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48263-SE
Clay Minerals Society Awards Symposium at the ACS National Meeting, April 6-10, 2008, New Orleans, LA

Brenda S., Ross, Cottey College

Website
http://www.cottey.edu/clay/

 Objective
The primary purpose of the Clay Minerals Society is to stimulate research and to disseminate information relating to all aspects of clay science and technology.  Through the 2008 annual meeting in New Orleans, the society offered individuals a means of following the many-sided growth of the clay sciences and of meeting fellow scientists with widely different backgrounds and interests.  This was particularly true due to the joint nature of the meeting with the Geochemistry Division of the American Chemical Society.  Clay Minerals Society members include clay mineralogists, crystallographers, physicists, chemists, geochemists, soil scientists, agronomists, ceramic scientists, civil engineers, petroleum geologists and engineers, and industrial scientists in fields involving products ranging from catalysts to sorbent materials.

 Project Description
“Clays of Demeter:  45^th Annual Meeting of the Clay Minerals Society” was held April 5-10, 2008 in historic New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.  The timing of the meeting was altered from its usual June date to accommodate holding the meeting jointly with the geochemistry division of the ACS at the national ACS meeting in New Orleans.  Approximately 120 – 150 scientists from around the globe attended the meeting and shared knowledge and ideas on the latest advances in clay mineral science while enjoying the historic and musical environs of New Orleans.  The meeting included four and a half days of technical sessions, a one-half day awards symposium, and a full day workshop on clay surface redox processes.  Details are available at the meeting web site:  http://www.cottey.edu/clay/.

 Results
The technical sessions for the meeting were jointly organized by Brenda Ross of the Clay Minerals Society, and Tim Filley of the geochemistry division of the ACS. The scientific sessions of the meeting kicked off on Sunday morning with the Clay Minerals Society Awards Symposium which recognized honored members of the Society. Sessions on various clay mineral and geochemistry topics followed over four and a half days and included the following. 

 

• Advanced Approaches to Investigating Adsorption at the Solid-Water Interface
  

                  Louise J. Criscenti, Heather Allen, Lynn E. Katz

• Archaeological Clay Source Materials: Their Chemical, Mineralogical, and Physical Characteristics
  

                  Sheldon A. Skaggs, Jennifer Wehby

• Clay Minerals and Biomolecules
  

                  Gözen Ertem

• Clay Minerals and Health
  

                  Javiera Cervini-Silva, Lynda Williams

• General GEOC Oral Session
  

                  Timothy R. Filley

• General Session on Clays and Clay Minerals: CMS Clay Gumbo
  

                  Brenda S. Ross

• Methods for Studying Optical and Electrochemical Properties of In Situ Thin Films
  

                  Alanah Fitch

• Reactions on Clay Surfaces
  

                  Susan L. Brantley, James D Kubicki, Geoffrey M Bowers

• Speciation of Arsenic and Other Trace Elements in Soils and Sediments
  

                  Rona J. Donahoe, Dibyendu Sarkar

• The Impact of Hurricane Katrina from an Environmental and Petrochemical Perspective
  

                  Lore J Ramillano, Andrew Jackson

 

One hundred and eighty five oral presentations were scheduled during the technical sessions.  Also, forty four technical posters were scheduled on Wednesday at a general poster session.  On Monday, a subset of the posters were highlighted at the ACS Sci-Mix poster session.  As is customary for CMS meetings, there was a special workshop on Saturday before the formal meeting.  The workshop was titled “Clay Surface Redox Processes: Fundamentals andCharacterization Techniques”, and was organized by Hailiang Dong.  Various administrative meetings and business lunches were held throughout the week of the conference.  Finally, there was a special reception for students and new members held on Sunday evening to recognize the future leaders of the society.  The financial support from the Geosciences Program of the Office of Science helped greatly to achieve the success of Clays of Demeter.

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