A workshop about the first billion years of impact records in the solar system will be held in Berkeley on the Saturday and Sunday (July 25–26) immediately preceding the Meteoritical Society meeting (which will be held in Berkeley on July 27–31).

 Title:  The First Billion Years of Impact Records:  Evidence from Lunar Samples and Meteorites

Dates : July 25–26, 2015, Saturday and Sunday
Venue:  Sproul Rooms in International House
Organizers:  Audrey Bouvier (University of Western Ontario), William Hartmann (Planetary Science Institute), Marc Norman (Australian National University) and Vera Assis Fernandes (Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung)
Abstract deadline:  May 19, 2015 using USRA meeting portal
Early registration fee:  $50 until June 29, 2015 (using the MetSoc registration portal)

Short Description:  This workshop will be aimed at a review and free-wheeling discussion of the current state of empirical evidence for the 4-decade old concept of “terminal cataclysm” or “late heavy  bombardment” (LHB) as applied either to the Moon or the entire Solar System. We will approach the discussion primarily from the direction of the radiometric dating evidence, but with awareness of crater-count results and dynamical models. The workshop reflects our interest in the extent to which the radiometric dating and geological evidence is or is not consistent with a spike in impacts around 3.8-4.0 Ga, and the embedded but often vague concepts and terminology regarding the LHB that are often invoked in geological, dynamical, astrophysical, and even biological literature.

There is a $50 early registration fee for the workshop, and abstracts (MetSoc format) are solicited for oral contributions (in priority) but are not required to attend the workshop. Depending on participation, a poster session may be arranged on Saturday evening. Contact: Audrey Bouvier ([email protected]). Webpage: http://metsoc2015.ssl.berkeley.edu/program/workshops/

Main themes are:

*   Radiometric clocks: what they tell us and what they don’t
*   Cratering Statistics: production functions and anchor-ages
*   Dynamical models
*   Impacts in the asteroid belt
*   Shock effects in planetary materials and constraints on P-T-t shock conditions