This month sees the inauguration of a bi-monthly newsletter
aimed specifically at the membership of the AGU Volcanology,
Geochemistry, and Petrology (VGP) section. The aim is to
increase communication between VGP leadership and members on
a variety of subjects of interest. Future newsletters could
also include news items or announcements contributed by VGP
members (contact Sarah Fagents at fagents@asu.edu).
First of all, we urge you to prepare nomination packages
for Bowen, Macelwane and AGU Fellowships now! Deadlines are
in October.
In this issue:
President: Fred Frey, MIT; fafrey@mit.eduu
President elect: Kathy Cashman, U. Oregon; cashman@oregon.uoregon.edu
Bowen Award Committee: Mac Rutherford (chair), Brown U.; macr@brown.edu
Education/Outreach Committee: Roger Nielsen (chair), Oregon
State U.; rnielsen@oce.orst.edu
Macelwane Award Committee: Alex Halliday (chair), ETH Zentrum;
halliday@erdw.ethz.ch
Meetings Committee: Don Dingwell (chair), Inst. Mineralogie
and Petrologie; dingwell@petro1.min.uni-muenchen.de
Publications Committee: Hubert Staudigel (chair), Scripps Inst.
Oceanography; hstaudigel@ucsd.edu
VGP Fellows Committee: Al Hofmann (chair), Max-Planck-Institut
fur Geochemie; hofmann@mpch-mainz.mpg.de
MESSAGE FROM MEETINGS COMMITTEE CHAIR
Few aspects of the activities of the AGU are more central to its existence
than its Fall and Spring meetings. For many new members such meetings are
the first and often most lasting impression of the AGU, its membership
and its activities.
The task of scientific coordination and planning of such meetings is largely developed at the section level. As VGP secretary, I represent our section as Chair of the Meetings Committee and, more specifically, at the planning level of the AGU for the Fall meeting. A primary aspect of this work is the solicitation of themes for special sessions and symposia from the membership. Another is the encouragement of proposals for Chapman Conferences. If you have any questions, comments or recommendations regarding these two matters, please do not hesitate to contact me. Over the years, VGP has enjoyed a stable growth in quality and number of contributions at AGU meetings. For our section, the mixture between special sessions, symposia and general sessions continues to be a very healthy one. Virtually every member can find elements of interest in the sections activities, for example, at this year´s Fall meeting. In San Francisco, in December, (see EOS 25 July) there will be 15 special sessions hosted by the VGP section, in addition VGP is cosponsoring at least 20 further special sessions. None of these sessions is invite-only. Therefore you are cordially invited to submit contributions to any of these sessions (don´t wait for an invitation!). In addition there will be numerous general sessions. Your volunteer work as chairs of general sessions will also be warmly appreciated.
The deadline for electronic submissions is September 7. Put the meeting dates (15-19 December) in your calendar! I look forward to seeing your abstracts in September.
D. B. Dingwell
Meetings Committee Chair
CALL FOR SPECIAL SESSIONS AT SPRING 2001 AGU MEETING, BOSTON, MA
Volcanology-Geochemistry-Petrology is one of the largest sections of
AGU and yet we often feel under-represented in meeting content, especially
at the Spring Meeting. It is up to us, the members of the VGP section,
to assure that we have a scientifically productive Spring Meeting by proposing
special sessions. There are distinct advantages to proposing special sessions
at the Spring Meeting: the Spring Meeting is still small enough to have
effective scientific discourse (e.g. your timely and cutting-edge session
will attract nearly all petrologists/geochemists in attendance!); unlike
the too-crowded Fall AGU, novel formats can be used (e.g. workshops, specialized
talk length and order); and this year, scheduling close to the Goldschmidt
will assure more foreign attendees than usual. Please think of the type
of session you would like to see at Spring AGU. Then make sure it happens
by proposing it yourself or coercing colleagues to do so.
To convene a special session: contact Steven B. Shirey, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015, Fax: 202 364 8726, Phone: 202 686 2560, shirey@dtm.ciw.edu. All that is needed is a brief paragraph description of the session and the names of conveners. Deadline for proposals of special sessions is October 16.
Steve Shirey
Spring AGU Program Committee Chair.
MESSAGE FROM PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIR
Beginning July 1, a new VGP publication committee was formed, including
C. Agee, NASA Johnson Space Center, N. Arndt, University of Grenoble L.
Davis, Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, D. Geist, University
of Idaho, M. Roden, University of Georgia, H. Shaw, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory H. Staudigel, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Chair:
hstaudigel@ucsd.edu). The role of this committee will be to listen to the
VGP community and work out means to improve AGU publications for readers
and authors. The committee has begun discussing four main issues, and we
hope to obtain comments from VGP members.
1.The AGU appears to be a more attractive home for VGP abstracts than for VGP science papers in its journals. What are the reasons for this discrepancy? Using more society-based journals has been an important issue for discussion, in particular in the context of the extreme costs of some journals from commercial publishers. These costs effectively limit the distribution of the top science to a few "rich" libraries. Should we, as the VGP, use more (not for profit) society-based publications?
2. AGU recently launched a new electronic journal with a focus that clearly includes VGP. G-cubed (Geochemistry, Geophysics and Geosystems) is now well on its way, with over 30 papers published since its launch at the 1999 AGU Fall meeting. The number of submitted manuscripts has passed the 100 mark. G-cubed is currently free of charge for authors and for subscribers (check out g-cubed.org; see table of contents at the end of this newsletter). All signs are that this journal will be a success. However, the first few years of publications are key to how a journal defines itself, how earth science disciplines are represented and what kind of service it will provide. It is important that the community takes part in this development, as authors, readers and critics.
3. JGR Red is the major AGU journal where VGP papers are published. Can the role of JGR be improved?
4. AGU as our main (and most powerful) professional organization does a great job at convening annual meetings, and there is a great effort in offering us service through the publication of first rate journals. In particular in the age of the electronic revolution, it appears obvious that "our" professional organization should also help us in our needs for publishing data, providing access to data and curating data. What should be the role of AGU? How should we publish data? Is the "data-brief" option of G-cubed the best way? In an electronic medium, there is tremendous potential in linking data publication to data archiving and data searches. Should AGU establish a digital archive for all data published in its journals?
Please let us know what you think.
Hubert Staudigel
Publications Committee Chair
MESSAGE FROM EDUCATION/OUTREACH COMMITTEE CHAIR
The VGP Education and Outreach Committee has been re-organized this
year to facilitate what has been its main function over the past couple
of years, the evaluation of student presentations at the national meetings.
This enlargement of the committee will also bring in more diverse representation
of the VGP community.
We are pleased to announce that "Outstanding Student Presentation Awards" at the 2000 Spring AGU meeting have been awarded to Darren Locke (Arizona State University), Lesley Rose (University of Toronto) and Marlin Saar (University of Oregon).
Another initiative of this committee has been to provide a forum for exchange of teaching materials and strategies. This year we are hoping to put together an informal gathering for those who either currently teach a class in volcanology or would like to develop such a class. If you have such an interest, please contact Roger Nielsen at nielsenr@geo.orst.edu.
Roger Nielsen
Education/outreach Committee Chair
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR AGU FELLOWS FROM THE VGP SECTION: A MESSAGE
FROM THE CHAIR OF THE VGP FELLOWS COMMITTEE.
Award of the AGU Fellowship is an important recognition of scientific
accomplishment within the AGU and to the outside world. It is also a sign
of vitality of a section within the AGU. There have been times when the
VGP section was underrepresented in the Fellowship awards, although in
the most recent years we have done quite well. Still, when the awards are
given, colleagues often wonder why this particular new Fellow has not been
AGU Fellow for many years. The only way to do justice to both our section
and its scientifically most accomplished members is to present nominations
of high caliber to the VGP Fellows Committee. The nominations and supporting
letters should be as specific as possible about the most important scientific
accomplishments of your candidate. Statements like "XYZ has done very important
work on volcanic rocks" are not helpful and will most likely be discounted
by the Committee. For nomination instructions, see http://www.agu.org/inside/fellnom.html
. For a list of all VGP fellows, see http://www.geology.washington.edu/~agu-vgp/awards.html.
The deadline for nominations is October 1, 2000.
Al Hofmann
VGP Fellows Committee Chair
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR NORMAN L. BOWEN AWARD
The N. L. Bowen Award was established in 1981 by the Volcanology, Geochemistry,
and Petrology Section to recognize outstanding contributions to volcanology,
geochemistry, or petrology. Special consideration is given to nominees
who have not previously received a medal. The deadline for nominations
is October 16, 2000. See Eos Vol. 81(30) (July 25) p.343 for further information
and nomination instructions. Please send nomination packages to Professor
Malcolm Rutherford, Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University,
Providence, RI 02912.
As the new chairman of this committee, it was very interesting to see which colleagues had received this award over the years. At this point, I am sure many of you know someone who you think is now very deserving. Please take the step to nominate this person. At this time we have only a few nominees to consider for the year 2000. The nomination process is not very difficult. All that is required is a letter from you stating why the nominee deserves the award, a copy of the nominee's CV, and supporting letters from at least two scientists who know and support the nomination.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Mac Rutherford
Bowen Award Committee Chair.
Past Awardees:
Richard A. Yund, 1981CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE JAMES B. MACELWANE MEDAL
T.N. Irvine, 1982
Lionel Wilson, 1983
Robert C. Newton, 1984
Michael J. O'Hara, 1984
Richard V. Fisher, 1985
Edward Wesley Hildreth, 1985
H.U. Schmincke, 1985
Ian S.E. Carmichael, 1986
Fred A. Frey, 1986
John Barry Dawson, 1987
S. Ross Taylor, 1988
Alexander R. McBirney, 1990
Eric Essene, 1991
Robert O. Fournier, 1991
Bruce D. Marsh, 1993
Timothy L. Grove, 1993
Alan Bruce Thompson, 1994
Harry W. Green II, 1994
T. Mark Harrison, 1995
Frank M. Richter, 1995
Charles H. Langmuir, 1996
Frank S. Spear, 1997
Alex Halliday, 1998
Charles R. Bacon, 1999
For a nomination to be considered it must include a letter of nomination outlining the nominee's significant contributions, a curriculum vitae, a bibliography, and a minimum of three supporting letters. At least two letters must be from individuals not currently or recently associated with the nominee's institution of graduate education or employment. The letter must include the birth date of the nominee, which must be 1965 or later.
The members of the VGP Section Macelwane Award Committee are as follows: Alex Halliday (Chair), ETH Zurich (halliday@erdw.ethz.ch), Bernie Wood, University of Bristol (B.J.Wood@bristol.ac.uk), Michael Garcia, University of Hawaii (garcia@soest.hawaii.edu), Larry Edwards, University of Minnesota (edwar001@maroon.tc.umn.edu), Everett Shock, Washington University in St. Louis (shock@zonvark.wustl) PLEASE NOTE that all nominations need to be sent direct to AGU. The deadline for nominations is October 16th. Packages that, on the deadline, do not meet the requirements for completeness, as outlined above, cannot be considered. The nomination package should be submitted to:
The James B. Macelwane Award
Committee,
VGP Section
c/o American Geophysical
Union
2000 Florida Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Further details can be found at:
http://www.agu.org/inside/awardnom.html
Alex Halliday
Macelwane Award Committee Chair.
STATUS OF VGP WEBSITE
The VGP website is currently undergoing reconstruction. Please check
it out (http:www.agu.org/sections/vgp/vgp.html), and e-mail
suggestions to webmaster Mark Ghiorso. One section that
would particularly benefit from member input is the listing of links to
members' own webpages. E-mail mannc@u.washington.edu if you would like
to see your site included.
UPDATING MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Please check your membership information. Is it up to date?
Please go to the AGU home page (http://www.agu.org/) and
follow these instructions:
Click on Member Services
Click on Members Only Services
Click on AGU on-line membership
directory,
Click on View My Own Entry
mailing or e-mail address, etc. Ask your VGP colleagues to
do the same so that AGU and we have up to date e-mail
addresses.
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