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International Year of Planet Earth

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GSA President
Judith Totman Parrish
[ read full letter ]

GSA Adopts New Strategic Plan

On 8 October 2008, GSA Council adopted a new strategic plan, setting new direction for the Society under seven major goals, including leadership in education & outreach and public policy and globalization of the Society. You can read the new plan online.

We have also made a progress report on our previous strategic plan, compiled by GSA's executive director over the past four years, available for you online. This progress report played an important role in helping us put together the 2008 plan.

[ read 2008 Strategic Plan  |  read progress report PDF ]

Bug Light Park,
Portland, Maine, USA.
Photo courtesy of the
Convention and Visitors
Bureau of Greater Portland.

2009 SECTION MEETINGS

Abstracts submissions are now being accepted for the following Section meetings:

SOUTHEASTERN — St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
12-13 March 2009
Abstracts due: 9 Dec. 2008
[ Web site | submit abstract ]

SOUTH-CENTRAL — Dallas, Texas, USA
16-17 March 2009
Abstracts due: 9 Dec. 2008
[ Web site | submit abstract ]

NORTHEASTERN — Portland, Maine, USA
22-24 March 2009
Abstracts due: 16 Dec. 2008
[ Web site | submit abstract ]

2008 JOINT ANNUAL MEETING
"Celebrating the International Year of Planet Earth"

Thanks to our generous meeting sponsors!

[ learn more ]

The 2008 Joint Annual Meeting was an event of historic proportions — thanks to all those who attended and contributed to making the meeting such a great success!

• 9,950 attendees
• 5,500 abstracts
• 460 exhibitors
• 17 Field Trips with over 350 participants
• 19 Short Courses with nearly 400 participants

Several key sessions & events were recorded for live Webcasts.

[ view Webcasts ]

Did you lose anything at the 2008 Joint Annual Meeting in Houston? Included in the items turned in to the Lost & Found office were several thumb drives. Please e-mail GSA's Lost & Found at with a description of your item, and we'll let you know if we have it.

Portland, Oregon, USA.

2009 GSA ANNUAL MEETING in Portland, Oregon, USA

Time to begin planning next year's meeting!  We are now accepting proposals for the following:

Field Trips — Due by 2 Dec. 2008
Short Courses — Due by 2 Dec. 2008
Technical Sessions — Due by 6 Jan. 2009

Hot off The Press

Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. 20
Landslides and Engineering Geology of the Seattle, Washington, Area (REG020)

We're Interested in Your Science

Lithosphere
Get your manuscript in the queue for 2009 and be a part of Lithosphere's inaugural year.

Geosphere
Think outside the box! Geosphere, GSA’s peer-reviewed online journal, covers all geoscience disciplines in an elastic medium that accommodates animation, sound, and movie files.

GSA Today
Publish your hot-topic science to a wide readership with free color, no page charges, and open access online!

U.S. IYPE Launch

The U.S. International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) kick-off was celebrated in conjunction with the 2008 Joint Annual Meeting in Houston with a balloon launch and other festivities. IYPE Executive Director Eduardo de Mulder and Board Chairman Larry Woodfork were on hand to speak about the importance of the largest global effort of its kind to promote the earth sciences.

U.S. IYPE Lectures

Part of the U.S. effort includes the growing IYPE Lecture Series, with upcoming lectures at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA; the Geological Society of Washington in Washington, D.C.; and the University of Texas at Austin. Add your voice to the celebration and raise awareness of the geosciences.

Renew Now and Save $

Renew your membership before 15 December 2008 and save 15%.
When you renew, you can also subscribe to GSA's high-quality journals, join any number of GSA's 17 specialty Divisions, and — new this year — join additional GSA Sections!

Did you know?
GSA members save up to $3,000 on a new Subaru through the Subaru VIP program.

Two New GSA Positions Statements Adopted by Council

1. Public Investment in Earth Science Research
2. Water Resources

You Still Have Time to Comment on a New Position Statement Draft:
Integrating Geoscience with Sustainable Land-Use Management. Please submit your comments and suggestions to Richard Berg by 14 November 2008.

Call for Applications: 2009–2010 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow
Work directly with leaders on Capitol Hill to influence science and technology policy and decision making. Deadline to apply: 1 February 2009.
[ learn more ]

• OneGeology is an initiative of international geological surveys to make Web accessible the geological map data held by geological survey organizations around the world. This site is a flagship project of the International Year of Planet Earth.

• Bytesize Science: Weekly three-minute kid-oriented science podcasts by the American Chemical Society available for download at http://feeds.feedburner.com/BytesizeScience or on iTunes.

South-central Arabia Terra,
Mars. Detail from Fig. 4
of Okobu et al.,
GSA Bulletin (in press).
Click on photo to
go to the HiRISE site.

A SAMPLING OF GSA IN THE NEWS

Research by C.H. Okubo et al. (GSA Bulletin, in press) using the Mars High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to compare terrestrial examples of deformation to deformation band clusters in the Capen crater, south-central Arabia Terra, Mars, received coverage in ScienceDaily, Astronomy.com, and more than half a dozen other media outlets.
[ abstract | Astronomy.com article ]

How did the Kohistan-Ladakh block become sandwiched between India and the rest of Asia, and did it collide with India first? S. Khan et al. (GSA Bulletin, in press) use Landsat satellite images, remote sensing, isotope data, uranium/lead dating, and more to get at the answers. This in-press article has already received attention from USAToday.com.
[ abstract | USA Today article ]

T.W. Beatty et al.'s (October Geology) study on a shallow-marine "habitable zone" along the shorelines of northwestern Pangea (now northern and western Canada), where a diverse suite of Early Triassic trace fossils indicates an ocean environment in which latest Permian extinction levels were reduced and recovery time was minimized — thus allowing the zone to serve as a seed community from which the marine realm was repopulated — sparked coverage in the Calgary Herald, the Ottawa Citizen, the Edmonton Journal, the Vancouver Sun, and the Windsor Star.
[ abstract | Windsor Star article ]

Presentations at the 2008 Joint Annual Meeting received wide media attention!
Topics covered include planetary geoscience, hydrogeology, climate change, environmental geology, geomorphology, paleontology, geoarchaeology, geochemistry, and Quaternary geology.
[ learn more ]

PRESS RELEASES ISSUED BY GSA

• October Geology and GSA Today highlights (24 Sept)
• October Geosphere highlights (29 Sept)
• Discovered: World's largest tsunami debris (24 Sept)
• Stalagmites may predict next big one along the New Madrid Seismic Zone (24 Sept)
• Wetlands restoration not a panacea for Louisiana coast (24 Sept)
• Climate change experts seize the day: 7 October 2008 (24 Sept)
• NASA’S dirty secret: Moon dust (24 Sept)
• From mothballs to mobilization: Taking the salt out of sea water (30 Sept)
• War from the ground up (1 Oct)
• Scientists keep an eye on Texas (1 Oct)
• Pterodactyl-inspired robot to master air, ground, and sea (2 Oct)
• Topsoil's limited turnover: A crisis in time (2 Oct)

SELECTED PRESS RELEASES RECEIVED BY GSA

• Australian scientists in major international discovery: Ancient giant underwater reef found in outback Australia (22 Sept)
• Chemical equator splits northern from southern air pollution (23 Sept)
• AGI announces Peter Scholle as its 2009 president (30 Sept)
• 'Fingerprinting' method tracks mercury emissions from coal (8 Oct)
• Wildfires cause ozone pollution to exceed health standards (9 Oct)
• New fossil reveals primates lingered in Texas; climate provided refuge for diminishing population (13 Oct)

Highlighting upcoming meetings of GSA's Associated Societies.

• 6-7 November 2008: American Institute of Professional Geologists Innovative Remediation Technology Conference, Denver, Colorado, USA.


• 4-6 May 2009: 2009 American Water Resources Association Spring Specialty Conference, "Managing Water Resources & Development in a Changing Climate," Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Abstracts deadline: 5 December 2008.

1. What colloquial term is used for a person who sorts and describes drill chips taken from drill mud?
2. A temblor is another term for what phenomenon?
3. In a drill log, what do the initials T.D. stand for?

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