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Geochemistry of the Earth's Surface 8 (GES8) - conference report

The GES8 (Geochemistry of the Earth's Surface 8) meeting was held at the Natural History Museum, London from 18th to 22nd August. The meeting was funded by the Mineralogical Society, International Association of Geochemistry and the Natural History Museum with additional support from the European Association for Geochemistry, the Diamond Light Source and the following special interest groups of the Mineralogical Society: Environmental Mineralogy Group, Applied Mineralogy Group, Geochemistry Group, Mineral Physics Group.

Almost 150 mineralogists and geochemists attended the meeting which featured 25 lectures from invited speakers and posters presentations from delegates. Sessions at the meeting were: 'Mineral weathering', 'Synchrotrons in Environmental Science', 'Biomineralisation', 'Global Geochemical Cycles' and 'Contaminated Environments, Toxicology and Human Health'. In addition Professor Julian Gale from Curtin University gave the Hallimond lecture on controls on the mineralisation of barite and calcite. A feature of many of the lectures was the vital importance of considering the role of biological processes when investigating natural geochemical and mineralogical phenomena. The format of the meeting provided much time for animated discussion around the posters. This gave delegates a greater opportunity to discuss science than is often the case at larger meetings where you frequently only have 10 minutes to deliver a vignette of your research.

The conference dinner took the form of a cruise down the river Thames from central London to beyond the Thames barrier. During the dinner the Mineralogical Society's Max Hey medal was awarded to Dr Deigo Gatta and the Schlumberger medal to Professor Dave Rubie.

Michael Carpenter, Mineralogical Society President with 2008 Max Hey Medallist, Diego Gatta; Dave Rubie, winner of the Mineralogical Society-Schlumberger Award for 2008; and scenes from the Thames River Boat, on which the Conference banquet was held.

For those of you who missed the conference extended 4 page abstracts of the majority of the presentations are available as a special issue of Mineralogical Magazine which is freely available at . Many of the invited presentations are available for viewing at the Mineralogical Society's journal website (see the programme below).

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the staff of the MinSoc (Kevin Murphy, Russell Rajendra, Martin Hughes and David Mole) and those who made financial contributions to the meeting, for helping to make the meeting such a great success.

Mark Hodson

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PROGRAMME INCLUDING PHOTOS AND LINKS TO PRESENTATIONS

Biological weathering in soil: the role of symbiotic root-associated fungi biosensing minerals and directing photosynthate energy into grain-scale mineral weathering. J.R. Leake, A.L. Duran, K.E. Hardy, I. Johnson, D.J. Beerling, S.A. Banwart, and M.M. Smits (presentation 5 Mb)

Structure and function of siderophores produced by mycorrhizal fungi. K. Haselwandter

Ectomycorrhizal fungi in mineral soil. A. Rosling and N. Rosenstock

Weathering, soil formation and initial ecosystem evolution on a glacier forefield: a case study from the Damma Glacier, Switzerland. Stefano M. Bernasconi and the BigLink project members (presentation 4 Mb)

Critical Zone Observatories:  Building a network to advance interdisciplinary study of Earth surface processes. S. Prestrud Anderson, R.C. Bales, C.J. Duffy

Life on the rocks: microscopic landscapes under the influence of microbes and atmosphere. A.A. Gorbushina

The first environmental science experiments on the new microfocus spectroscopy beamline at Diamond. J.F.W. Mosselmans, P.D. Quinn, J. Roque Rosell, K.D. Atkinson,  A.J. Dent, S.I. Cavill, M.E. Hodson, C.A. Kirk and P.F. Schofield (presentation 3 Mb)

Applications of time-resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction to cation exchange, crystal growth and biomineralization reactions. P.J. Heaney, J.E. Post, T.B. Fischer, D.R. Hummer, C.L. Lopano and A.J. Wall (presentation 8 Mb)

Microscopy and spectroscopy with X-rays for studies in environmental Sciences
J. Thieme, S.-C. Gleber, P. Guttmann, J. Prietzel, L. McNulty and J. Coates (presentation 3.6 Mb)

Synchrotron X-ray studies of heavy metal-mineral-microbe interactions. Gordon E. Brown, Jr., Yingge Wang, Alexandre Gélabert, Juyoung Ha, Cristina Cismasu, Georges Ona-Nguema, Karim Benzerara, Jennyfer Miot, Yuheng Wang, Nicolas Menguy, Guillaume Morin, Farid Juillot, Francois Guyot, Georges Calas, Francois Farges, Thomas P. Trainor, Johannes Gescher, Carmen Cordova, and Alfred M. Spormnann (presentation 5.5 Mb)

Exploring the role of ions and amino acids in directing the growth of minerals from solution. S. Piana, F. Jones, Z. Taylor, P. Raiteri and J.D. Gale

The metagenomics of biosilicification: causes and effects. L.G. Benning and D.J. Tobler (presentation 8 Mb)

Terrestrial plant Si and environmental changes. J.-D. Meunier, F. Guntzer, S. Kirman and C. Keller (presentation 9.3 Mb)

Climate, water and CO₂: a  geological perspective. J. Veizer

Oxygen isotope equilibrium in brachiopod shell fibres in the context of biological control. M. Cusack, A. Pérez-Huerta, P. Chung, D. Parkinson, Y. Dauphin and J.-P. Cuif. (presentation 8 Mb)

Chemostatic modes of the ocean-atmosphere-sediment system through  Phanerozoic time. F.T. Mackenzie, R. S. Arvidson and M. Guidry

Silicate weathering in anoxic marine sediments. K. Wallmann, G. Aloisi, M. Haeckel, P. Tishchenko, G. Pavlova, J. Greinert, S. Kutterolf and A. Eisenhauer (presentation 1.4 Mb)

Impacts of changing ocean chemistry in a high-CO₂ world. C. Turley

Phosphate mineral reactivity: From global cycles to sustainable development. E.H. Oelkers, E. Valsami-Jones and T. Roncal-Herrero (presentation 1.9 Mb)

Sea level, hydrogeology, tectonics, and arsenic. J.M. McArthur (presentation 7.5 Mb)

Endocrine disrupting substances in the late anthropocene and breast and prostate cancer. J. Plant, R.A. Mckinlay and N. Voulvoul (presentation 2.3 Mb)

Ecotoxicity of nickel in soil. H.E. Allen, Y. Lin and D.M. Di Toro (presentation 1 Mb)

Nano-technology and a sustainable environment. S.L.S. Stipp, B.C. Christiansen, K. Dideriksen, L. Skovbjerg, L. Karlby, L.Z. Lakshtanov

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More photos.....

Eva Valsami Jones (organizer)                             Siggi                    Vern Phoenix (session convenor)

Iceland takes over GES8...!!                          Poster session

                                                                 Russell and Martin from the MinSoc office

One of the younger delegates....       Two of the older organizers.... (Kevin Murphy and Martin Lee)

These are the websites of those organizations which provided financial support for the meeting.

International Association of GeoChemistry
European Association for Geochemistry
The Natural History Museum
Diamond
Applied Mineralogy Group
Mineral Physics Group
Geochemistry Group
Environmental Mineralogy Group

For information, contact Mark Hodson, of the University of Reading, or Kevin Murphy at the the Mineralogical Society.