Enchanted Clays-The 44th Annual Meeting of the Clay Minerals Society will be held June 2007 in beautiful and historic Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Santa Fe provides an idyllic location in the southwestern United States for attendees to enjoy technical and social sessions while soaking up the diverse culture and wonderful climate of New Mexico-The Land of Enchantment. We encourage you to attend, to share knowledge and ideas, to benefit from technical interactions, and to relax in the wonderful historic and enchanted environs of Santa Fe.

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 its conferences and publications, the Society offers individuals a means of following the many-sided growth of the clay sciences and of meeting fellow scientists with widely different backgrounds and interests.

The membership of the Clay Minerals Society is a diverse group because the study of clay touches upon so many fields. 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 cat litter. The Society has about 1000 members, a third of whom represent countries outside the United States.

Awards to be presented by the Society in Santa Fe include the Marilyn and Sturges W. Bailey Award, the George W. Brindley Lecture, and the Marion L. and Chrystie M. Jackson Mid-Career Clay Scientist Award. Awards will also be presented for student papers and posters. The meeting banquet is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Meeting Invitation [pdf 67k]

The meeting includes two and a half days of technical sessions and symposia with oral sessions scheduled all day Monday, Tuesday morning, and all day Wednesday. Poster presentations are scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

• Carbon sequestration
• Carbon stabilization by clays
• Characterizing clay minerals
• Clays in soils and sediments
• Clays and environmental processes
• Clays and archeology
• Clays as nanomaterials
• Clays in extreme environments
• Clays in oil shale
• General session
• Molecular simulations of clays
• Zeolites

Two field trips are planned for the meeting. The full-day field trip includes visits to several clay deposits, an adobe factory, and several geological sites of northern New Mexico. This field trip will take place on Saturday and will be repeated the following Thursday. The half-day field trip will take place on Tuesday morning and includes the adobe factory tour and the Harding pegmatite mine.

Attendees are encouraged to bring companions to enjoy special sight-seeing and recreational activities. Companions are welcome to participate in the mid-week and pre- and post-conference field trips. Both field trips will include visits to sites of geological and cultural interest.

Pottery firing demonstration at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
Tuesday June 5, 9:00 AM until Noon

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Office of Archaeological Studies are hosting a pottery firing demonstration for both ancestral and contemporary Native American pottery traditions. Marvin and Frances Martinez will demonstrate the firing of San Ildefonso (Tewa) polished black ware. Eric Blinman will open a previously fired replica of a 13th century Anasazi pit kiln and will demonstrate 15th and 17th century Rio Grande Glaze Ware firings. One or more additional Native American potters may participate in the demonstration. The firings will be held in the arroyo to the northeast (behind) the large statue of the Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer on the Museum Hill plaza. All firings are dependent on weather conditions.

Firing demonstrations will begin at 9:00 AM on a relaxed schedule. At the end of the morning participants are encouraged to visit the pottery display in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture that highlights the incredible range of variation in Southwestern pottery technologies. Eric Blinman will provide a tour and commentary in the Buchsbaum Pottery Gallery.

The "M" bus departs from the Sheridan Transit center (two blocks from the conference hotel) for the Museum Hill campus at 8:30, 9:15, and 10:00 AM ($1 each way). Museum admission is $8 or $18 for a four-day pass that provides admission to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the Museum of International Folk Art (both on Museum Hill), the Museum of Art, and the Palace of the Governors (both on the Plaza). Lunch is available at the Museum Hill Café. Buses depart from Museum Hill for the Sheridan Transit Station at 11:50 am and 12:35 and 1:20 pm.