The EAG Photo Contest is open to everyone and gives you a chance to win a 5-year membership (that includes reduced registration rates at Goldschmidt conferences, subscription to Geochemical Perspectives and Elements, and many more benefits). Participants can submit one photo per theme. See more information.
EAG now offers sponsorship to student members who wish to attend short courses, summer schools, workshops or conferences located in Europe and related to geochemistry. For any event taking place before 1 October 2014, send your sponsorship request before 15 July. See all details.
We would like to thank all the delegates who attended the 24th Goldschmidt conference in Sacramento, California. We hope you all had a successful and enjoyable week. A full conference report and photos will come soon and in the meantime, we are pleased to inform you that the video recordings of the plenaries are now available:
We particularly thank all delegates who visited the EAG booth, attended our cocktail party and extend a warm welcome to our new members. Preparations for Goldschmidt2015, 16-21 August in Prague, Czech Republic, are on the way and we hope to see many of you there.
Several press releases were issued during Goldschmidt2014 with the aim of raising awareness beyond our community about the important society matters geochemistry is engaged with:
Securing the Goldschmidt Conference Future. The Goldschmidt conference provides the pre-eminent international forum to communicate new research and innovations in geochemistry, attracting international press, funding bodies and industry. The responsibility for the organization and planning falls onto the EAG or the Geochemical Society (GS), co-owners of the meeting, on alternate years. At the Sacramento Goldschmidt meeting this June the EAG and the GS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which provides the foundations for the governance and trademark protection of the meeting. The MoU ensures more efficient communication between societies, more security and more coherence between meetings. This will allow both societies to plan further into the future and continue to improve the quality of the meeting for our geochemical community.
As EAG also continues to build partnerships within Europe, we are very happy to report signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Société Française des IsotopeS (SFIS). SFIS members now enjoy the same terms and conditions for organizing society events and registering at European Goldschmidt conferences as EAG members. On registering for European Goldschmidts, SFIS members will also be given complimentary EAG membership. SFIS will in turn promote our sponsored events and the Goldschmidt conference.
While at Goldschmidt2014, Marie-Aude Hulshoff from the EAG Office, continued the series of video interviews portraying the men and the women working in geochemistry, with this year, four early career scientists:
On 5 June, EAG members received an email with a link to their member area and login details. Through this new application, EAG members can now check/modify their delivery or invoice address, check the validity of their membership, renew their membership etc. We invite all EAG members to login to the new application, change their password, check their details and add any potentially missing information.
The EAG is excited to announce a new publication - Geochemical Perspectives – Letters. This is a new branch of its flagship journal and with an international editorial board, we aim to publish:
Submission will open end of 2014. First papers online as soon as accepted / formatted. The first print issue will be distributed to all EAG members and attendees of Goldschmidt2015.
The June issue of Elements on kaolin illustrates admirably how materials known and used since the dawn of humanity may still have many surprises in store for us in terms of new uses and applications. Guest Editors Paul Schroeder and David Bish chose to present the whole spectrum of uses of kaolin, from ancient porcelains to nanocomposites. Kaolin-group minerals are among the most important industrial clay minerals, with a worldwide consumption in the millions of tons per year and applications in a wide range of industrial areas. Traditionally, their most important use has been in the paper and ceramic industries. New, innovative techniques have now allowed the synthesis of kaolinite–polymer nanocomposites, including bionanocomposites.
[by Emma Versteegh] Goldschmidt in California meant a drive instead of a flight. The route from Pasadena to Sacramento lead us through the Central Valley of California. While living in greater LA we have been well aware of the drought going on in this state, it was still quite sad to see the many fields transformed into desert, and almond plantations dead and cut down. We also saw the thermometer steadily go up to a balmy 43 °C. Read more
[by Emma Versteegh] One of the nice things about Sacramento is that, unlike LA, it has real rivers, with water in them and levees along them. This week I enjoyed a few beautiful morning runs along the American River, where there is a bicycle path on the levee. I almost felt at home! As there were no oral sessions on Wednesday afternoon, we took the opportunity to explore the area some more... Read more
[Weather.com] There's a massive reservoir of water buried hundreds of miles beneath our feet in the United States that's as much as three times the amount on the surface in all of the world's oceans today, according to a scientific study released Friday. Conducted by researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico and published in the journal Science, the discovery could help explain where our oceans came from and why life is able to exist on Earth. Read more
[Phys.org] The first ecological study of an entire glacier has found that microbes drastically reduce surface reflectivity and have a non-negligible impact on the amount of sunlight that is reflected into space. The research, led by the University of Leeds and published today in the journal FEMS Microbiology Ecology, will help improve climate change models that have previously neglected the role of microbes in darkening the Earth's surface. Read more
[Phys.org] Cosmic impacts are known to trigger mass extinctions on Earth. However, a new study adds to evidence that asteroid and cometary bombardment can also shelter life by generating pores in rocks that shelter microbes from damaging radiation. These new findings, detailed in the International Journal of Astrobiology, could reveal good places for scientists to look for life on distant planets. Read more
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More jobs at www.eag.eu.com/jobs.
Thank you for your attention!