Richardson et al. Conference report on Geoanalysis 94

Conference report on Geoanalysis 94

J.M. Richardson and H. de Souza

Geoscience Laboratories, Ontario GeoServices Centre, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, 933 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury Ontario, P3E SB6 Canada

Summary
Geoanalysis '94 was recently held (Sept 18-22, 1994) at the Charlotte Mason Conference Centre, Ambleside, England. Ably chaired by Doug Miles (British Geological Survey) and Phil Potts (Open University), the conference was attended by approximately 150 delegates from 30 countries. It brought together the rather eclectic group of specialists that overlap to form the field of geoanalysis: chemists, geologists, physicists, instrument manufacturers, statisticians, producers of reference materials all of whom typically work in academia, private industry or government laboratories. There was a wide representation of practitioners from almost every continent: countries large and small, highly industrialised and emerging, resource-rich and manufacturing- or agricultural based. Such an attendance indicates the world-wide importance of geoanalysis. In the words of Doug Miles, "analytical chemists/geoanalysts are at the forefront of the quest to explore, exploit, protect and understand the environment everywhere".

Overall, the program was well balanced. Typically each session was introduced by a plenary lecturer, a well known scientist of international repute, who provided the overview and setting for the more specialized talks that followed. In an organized fashion, the conference lecture program focused first on the building blocks of geoanalysis, reference materials and quality control and then went on to cover method descriptions, evaluations, comparisons and specific applications. Each major analytical discipline was represented, typically in dedicated sessions. Frontier techniques (SIMS, AMS, S-XRF) were introduced and explained by invited lecturers.

Geostandards Newsletter (1994), Vol. 18 No. 2 pp. 327-330 HTML VERSION

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