOCIETYDISTINGUISHED LECTURER PROGRAMMEThe 2007/2008 DistinguishedLecturer programme is wellunderway. Professor DavidVaughan of the University ofManchester completed his tourof four UK and Irish universities(Brighton, Cambridge, Liverpooland Galway) in November, wherehe delivered a lecture entitled‘Minerals, Metals, Molecules andMicrobes: EnvironmentalMineralogy and Sustainability’.Prof. Jon Blundy will commence hisprogramme early in the New Yearwith a lecture entitled ‘TheSubterranean Machinations ofExplosive Volcanoes’. His scheduleis as follows:7 January 2008University College Dublin4 February 2008University of East Anglia13 March 2008Lancaster University14 March 2008Glasgow UniversityFull details are available atthe Society’s website:www.minersoc.org/pages/announce/announce.htmlE LEMENTS 425DECEMBER 2007