Last week, the William Smith Meeting 2013 celebrated the 100th anniversary of Frederick Soddy and Arthur Holmes’s pioneering research on radioactivity and calculations of the age of the Earth. Their work led to the eventual discovery of isotopes, and the development of modern geochronology. The three day meeting attracted some of the most important names in geochronology; keynote speakers included Randy Parrish, Yuri Amelin and Ian McDougall. There was a good turnout of delegates from the OU, with 10 participants from EEE and 8 from DPS . Romain Tartese, Simon Kelley, Clare Warren, and Catherine Mottram all gave talks. The OU made a clean sweep of the postgraduate and early career talk awards, with wins for Catherine and Romain! There were also posters from Chris McDonald, Liz Cramer, Dani Regis, Susanne Schwenzer, Sarah Sherlock and Bruce Charlier. The whole conference was fascinating, with interesting talks on all three days – and of course it was brilliant to see such a great turnout from the OU.
[Tom Hopkinson, PhD student]
5 July 2013