Short Courses are 2-4 day in length and are in-depth reviews of a broad topic.  Published proceedings of the MSA and GS short courses will appear as a volume in the Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry series.  EMU short course proceedings will appear as a volume in the EMU Notes in Mineralogy series.  Workshops are 1/2 to 1 day instructions on a much more focused topic or technique.  Workshops generally do not result in a publication available after the course.  Both Short Courses and Workshops are held in conjunction with a major meeting at which there may be special sessions on the same topic.

The Short Course presents selected mineralogical and geochemical aspects of clinker and cement production, cement hydration, concrete durability and damage, and their characterization. The course is intended for anyone with an interest in the detailed material properties of clinker, cement and/or concrete, whether from a civil/concrete engineering or mineralogy/geochemistry perspective.

The MSA Short Course will be held directly after the International Conference on Concrete Durability (ICDC 2012) on 21-22 June 2012, in Trondheim, Norway. Information about the meeting is at www.ICDC2012.com. Detailed information and registration online at course registration. Fees include 2-day course attendance, coffee/tea breaks and lunches, 1 hardcopy of Reviews in Mineralogy & Geochemistry volume 74, and 1 year of MSA membership (50USD) for non-members. NOT included: travel, accommodation and breakfast, evening meals, access to ICDC 2012.

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The purpose of the workshop would be to provide a comprehensive understanding of arsenic geochemistry in the near surface environment. This would follow on from recent arsenic conferences such as Aquatrain series, the most recent being July 2010 in Manchester and the EPA conference on arsenic in Denver in 2001. The short course covers the mineralogy and geochemistry of arsenic and its implications in assessing arsenic geochemistry in natural groundwaters, mine associated impacts, interaction of arsenic with biological cycles and consequences, and the management and mitigation of arsenic related impacts in the environment.

Online registration is at http://www.34igc.org/workshops.php

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Bochum is located at the heart of Europe. It is therefore very conveniently accessible by road, train and air. The surrounding region, which includes Cologne and Dusseldorf, is densely settled and boasts a world-renowned cultural infrastructure.

Content: That course is directed at petrologists, geochemists and planetary scientists interested in retrieving information on timescales of processes from their rocks. Such information might include the residence times of magmas in their reservoirs, the cooling- or exhumation rates of rocks, the duration of terrestrial or extra-terrestrial (e.g. parent bodies of meteorites) metamorphism, the duration of fluid flow (e.g. metasomatism by fluids / melts in the crust or mantle), and the evaluation and application of closure temperatures. Our focus will be high temperature processes. Therefore "high temperature Thermochronometry" or "Geospeedometry" are related keywords that may describe the course contents.

Goals and expected profile of participants: Previous experience with numerical modeling or programming is not required, but an interest in learning the rudiments of these tools is. One of the objectives of the course, however, is to demonstrate how much it is possible to accomplish without any or with very little programming. The basic information on diffusion that is required for carrying out such calculations will be provided, but this is not a course designed to cover all aspects of diffusion in minerals and melts.

In addition to instruction via lectures, a major component of the course will be hands on training in small groups to enable participants to "do your own" modeling. Participants will be expected to bring their own laptop computers. All instruction and exercises will be in English. The course material will be designed for graduate students or post-docs starting off in the fields mentioned above, but participants with all levels of experience and expertise are of course welcome. To maintain the hands-on nature of the course, we expect to restrict the number of participants to around 30, to be given out on a first come first serve basis. Student members of DMG and MSA will be given priority for registration if demand for a slot becomes a concern.

Registration and Fees: Interested participants can express intention to register by sending an email containing a brief paragraph describing their background / reasons for wanting to participate to: Ralf Dohmen (Ralf.Dohmen@rub.de). There are NO course fees as such. However, we will charge a nominal fee of 30 Euros to cover expenses for refreshments during the course and for some course materials. Upon receiving an acknowledgement from Ralf that a place is available, this amount should be transmitted to the following bank account within 15 days to book a place:

Thomas Fockenberg
Account Number (Kontonummer): 501 449 541
Bank Tracking Code (BLZ): 424 614 35
Bank Name: Volksbank Kirchhellen
IBAN Code: DE 12 4246 1435 0501 4495 41
BIC: GENODEM1KIH

Further Information and Web: More details on course content and information on details of travel, accommodation etc. and other updates will be provided in a Short course webpage to be opened shortly at http://www.gmg.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/petrologie/

General enquiries: Sumit Chakraborty (Sumit.Chakraborty@rub.de) or Ralf Dohmen (Ralf.Dohmen@rub.de). Information on non-technical matters can be obtained from the departmental Secretary's office as well: Agnes Otto (office-mineralogie@rub.de)