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

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