Attending:

E. Bruce Watson, President
John Ferry, Vice-President
Brooks Hanson, Treasurer
Barb Dutrow, Secretary
Jillian Banfield, Councillor
Mark Barton, Councillor
Mark Ghiorso, Councillor
John Holloway, Councillor
Robert Luth, Councillor, absent
Frank Spear, Councillor
J. Alex Speer, MSA Executive Administrator
Anne Hofmeister, Am. Min. Editor
Bob Dymek, Am. Min. Editor
William Carlson, Vice-President elect
Sorena Sorenson, Councillor elect
Michael Carpenter, Councillor elect
Paul Ribbe, RiM Editor
John Brady, Outreach Committee, afternoon

The third council meeting of the MSA was held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Toronto, ON, Canada, October 25, 1998. The meeting was called to order by President E. Bruce Watson at 8:04 a.m. President Watson lead an introduction of the table and welcomed the visitors to council; Paul Ribbe, RiM Editor; and the newly elected councillors, Michael Carpenter and Sorena Sorenson who take office at the first 1999 council meeting.

1. Acceptance of reports containing no action items or questions, or action items deferred to the first 1998 MSA council meeting. Reports with no action required by council were grouped together for acceptance. These include: Report of the Treasurer, Committee on Committees, Benefactors and Tellers Committees, American Mineralogist Managing Editor, Reviews in Mineralogy Series Editor, Publication, Short Course, Outreach and Lecture Program Committees, GIA, IMA, ICDD and SEG Representatives, and Industrial Mineralogy, pegmatite, and Teaching Special Interest groups reports.

{It was the Sense of Council to encourage development of a full proposal for the short course proposed by John Valley and Dave Cole on Stable Isotope Geochemistry, to be presented in 2001, if accepted.}

2. Secretary's Report

The minutes of the second 1998 MSA Council meeting were accepted as written.

Actions and decisions made by council, with short discussions as needed, will be published on the MSA website.

3. Accept award and honor recommendations made by the various committees.

All nominations for awards and grants were accepted:

Roebling Medal - Ikuo Kushiro
MSA Award - Yingwei Fei
Distinguished Public Service Award - Robert A. Howie
Kraus Crystallography Research Grant - Christopher Cahill
Mineralogy/Petrology Research Grant - Wim van Westrenen

4. Report of the Nominating Committee for Officers

Recommendations of the nominating committee were ranked and accepted.
MSA Secretary will contact candidates for the 2000 offices.

5. Communication within the MSA

J. A. Speer, MSA's Administrator, will serve as a direct communication link between the MSA council and the MSA office and editorial staff.

6. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry series

The Geochemical Society has proposed to join together with MSA to produce the Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry series. J. A. Speer and P. Ribbe from MSA, together with GS officers M. Hochella and M. Drake, developed an agreement to do so. The agreement was accepted and J. A. Speer was authorized to sign the contract on behalf of the MSA.

President Watson thanked P. Ribbe and J. A. Speer for their efforts in securing a mutually beneficial agreement.

7. Co-sponsorship of the 2001 Goldschmidt meeting

GC President M. Hochella has formally invited MSA to co-sponsor the 2001 Goldschmidt meeting to be held in Roanoke, VA. J. Ferry clarified that, as first time participants, MSA would be allowed to co-sponsor without any financial commitment. Typical co-sponsorship involves money for student travel grants. MSA is invited to participate in this way if MSA so chooses. He also noted that MSA could/would have special sessions.

MSA will officially co-sponsor, with the Geochemical Society, the 2001 Goldschmidt meeting, to be held in Roanoke, VA.

8. Hazen Proposal for splitting the American Mineralogist

Bob Hazen (re)proposed to split the Am. Min. into a "descriptive" portion and a "scientific" portion. This proposal was not enthusiastically received by Council and Council chose not to pursue the matter further.

9. Timing of Second Council Meeting

The timing and likelihood of a second council meeting was discussed. B. Watson reminded council that MSA is a co-sponsor of Spring AGU. There is the possibility of a "virtual" spring council meeting, in lieu of an "actual" meeting. Therefore the Boston meeting may be cancelled.

If a spring meeting is held, it will be June 5, 1999 In Boston.

10. Consideration of action items from the Editors of American Mineralogist, exclusive of future production

If MSA sponsors a short course, theme session or topical session at a meeting, American Mineralogist should be given the right of first-refusal for publications that result from these events. This stems from several recent courses and sessions. For the MSA co-sponsored "Textures" symposium (Spring 98 AGU), approximately half of the papers are being submitted to "Computers and Geoscience". A. Speer will place this in the Short Course guidelines. B. Dymek noted that he wrote to the symposium organizers soliciting papers. B. Hanson reminded council that each special issue of Am. Min. costs appproximately $25,000, a cost that must be included in the budget.

(a) letter of appreciation from MSA to Rachel Russell and her staff
(b) two copiers in the Business Office and Editorial Office be replaced by a single lease machine with automatic feed
(c) American Mineralogist given the right of first-refusal from any MSA-sponsored short course, symposia, theme sessions, etc.
(d) Scott Johnson be appointed additional guest editor for the Texture special issue
(e) Permission to publish a January, 2000 special issue in honor of Orson Anderson (SUNY-Stony Brook) with R. L. Liebermann and D. Isaak as guest Associate Editors
(f) Permission to publish a special June, 2000 special volume in honor of the retirements of S. A. Morse and P. Robinson (U Mass)
(g) Remove the request for an American Mineralogist web-based database from the MSA website.
(h) Approve as Associate Editors: B. Chakoumakos, F. Allen, R. Couture, C. Merzbacher, J. Kirkpatrick, J. Brodholt, D. Cole. The following were approved as potential Associate Editors for Am. Min.: Brain Phillips (UC-Davis, Material Science); Eugene Leibowiski (IR-H_2O in minerals).
(i) Approve "Best-Paper" Citation for Teng, H. H. and Dove, P. M (1997) Surface site-specific interactions of asparate with calcite during dissolution: implications for biomineralization. American Mineralogist 82, 878-887.
(j) Cite Associate Editor Jillian Banfield for her efforts in coordinating the Geomicrobiology special issue
(k) Replace page charges with offprint sales at a cost similar to other journals

Items were approved except:
(e) Orson Anderson's affiliation should be changed to UCLA
(g) This request has been withdrawn.
(k) Tabled.

11. RiM actions

P. Ribbe and J. Alex Speer were authorized to negotiate a contract with Chen Zhu and his co-author Greg Anderson on behalf of the MSA for publication of their book on "Environmental Applications of Geochemical Modeling".

12. Support for Lattice

The request for an increase in editorial support for the Lattice to $400 was approved.

13. MSA Lecture Administrator

{It was the Sense of Council to authorize John Ferry to contact perspective Lecture Administrators, and to send a letter of appreciation to Guy Hovis for his years of excellent service on behalf of the series.}

14. Internet Coordinator Money for professional graphics design for GMR was not approved.

Approval of $5000 for cost-sharing with LACM for acquisition of ca. 10,000 Kodak PhotoCD images from Scovill and Behnke Collections.

An agreement shall be secured with all parties which contains specifics of use, copyright, cost-sharing, resolution of images, potential for use on an MSA calendar, educational uses vs. profits uses, and related issues.

The Outreach committee is to evaluate the cost-sharing of the MSA web site with CM, GERM, ACA, and various other societies.

15. Proposal

Several proposals sent to Min/Pet for consideration were more appropriate for the crystallography grant.

More clarification will be added to the advertisement as to the nature of the award to alleviate the need for switching of proposals between groups.

16. Pegmatite Interest Group Request for participation in a pegmatite field trip and conference honoring Gene Foord

{It was the Sense of Council that MSA would like to participate in this endeavor but that MSA needs more specific guidelines as to the form of this participation.}

17. Mid-Career Award

The award was accepted in principle, the details of the award are to be worked out by the committee, and the committee is charged with recommending to council the first awardee at the fall meeting.

18. Geological Materials Research Editor's Report

The journal can be found at gmr.minsocam.org. It is in pdf format.

19. Financial Advisory Committee

Council notes FAC's advice to reduce budget deficits immediately.

20. Meetings Committee Report

B. Watson reviewed the history of the proposed "stand alone" MSA meeting. The Meetings Committee provided a detailed report concerning this and other options.

{It was the Sense of Council to have B. Watson write P. Heaney, J. Post and C. Prewitt summarizing the comments of Council, informing them of the options that exist (e.g. co-sponsorship of Goldschmidt, Spring AGU) and inviting them to prepare a full proposal for a meeting; including the scope of the meeting, the likely participants, the budget, what arrangements will be made for students, the organizers, etc. }

In addition, while MSA cannot sponsor a session at Fall AGU (in contrast to spring AGU) meetings, MSA members who are also AGU members can propose special sessions that are then considered for sponsorship by one of the AGU sections, typically VGP.

21. Future production methods of the American Mineralogist

Due to the rising costs of the Society, the afternoon was devoted to the future production methods of the American Mineralogist.

B. Watson provided a brief oversight to the situation and reminded council to provide for a fiscally responsible future. Production of the American Mineralogist is a large budget item, and it is not projected to remain in the black in the near future. Three possibilities currently exist that need to be evaluated:

(1) moving to Desk Top Publishing (DTP);
(2) teaming up with a commercial publisher; and
(3) status quo.

Presentations were made by Elsevier, Blackwell and the Editors of the American Mineralogist.

{It was the Sense of Council to implement DTP immediately. Five thousand dollars was allocated for a new computer to increase productivity of the Am. Min. staff.}

22. The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Barb Dutrow,
MSA Secretary