Secretary’s report to the 84th MSA Business meeting:

The 84th annual business meeting of the Mineralogical Society of America was held on November 4, 2003, at 5:00 PM in the Seattle, Washington, Convention Center. What follows is a brief overview of the main actions taken by council and the executive committee, society election results, and other actions since the last business meeting.

Membership

As of Sept. 30, 2003, the total membership of the society stands at 2234. This represents a steady rise from 2000 when the membership fellow to its lowest level in several decades. The current enrollment is back to about the same level as 1994, with the Senior Member and Fellow category showing the largest percentage increase. Please continue inviting your colleagues and especially students to join MSA. The society offers two options for renewing memberships: either by mail (renewal notices will be mailed to everyone this fall) or through the MSA website. As in the past several years, members will receive a $5 discount on their membership dues if they renew before December 31, 2003.

MSA membership figures are currently:

Life members: 60

Fellows 271

The strong figures on membership enrollment are, unfortunately, offset to some extent by the decline in institutional subscriptions to the American Mineralogist that has occurred over the past decade. This year MSA experienced a noticeable drop in domestic subscriptions (by 25) to 559, with foreign subscriptions declining only slightly (by 7) to 269. Any influence that you can exercise at your host institutions in restoring dropped subscriptions would be greatly appreciated by the society.

New Fellows

The society is pleased to announce the following eleven new Fellows of the Society:

Craig R. Bina

Moonsup Cho

Lee Groat

Eiji Ito

Bor-ming Jahn

Akira Kato

Gregory R. Lumpkin

Craig Manning

Satoshi Matsubara

Kazuhiro Ozawa

Elena Sokolova

The society extends its congratulations to these individuals! Let me remind you that the Committee for Fellows always welcomes your nominations of society members for this particular honor.

Medallists/Award winners:

It is also a pleasure to announce the following Medallists and Research Grant Recipients

Roebling Medallist is Francis R. (Joe) Boyd

Distinguished Public Service Medallist is Robert F. Martin

Dana Medal Award recipient is William (Bill) Carlson (for 2005)

MSA Award recipient is Kevin M. Rosso

2003/2004 Mineralogy/Petrology Research Grant recipients are:

and

After a short hiatus in the selection process, the Best Paper Award Committee and Council has recommended that the Best Paper Award for 2000 go to:

The Best Paper Award for 2002 goes to:

Congratulations to all of the award and research-grant recipients. Council encourages society members to nominate individuals for the various awards; detailed information can be found on the MSA website (www.minsocam.org). Please encourage students to apply for the Krause Crystallographic and Mineralogy/Petrology research grants, which provide funding of up to $5000 each.

As a reminder, MSA offers the Undergraduate Award to outstanding undergraduates recommended by faculty members. In addition to providing recognition to deserving students, these awards can help make the society a more tangible entity for undergraduates and the population at large. Details on nominating undergraduates can be found on the MSA website.

Short courses:

The society remains very active in sponsoring short courses. In 2003, there was, or will be, the courses:

Zircon, which was organized by John Hanchar and Paul Hoskin and was held at Freiburg, Germany, in conjunction with the joint assembly of the EGS, AGU, and EUG meeting held this past April at Nice, France.

Uranium Series Geochemistry was co-sponsored by the Geochemical Society and was also held in conjunction with the EGS-AGU-EUG meeting at Nice, France. MSA is now selling Volume 52 of the RiMG series stemming from this short course.

Biomineralization is co-sponsored by the Geochemical Society and is being convened by Patricia Dove, James De Yoreo, and Steve Weiner. This short course will take place on December 6^th and 7^th, prior to the Fall AGU meeting, in Napa Valley, California.

In 2004 there will be:

Epidote Group Minerals which is being organized by Axel Liebscher and is scheduled to be held June 3^rd and 4^th in Copenhagen, Denmark, prior to the Goldschmidt Conference.

Geochemistry of Non-traditional Stable Isotopes - Stable Isotopes of Intermediate to Heavy Mass Elements, is being organized by Clark Johnson, Francis Albarède, and Brian Beard for the joint AGU-CGU meeting in Montreal, Quebec, in May of 2004.

In 2005 there will be

Molecular Geomicrobiology: from genes to geochemical cycles (Geomicrobiology II) which is being organized by Jill Banfield, Ken Nealson , and Javiera Cervini and is tentatively scheduled to be held prior to the Fall AGU meeting.

Low-Temperature Thermochronometry: Techniques, Interpretations, and Applications is being organized by Peter W. Reiners and Todd A. Ehlers and is tentatively scheduled to be held prior to the Fall AGU meeting.

MSA gratefully acknowledges the financial support that it has received from the Department of Energy for nine short courses that have been, or will be, held in the period from 2001 to 2004. The support for each short course is generally in the range of $10,000 — 15,000 and is mostly intended to reduce student registration fees.

RiMG Publications: The following RiMG volumes are either now in print or are planned for publication in 2003:

Volume #52 titled Uranium Series Geochemistry edited by Bernard Bourdon, Gideon Henderson, Craig Lundstrom, and Simon Turner, which is now on sale as mentioned above.

Volume #53 titled Zircon edited by John Hanchar and Paul Hoskin is almost ready for sale.

Volume #54 titled Biomineralization edited by Patricia Dove, James De Yoreo, and Steve Weiner is being prepared under a tight production schedule for the short course in Napa Valley.

Jodi Rosso has been appointed as the new Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry Series editor, effective May of this year, to take over the editorial duties that had been done by Paul Ribbe for over 28 years. Our thanks go to Paul for his many years of service to the society and our thanks also go to Jodi for stepping in as the new editor.

MSA Lecture Program

The Lecture Program continues to be one of the more visible and most successful endeavors of the Mineralogical Society of America. This year MSA's lecturers are:

Bradley Hacker - University of California, Santa Barbara - who is speaking on

Jill Dill Pasteris — Washington University, St. Louis - who is speaking on:

Minerals: They do a Body Good

David Vaughan — University of Manchester, England — who is speaking on:

Minerals, Metals, and Molecules: Ore and Environmental Mineralogy in the 21^st Century

MSA heartedly thanks these folks for their time and effort in speaking to colleges and universities around North America and Europe, and to Helen Lang for coordinating this program.

We also thank last year's speakers Thomas Armbruster, Mickey Gunter, and Robert Hazen who collectively set a new lecture-tour record of speaking at 40 institutions.

Deaths

I would like to ask the audience to please rise at this time to honor those fellows and members of the society who have passed away this year. Please remain standing and observe a moment of silence after the names have been read.

Jose L. Amorós, Life Fellow, 1953

C. A. Botner, Life Member, 1954

Roland E. Bounds, Member, 1975

Vladimir J. Bouska, Life Fellow, 1957

James Finch, Life Member, 1947

Clifford Frondel, Life Fellow, 1934

Richard T. Liddicoat, Life Fellow, 1953

Takashi Miyano, Member, 1982

Mary E. Mrose, Life Fellow, 1946

George Phair, Life Fellow, 1943

Harry Francis West Taylor, Life Fellow, 1959

Russell G. Wayland, Life Fellow, 1942

Hatten S. Yoder, Jr., Life Fellow, 1948

Pieter C. Zwaan, Fellow, 1961

Thank you. Please be seated:

Anyone who wishes to prepare a memorial, please contact Alex Speer, in the Business Office, who serves in the capacity of editor for memorials in the American Mineralogist.

Committees:

MSA's endeavors depend primarily on the volunteer work of its members serving on the many committees that are in place. Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Committees, let me extend a special thanks to all who take the time to help MSA by serving on these various committees. Without your help, MSA could not undertake its many functions to educate, grant money, recognize deserving individuals with awards, and otherwise continue to serve our profession. Those who would like to volunteer their time and effort to serve on a committee are welcome to contact the new Secretary, George Harlow, the Executive Director, Alex Speer, or the in-coming chair of the Committee on Committees and vice-President, Robert Hazen.

New developments

(a) GeoscienceWorld

After a lot of hard work on the part of our Executive Director, Alex Speer, and much discussion, council has agreed to enter into a non-exclusive publishing agreement with the electronic publishing aggregate called GeoscienceWorld. Similar to the already existing electronic consortium known as BioOne, GeoscienceWorld provides full-text searching capabilities of the publications of participating societies and on-line access to the full article. This will serve to greatly expand the exposure of the American Mineralogist to the geological community. It is also planned that electronic versions of new volumes of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry will be available through this service. In short, the purpose of this aggregate includes, among other things, providing academic institutions and others easy access to the most comprehensive collection of peer-reviewed geoscience journals that are currently published. It is hoped that, by pooling the efforts of many societies, we will be able to advance scientific communications in the geological sciences in ways that may not be possible by the efforts of individual organizations. The participating societies are: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of London, Mineralogical Society of America, Society for Sedimentary Geology, and the Society for Exploration Geophysicists, as well as the American Geological Institute. The target date for having this aggregate in full service is September, 2004.

(b) Multi-society Magazine

Past-President Ewing has been instrumental in looking for ways to broaden the range of communication between the various mineralogical and geochemical societies, and, perhaps eventually, to the general scientific community. To this end, he has initiated dialog with a large number of sister organizations and has developed a draft proposal for the general content and cost of publishing such a magazine. In brief, the magazine would be designed to present thematic issues with articles written for a broader geological audience, would not compete with journals of individual societies, and would retain information on the activities of the participating societies. Although Rod Ewing, on behalf of MSA, has taken the lead in developing this magazine, the magazine is not intended to be dominated by any one society; rather, it is envisioned that participating societies would be equal partners in this effort. Initially, funding would come primarily from participating societies who would re-direct funds used for individual society newsletters to the production of a multi-society magazine. Eventually the magazine should become self-sustaining from its advertising revenue by developing a larger readership and circulation base than any individual newsletter, similar to magazines such as Geotimes, Materials Research Society Bulletin, or Physics Today. Council has voiced strong support for this magazine. If an agreement can be reached between participating societies, the target date for beginning this magazine is January, 2005, with an inaugural issue planned for the end of 2004.

2003 Election results

It is a pleasure to announce the results of the Spring 2003 elections;

The new President of the Society is Michael Carpenter

our new Vice President is Robert M. Hazen

our new Secretary is George Harlow

James Blencoe remains in office as Treasurer

The new Councillors are Mickey Gunter and David London.

They will join the continuing councillors: Peter Heaney, Nancy Ross, Barb Dutrow, and Rebecca Lange.

We thank the out-going councillors Craig Manning and Kathryn Nagy for 3 years of dedicated service to the society.

A total of 622 ballots were received by the August 1^st deadline, representing 26.5% of the eligible voting membership. You are strongly urged to vote because this is your opportunity to have input into the operations of the society and because each vote makes a real difference in these closely-contested elections. Let me extend a special thanks to all of those who ran for office.

Fairwell

This is my final report as Secretary to the society. Unlike my predecessor, Barb Dutrow, I do not have a list of the top 10 things that I learned as Secretary over the past 4 years. However, I do have one brief poem that I wish to share with you. This is written in the "higgledy-piggledy" meter taught to me by the late Julian R. Goldsmith:

Higgledy, piggledy

Michael A. Carpenter,

elected new leader

with many a task.

For minutes of meetings

and jobs beyond number,

it's Harlow, not Jenkins,

who you must now ask!

It has been a pleasure serving the society as Secretary and I wish my successor, George Harlow, the best of luck in this capacity.

Respectfully submitted,

David M. Jenkins, MSA Secretary