The 84th annual business meeting of the Mineralogical Society of America was held on November 9, 2004, at 5:00 PM in the Denver, Colorado, 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.

As of Sept. 30, 2003, the total membership of the society stands at 2270, which represents a mostly student subscriptions; regular membership is flat. Please continue inviting your colleagues and especially students to join MSA. The society offers two options for renewing memberships: either by mail (renewal notices were mailed to everyone in October) 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.

66% of MSA members subscribed to the journal in some form in 2004, which is less than last year’s 76%. This is the result of the format which enables members to renew without subscribing to the journal, which is increasingly chosen by senior members and those choosing electronic format only. This year there were 791 institutional subscriptions, a decrease of 37 from 2003, and part of a continuous decline over the years. Geoscience World (or GSW), our entry into a Open-Access electronic publishing with 29 other journals, will be offered to libraries in February 2005. Council is actively aware of the dramatic changes from paper to on-line publishing and is working on plans to preserve the Societies publications as well as financial well being.

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

Prof. Isabelle David

Dr. Yoshikuni Hiroi

Dr. Marc M. Hirschmann

Dr. Hans Keppler

Dr. Martin Kunz

Prof. Hans-Jocahim Massone
Dr. David R.M. Pattison

Dr. Stefano Poli

Prof. David Prior

Dr. Thomas G. Sharp

Prof. Akira Tsuchiyama

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.

It is also a pleasure to announce the following Medallists

and Research Grant Recipients:

The Roebling Medallist is Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao

Distinguished Public Service Medallist is Robin P. Brett

Dana Medal Award recipient is Rodney C. Ewing

(for 2006)

MSA Award recipient is Tiziana Boffa-Ballaran

2003/2004 Kraus Crystallographic Research Grant recipient is:

Christina L. Lopano for the study "Time-resolved structural analysis of cation exchange and hydrothermal heating reactions in synthetic manganese oxides: birnessite and todorokite," which will be conducted at Pennsylvania State University and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

2003/2004 Mineralogy/Petrology Research Grant recipients are:

Saumyaditya Bose for the proposal "Combining studies in mineral-microbe interaction and nanomineralogy: Measuring and understanding the bio-reduction kinetics of Mn oxyhydroxides driven by Shewanella oneidensis" to be carried out at Virginia Tech.

Elizabeth R. Goeke for the study "Quantitative textural modeling along a strong decompression path: Example from the Adula Nappe, Central Alps," which will be carried out at the University of Iowa.

The Best Paper Award has been retired.

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 American Mineralogist Undergraduate Award to outstanding undergraduates recommended by faculty members. In addition to providing recognition to deserving students with a certificate, the AMU awardee receives the choice of MSA publications, and a student membership with electronic access to the American Mineralogist. The MSA membership also entitles the students to receive Elements (the new magazine). Details on nominating undergraduates can be found on the MSA website.

The society remains very active in sponsoring short courses. In 2004, there was, or will be, these courses:

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

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

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 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 scheduled to be held at Snowbird, Utah prior to the GSA 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 2005. 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.

The following RiMG volumes are either now on sale or planned for publication in 2005:

Volume #56 titled Geochemistry of Non-traditional Stable Isotopes - Stable Isotopes of Intermediate to Heavy Mass Elements, edited by Clark Johnson, Brian Beard, and Francis Albarède, and

Volume #57 titled Epidote Group Minerals edited by Axel Liebscher and Gerhard Franz, are for sale in the MSA Booth.

Volume #55 titled A New View of the Moon edited by Brad Joliff and Mark Wieczorek is somewhat delayed, but should be out early in 2005.

Volume #58 titled Micro- and Meso-porous Mineral Phases edited by Giovanni Ferrais and Stephano Merlino via the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei is in progress.

Jodi Rosso is settling in well as the new editor of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry Series.

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:

Rodney Ewing, University of Michigan, who is speaking on: Impact of nuclear power on the environment and Minerals and The safe immobilization and disposal of plutonium.

John Hanchar, George Washington University, who is speaking on: Simulating 100 million years of radiation damage in six years: Experiments on plutonium-doped minerals and Trace elements and isotopes in accessory minerals as a window into crustal processes.

Bernard J. Wood, University of Bristol, England, who is speaking on: The Earth under pressure: Minerals of its deep interior and Square pegs in round holes: Why and how trace elements enter minerals.

MSA sincerely thanks these folks for their time and effort in speaking to colleges and universities around North America, Europe, and, now, New Zealand — the program is now going to be open essentially world-wide, depending upon the efficacy of the tour proposals. MSA particularly thanks Helen Lang for coordinating this program for the past 5 years — three cheers for Helen. Cameron Davison will pick up the reins from Helen this coming year. We also thank last year’s speakers Bradley Hacker, Jill Dill Pasteris, and David Vaughan.

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.

Roy A. Bailey (Senior Fellow - 1954)

Francis R. Boyd (Life Fellow - 193)

Mr. Lawrence L. Brown (Senior Member - 1965)

Howard W. Jaffe (Life Fellow - 1945)

Karl Jasmund (Fellow - 1962)

Dr. A. Bhaskara Rao (Senior Fellow - 1957)

Anyone who would care to write a memorial for submission to the American Mineralogist please contact the Editors.

MSA’s endeavors depend primarily on the volunteer work of its members serving on many committees. 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 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 me, the Executive Director, Alex Speer, or the in-coming chair of the Committee on Committees and vice-President, John Valley.

Joining this non-exclusive publishing agreement with the electronic publishing aggregate called GeoscienceWorld was initiated by Executive Director, Alex Speer (now a member of the Board of Directors of GSW), strongly endorsed by former president Doug Rumble (who now serves as the MSA representative on the GSW Advisory Council), and approved by council.

The multi-society magazine Elements, designed to replace the society newsletters of MSA, the Mineralogical Association of Canada, the Clay Minerals Society, the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and the Geochemical Society and present topic-oriented articles in our science is well underway. The board of Editors includes Past-President Rod Ewing, Michael Hochella, and Ian Parsons, the managing editor is Pierrette Tremblay, and the 2005 production of 4 issues in progress. The society extends a hearty thanks to these organizers for the great effort and, particularly, to Pierrette for her diplomacy and level-headedness in addressing the challenges of this new publishing venture. Other societies are taking interest with the recent addition of the European Union of Geochemists to the participating societies. Members are invited to see examples of the inaugural edition at a table in the exhibition hall.

With the increasing awards presented by the Society at the awards luncheon, it has become overly long and does not permit any context for the awardees science or other contributions to be presented. Consequently, Council has authorized the exploration of reducing the awards at the luncheon to acknowledgements of the awardees and speeches possibly only by the Roebling Medal citationist and recipient. The possibilities being considered include: sponsoring a plenary session or special session featuring an initial talk by the Roebling winner, having the MSA Awardee and the Distinguished Public Service Awardee give lectures prior to the Presidential address. Members will be polled about the possibilities once they have been explored and evaluated further. Keep your eyes peeled for an email announcement.

It is a pleasure to announce the results of the Summer 2004 elections; The new President of the Society is Robert M. Hazen, our new Vice President is John W. Valley, and George Harlow, yours truly, remains in office as Secretary. John M. Hughes is our new Treasurer, and the new Councilors are Ross John Angel and Robert T Downs. They join the continuing councilors: Barb Dutrow, Rebecca Lange, David London, and Mickey Gunter. We thank the out-going councilors Peter Heaney and Nancy Ross for 3 years of dedicated service to the society. A total of 547 ballots were received by the August 1st deadline, representing 24.1% 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.