COMMISSION ON ORE MINERALOGY (COM) - BUSINESS MEETING, EDINBURGH, 3rd September 2002
The meeting was chaired by Prof. Roland K.W. Merkle; the minutes were taken by Dr. Kari K. Kojonen. The meeting was held September 3rd 2002 in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Harris Room 2, 14:50-16:20.
Those attending:
National Representatives
Prof. Jeff Vaughan, Australia
Dr. Thomas Kerestedjian, Bulgaria
Prof. Emil Makovicky, Danmark
Dr. K. Kojonen, Finland
Dr. Olivier Lengendre, France
Prof Giorgio Garuti, Italy
Prof. N. Mozgova, Russia
Prof. RKW Merkle
Dr. Nigel Cook, Norway
Prof. D. J. Vaughan, U.K.
Prof. Werner Paar, Austria
Observers/alternates
Dr. Yves Moëlo, France
Dr. Neuber Kajzen, Hungary
Ms. Jaana Vuorinen, Sweden
Dr. Cristiana Ciobanu, Norway
Dr. Dan Topa, Austria
1. The chairman Prof. Roland Merkle opened the meeting and welcomed all national delegates, alternates and guests. The meeting agenda was accepted.
2. The delegates and other persons present were recorded as shown above. Roland Merkle was elected as chairman of the meeting.
3. The minutes of the previous business meetings held 1998 in Toronto and 2002 in Espoo, Finland, were distributed to the delegates and approved (Attachments 1 and 2).
4. The report of activity was given by the chairman Roland Merkle and distributed to the delegates (Attachment 3).
5. The report of membership was given by the secretary Kari Kojonen (Attchament 4).
6. The communication between COM members was discussed. Three ways of communication were found to be applicable: 1) personal and group e-mail, 2) computer server system previously set up at the Eötvöös University, Budapest, Hungary and 3) world wide web pages with a suitable discussion and contact format. It was found necessary to ensure the functionality of the e-mail server and if necessary, to move it from Budapest to some other place.
7. The officers of COM for the period 2002-2006 were elected as follows:
Chairman Prof. RKW Merkle
Vice-chairman Dr. Kari Kojonen
Secretary Dr. Nigel Cook
8. The next COM Short Course will be jointly organized by the Mineralogical Societies of Spain and Italy and will be held in Granada, Spain during 2004.
COM will arrange a one-day ore mineralogy session in connection with the EGS-EUG-AGU meeting in April 2003 in Nice, France. Prof G. Garuti volunteered to organize a field trip to the Ivrea zone, Northern Italy, in connection with this meeting.
There have been no developments regarding other possible venues (Peru, Australia) for future short courses that had been discussed at previous COM business meetings.
The role of ore mineralogy at the IGC in Florence in 2004 is at present very limited and COM should take the initiative to sponsor at least one session during the IGC 2004. (secretary's note, 03/10/02: three sessions have been proposed).
The collections of polished ore mineral specimens in museums and mineralogical institutions should be listed in digital form. This work has been started at the University of Pretoria and a proper format will be prepared for other collections as well. Digital cataloguing of the Paul Ramdohr collection in Heidelberg has also apparently been initiated. The aim is to collect a worldwide data bank of existing specimens.
The web pages of COM are one of the most urgent tasks of COM; this task will be taken care of by Kari Kojonen and Nigel Cook. In the matter of a “Virtual Ore Mineralogy Course” Jeff Vaughan informed the meeting that he (Minerals Council of Australia) has been preparing one that could be used as a model for the COM web pages.
The state of the art of systematic classification of selenides, tellurides and sulphosalts follow on the priority list. The persons responsible for organizing working groups are: 1) selenides Werner Paar, 2) tellurides Kari Kojonen, 3) sulphosalts Nigel Cook & Yves Moelo. The classification of selenides and sulphosalts has been practically completed, but nevertheless requires some updating. The results should be published as soon as possible e.g. on the COM web pages, or as an annotated report in a mineralogical journal. The telluride minerals are very complex and may require some additional years of work.
COM officers recommended that the commission should consider taking a more active role in ensuring quality control of reported ore mineralogical data in the future. The guidelines and quality criteria (counting statistics, detections limits) of reporting of mineral analyses should be prepared by COM and sent to various parties, e.g. Commission of New Mineral Names. For instance the microprobe standards should be similar as the minerals to be analysed. The meeting agreed that it would be worthwhile to draw up sets of guidelines for publishing of microprobe data, which could be circulated to journal editors.
A list of suggestions for standardized abbreviations of ore minerals will be prepared by the officers of COM for distribution and discussion among COM members. It is planned to submit the result to IMA CNMMN.
COM should also start collecting a database of digital images of ore minerals. This project should include standardization of the colour values and illumination sources.
9. Other business: A short Power Point presentation of the COM short courses in 1998-2000 was presented by Kari Kojonen
10. The chairman closed the meeting 16:20.
