Minutes of the 1999 GeoSync Meeting:

Peggy was elected GeoSync Chair at last year's meeting for the 2000 and 2001 seasons. She thanked John Parise, outgoing Chair, for his previous term of service. During her term, Peggy is particularly interested in promoting symposia and special meetings across interdisciplinary themes that incorporate synchrotron methods. Please contact her ( oday@asu.edu) if you have an idea for a symposia at a national meeting or a special small conference. She would also like to increase membership, so tell your friends to join!

    Russ Hemley talked about the Diamond-Anvil-Cell program at NSLS beamline X-17 and the U2A beamline for IR and VUV microspectroscopy. U2A is now 100% devoted to high pressure, earth and planetary sciences, and has a full support laboratory. Those interested in using any of these facilities should contact Russ Hemley for beamtime information.

    Don Weidner talked about the Large Volume, Multi-Anvil Press work at NSLS beamline X17B. A new wiggler has been installed for the beamline, and new hutches are planned for High Pressure experiments, which may allow the simultaneous running of Multi-Anvil and Diamond-Anvil-Cell experiments.

    Steve Sutton talked about the microprobe work being done at NSLS beamline X26. With a new Kikpatrick-Baez mirror design, beams down to 10micron in size are possible. For MicroXANES, a new monochromator crystal is being designed. The first microcrystollagraphy experiments done at the beamline were done this past year.

    Gordon Brown announced that the SPEAR 3 upgrade has been funded by NIH and DOE/BES at a level of $53M, with an additional $37M for beamline developments. The upgrade should boost SSRL's capabilities to 500mA and an emittance of 18n m rad.

    John Bargar then talked about the development progress o SSRL Beamline 11, an XAFS beamline in the 5-25KeV range, with special focus on actinide research. A support engineer has been hired, an actinide sample storage facility and sample prep area are underway, and mirror M1 will be installed shortly. Some problems sealing the cryogenic monochromator should be worked out shortly. A 30 element Ge detector with articulated detector snout is on hand, and a spectrometer for GIXAFS and CTR work is soon to arrive.

    Glenn Waychunas talked about environmental science work being done at ALS. Beamlines 10-3-1 and 10-3-2 are considering a joint PRT, with Glenn and Al Thompson. There has been considerable work on 'superbend' magnets, with a possibility that up to 11 beamlines could exploit these. A new PRT for x-ray tomography is being planned.

    Mark Rivers talked about the status of GSECARS at the APS, and the APS in general. GSECARS is now taking Proposals from Outside Users, for most experimental techniques (DAC, LVP, microprobe/XAS, microcrystal diffraction, and tomography). A 1000-ton multi-anvil press was installed in Fall, 1999, and is being commissioned. New monochromators are expected to be commissioned in both the ID and BM front-ends in January. The APS is moving towards 'Fill-on-Fill' mode as normal operations.

    Dave Mao discussed HP-CAT, the fledging High Pressure CAT at the APS. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Oct, 1999, making the CAT official. Daniel Hausermann has been hired as Project Manager, and Markus Schwoerer-Bohning has been hired as a beamline scientist.

    Guillaume Fiquet discussed the high pressure efforts at ESRF beamlines ID-30 (for diamond-anvil-cell work) and ID-9 (for large-volume, multi-anvil work). Work is underway to move to a multilayer monochromator, and the DAC experiments will soon be done using a CCD detector. Several inelastic scattering experiments are also being done.

    Rudy Wenk talked about HIPPO, the High Pressure Preferred Orientation station being built at LANSCE for studying textures in polycrystalline materials with x-ray and neutron diffraction. A workshop was held at UC Davis in October 1999 to introduce potential users to HIPPO, the University of California Materials Research Neutron Diffractometer. Commissioning is planned for summer 2000, and they plan fast response to proposals for access. A planning meeting will be held in early April, 2000. More information can be found at The HIPPO HomePage.

    Gordon Brown talked about EnviroSync. This 'sister organization' to GeoSync is focused of the Environmental Science and Chemistry communities using (or interested in using) synchrotron radiations. A organizing meeting for the EnviroSync Society was held at the American Chemical Society meeting in March, 1999, and they will meet next at the Spring American Chemical Society meeting, in San Francisco, March, 2000. Their current goal is to work on getting and Molecular and Environmental Science Gordon Conference organized.

    Peggy O'Day talked about the Mineral and Physics committee meeting at AGU, and especially the need to think about and plan special sessions at future AGU and ACS meetings.

The office of GeoSync secretary was up for election at this meeting. Matt Newville and Nancy Lazarz agreed to share the office, keeping the role at GSECARS.

The CARS Board of Governors has an At-Large member from GeoSync with a 2 year term. This role had been held by Glenn Waychunas. A suitable, gullible, candidate hadn't been found by the time of the meeting, so no decision was made about who should fill this office.