“Fluid/mineral interactions in the crust”
The symposium “Fluid/mineral interactions in the crust” was held on October 14th and 15th, 1999, in Paris, in honour of Martine Lagache. It was organised by the Société française de Minéralogie et de Cristallographie (SFMC) and the Ecole normale supérieure on the occasion of her retirement, with support from the Institut de protection et de sûreté nucléaire. Centred around her long-standing scientific interests, the symposium attracted nearly one-hundred participants ranging from America to Central Europe. It was initiated with a plenary lecture by Harold C. Helgeson, who recalled in his retrospective address the pioneering role that Martine's experiments played for the kinetic studies and modelling of feldspar alteration. Two days of oral and poster sessions followed, organised around the following main topics: dissolution kinetics, thermodynamic modelling, in situ measurements, fluid/mineral interactions in technical systems, fluids and magmas, hydrothermal fluids.
Considering the importance of Martine's role in the establishment of the European Journal of Mineralogy, it is fitting that some of the papers presented at this symposium should be published in this journal, as a tribute to Martine's scientific achievements and to her European commitments. Indeed, together with Victor Gabis, she travelled throughout Europe for nearly ten years in order to convince mineralogical sister societies not to think only on a strictly national basis, and to promote the idea of a European mineralogical journal. As a first step, GEM, the Group of European Mineralogists, informally brought 14 national mineralogical societies together. This led to the first edition of a directory of those European institutions active in Mineralogy, to a common format and lay-out for the national journals published by these mineralogical societies, as well as annual publication of a common key-word and author index. The decisive step was the foundation in 1987 of the European Mineralogical Union (EMU), bringing together learned societies from 14 countries (now 22!) and electing Martine Lagache as first President. One year later the European Journal of Mineralogy was launched by the French, German and Italian mineralogical societies, which at the same time ceased the publication of their own national, historical journals. The first EJM issue was published in 1989; the immediate success and wide-spread audience of the journal was a reward to Martine for a decade of relentless efforts toward this aim — and a demonstration of her clearsighted view of the future.
May this modest tribute be one more opportunity to recognize her devoted action and unselfish engagement. Thank you, Martine!
The editorial board
