87th Annual Meeting of the DMG

From September 13–16, more than 300 mineralogists gathered in Halle/Saale for the 87th Annual Meeting of the DMG, which was held this year in collaboration with the German Clay and Clay Minerals Group and the Soil Mineralogy Working Group of the German Society of Soil Science. The various symposia, with their respective conference themes developed by the conference organizers Gregor Borg, Kurt Friese, and Herbert Pöllmann together with the conveners of the individual symposia, are listed again below:

1 Geochemistry/Petrology

1.1 Metamorphic Processes

1.2 Magmatic Processes

2 Mineral Physics/Mineral Chemistry/Crystallography

2.1 Analytical Methods

2.2 General and Applied Crystallography

3 Mineral Deposits

3.1 Methodology in Mineral Deposit Research

3.2 Supergene and Hypogene Metallogenesis

3.3 Exploration/Mining in Germany

4 Environmental Mineralogy/Environmental Geochemistry

4.1 Clay Mineral Phases in Soils

4.2 CO₂ Sequestration

4.3 Mineral Surface Processes

4.4 Mineralogical and Geochemical Processes in Mining Lakes

4.5 Environmental Mineralogy

5 Technical Mineralogy

5.1 Non-Crystalline Solids

5.2 Mineralogical Process Technologies

5.3 Hydrothermal Research in Technology and Nature

5.4 Building Materials, Raw Materials, and Construction Chemistry

5.5 Archaeometry and Heritage Conservation

6 General Topics

6.1 Museums and Collections

6.2 Miscellaneous Topics

The conference abstracts were compiled in a special issue of the Halle Yearbook of Geosciences.

During the opening ceremony, the awards were presented by Falko Langenhorst, chairman of the DMG. The DMG’s highest honor, the Abraham-Gottlob-Werner Medal, was awarded to Prof. A. Putnis (Münster). The Georg Agricola Medal was awarded to Prof. S. K. Filatov (St. Petersburg). Following the DMG awards ceremony, the Kuzel Prizes for outstanding achievements in the field of cement chemistry were awarded to Dr. Matschei for his dissertation and to Ms. Yang Han for her outstanding thesis (see also the report in GMit 36). In a concluding presentation, Dr. S. Faulhaber provided a detailed and clear overview of the funding opportunities offered by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The well-attended DMG General Assembly was held on Monday evening—all agenda items were completed surprisingly quickly. The public evening lecture was given by Ernst Pernicka (Tübingen) on the topic “Geochemical Traces in Metals—Determining the Origin of Archaeological Metal Finds.”

Tuesday evening is traditionally reserved for the “conference dinner,” which took place in Halle at the Museum of Prehistory. After dinner, attendees had the opportunity to participate in in-depth tours of the museum. Of course, this included the world-famous Nebra Sky Disk.

In addition to the lecture program, two workshops were held on the topics of gemmology—presenter: Reinhard Wegner (Federal University of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil)—and refractory materials—presenter: Johannes Södje (Refraktechnik Cement GmbH, Göttingen).

The excursion program included trips to the copper shale deposits between Halle and the Harz Mountains, an underground tour of the ESCO Bernburg salt mine, and a cultural history excursion “in the footsteps of Luther.”

The presentation of the DMG’s Ramdohr Prize and the poster awards offered by the event organizers took place during the final session on Wednesday. The Ramdohr Prize was awarded to Bastian Joachim (GFZ Potsdam); the poster prizes went to:

1st Prize (150 euros) – Magdalena Huyskens and Michael Bröcker: Is it possible to date the shear zone activity along the Andros detachment, Cyclades, Greece.

2nd Prize (100 euros) – Matthias Ebert, Manuela Borchert, Max Wilke: “Partitioning of Barium and Lead between Aqueous Fluids and Haplo-Granitic Melts at 750°C and 200 MPa.”

3rd Prize (50 euros) – A. Michler, G. Darbha, Th. Schäfer, A. Lüttge, C. Fischer: Sources and sinks of colloids in a weathering profile.

We would also like to take this opportunity to once again thank all sponsors, all staff members—especially the chief organizer, Dr. Degen—and the numerous students who contributed to the success of the conference. We are already looking forward to the next DMG conference in 2010 in Münster.

Herbert Pöllmann, Halle