Hosted by
Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques
   et Géochimiques
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Nancy Université

Sponsored by
Lunar and Planetary Institute
Barringer Crater Company
Cameca Instruments
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers
Ministère de L'Enseignement Supérieur
   et de la Recherche
Nancy Université
NASA Cosmochemistry Program
Région Lorraine

Local Organizing
Committee
Marc Chaussidon, Co-Chair,
   CRPG Nancy
Guy Libourel, Co-Chair,
   CRPG, ENSG Nancy
Bernard Marty, Co-Chair,
   CRPG, ENSG Nancy
Christine Boyd-Lécluse,
   CRPG Nancy
Guillaume Caro,
   CRPG Nancy
Michel Champenois,
   CRPG Nancy
Cécile Fabre,
   G2R Nancy
Isabelle Geoffroy,
   CRPG Nancy
Béatrice Luais,
   CRPG Nancy
Johanna Marin,
   CRPG Nancy
Andreas Morlok,
   CRPG Nancy
Johan Villeneuve,
   CRPG Nancy

Scientific Organizing Committee
Francis Albarède,
   ENS Lyon, France
Addi Bischoff,
   Muenster University, Germany
Marc Chaussidon, Co-Chair,
   CRPG Nancy, France
Cécile Engrand,
   CSNSM Orsay, France
Roger Hewins,
   MNHN Paris, France
Christian Koeberl,
   Wien University, Austria
Guy Libourel, Co-Chair,
   CRPG Nancy, France
Bernard Marty, Co-Chair,
   CRPG Nancy, France
Alessandro Morbidelli,
   CNRS Nice, France
Hiroko Nagahara,
   Tokyo University, Japan
Herbert Palme,
   Koln University, Germany
François Robert,
   MNHN Paris, France
Sara Russell,
   NHM London, Great Britain
Gopalan Srinivasan,
   Toronto University, Canada
Rainer Wieler,
   ETH Zürich, Switzerland

MEETING LOCATION AND DATE

You are cordially invited to attend the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, to be held July 13–18, 2009, in Nancy, France. Located in Lorraine in northeast France, the city of Nancy is known all over the world thanks to Place Stanislas, a magnificent example of classical French architecture. It is considered the most beautiful royal square in Europe and the high point of Nancy’s outstanding collection of 18th century monuments and is listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Nancy is also a prestigious center of art and architecture, mainly in response to the work of the "Ecole de Nancy", a group of artists and architects that worked in the Art Nouveau style at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. To be immersed in this historical atmosphere, the meeting will be held in the city center, within walking distance of hotels and the railway station. Visit the Nancy tourist office for more information.

Plenary, oral, and poster sessions will be held in two amphitheaters of the Faculty of Law on the Place Carnot near (~300 m) Place Stanislas in the center of the city, which will also provide the primary accommodations for meeting attendees. Scheduled events include a reception during the registration, a banquet, an award ceremony, and several excursions. A pre-conference workshop will be held in Nancy the weekend before the meeting.

KEY POINTS:
  When:
     July 13–18, 2009
  Where:
     Nancy, France

Nancy is serviced by Metz-Nancy Lorraine regional airport and by the TGV EST - Eastern France-Europe high speed train. If you are coming from overseas, while there are many options for coming to Nancy, we strongly recommend flights arriving at Charles de Gaulle (CDG) international airport in Paris.

The two simplest options are:

• Flight to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) in Paris and then direct TGV EST train (CDG-Lorraine station): 1h10mn; 3 connections/day at ≈7h30, 12h30, 19h30 (bus will be awaiting MetSoc attendees at Lorraine station to go to downtown Nancy -25 mn).
  
• Flight to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) in Paris and then go or stay in Paris and take a direct TGV EST train (Paris Gare de l’Est-Nancy), 1h30; ≈10 connections/day and then walk to your hotel.
  
  

Registration will start on Monday afternoon, July 13, and will be followed by a welcome reception. Tuesday, July 14, is Bastille Day (French national holiday) and is reserved for excursions. Oral sessions will be held from Wednesday morning to Saturday at noon in two air-conditioned amphitheaters of the Faculty of Law. Attendees are requested not to register on Wednesday morning since sessions will start early. Two poster sessions are scheduled for Tuesday and Friday evenings in the cloister. The banquet will be held Thursday evening at Pont à Mousson (20 mn bus from Nancy) in "Abbaye des Prémontrés" (13th century) on the Moselle riverside.

A pre-conference workshop (from Saturday, July 11, to Monday, July 13) entitled “Experimentation in Cosmochemistry: From Nebulae to Planets” will be organized. More detailed information on the workshop will be available on the Nancy meeting website.

Nancy offers plenty of hotel rooms and many have very reasonable rates. However, attendees are encouraged to register early because July is tourist season. Accommodations in several hotels within walking distance from the railway station and the venue of the meeting have already been booked at a special price for the conference. Average prices range from 35–60 € (**/*** hotels) up to 150 € (**** hotels). The Nancy meeting website will provide information and links for booking (through Nancy Congres), emphasizing low- to mid-priced hotels. In July, the weather is on average sunny and dry. High temperatures are approximately 30°–35°C (86°–95°F) and lows are around 20°C (68°F).

Several travel grants will be made available to qualified students and recent Ph.D.s who are members of the Meteoritical Society. Applicants must be the sole or first author of an abstract to be presented at the meeting and must also submit a travel award application form to the LPI by the same deadline. More information will be included in the second announcement.

The city center consists of several districts of different epochs, the older one dating back to the Middle Ages (13th century). Nearby are the 18th-century district built up by King Stanislas and the shopping area with abundant activities. Nancy is renowned worldwide for Art Nouveau, an exceptional art current that blossomed at the beginning of the 20th century and produced masterpieces in architecture, painting, and furniture design. Nancy is notably famous for artistic glass work, which tradition is actively maintained by the renowned Daum and Baccarat Verreries. Visits will be organized to the Fine Arts Museum, which has an excellent collection of 16th- to 20th-century European paintings, and has over 300 art-glass works from the Daum Verreries, and to the Ecole de Nancy Museum, which hosts works from talented Art Nouveau artists in architectural surroundings that date from the same period. Please visit the Nancy tourist office for more information. Participants and guests are encouraged to enjoy the celebration of Bastille Day on the evening of July 14 (concerts, popular dances, fireworks).

Participants will have their choice of three excursions on Monday, July 14:

• Verdun, 80 km northeast of Nancy, was the location of one of the largest battles of all times during WWI. Memorials and exhibitions recall in a vivid and poignant way this tragedy that resulted in the loss of life of about one million persons.
• The Vosges mountains, an hour drive southeast of Nancy, hosts charming lakes and easy-to-medium hikes in a splendid environment.
• The Côtes de Toul wineyards, little villages, and renaissance castles where Voltaire once lived in the shadow, and under the protection, of Stanislas.
  
  

Foreign participants may require a visa to enter the European Community. France belongs to the Schengen Space, which means that any visa issued by countries such as Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, etc., will automatically be valid for France. For more information, contact a French embassy or visit the French Foreign Relations website. Upon request, the meeting secretariat will send official letters to foreign participants, to be filed with visa applications. These letters may be requested at least four months in advance to metsoc09@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr. Please remember to include your full name, date of birth, country, and passport number.

More detailed information will be available in future announcements, on this website (see schedule below), as well as on the Nancy meeting website. Note that a suggestion box will be accessible on the website and we encourage the attendees to ask questions and make suggestions on all logistic details they would like to bring to our attention (e.g., child care, etc.).

To subscribe to an e-mail notification list to receive updates and reminders relating to the meeting, please submit an Indication of Intent by March 5, 2009.

If you are interested in joining the Meteoritical Society, please visit their website for more information.

For further information regarding the format and scientific objectives of the meeting, contact

Isabelle Geoffroy, Meeting Secretariat
CRPG-CNRS
Nancy Université
B.P. 20
54501 Vandoeuvre lès Nancy Cedex, France
Phone :  +33 3 83 59 42 14
Fax :  +33 3 83 51 17 98
E-mail:  metsoc09@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr

Conference Organizers

Marc Chaussidon
chocho@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr

Guy Libourel
libou@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr

Bernard Marty
bmarty@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr

For further information regarding meeting logistics and announcements, please contact

Kimberly Taylor
Lunar and Planetary Institute
phone:  281-486-2151
e-mail:  taylor@lpi.usra.edu