The PEG2007 symposium was held on May 6–12, 2007 in Porto, Portugal. The conference was organised by the Department of Geology of Porto University, the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology of the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain, the Laboratory of Mineralogy of the University of Liège, Belgium, and the Laboratory of Mineralogy of Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France.
The aim of this symposium was two-fold. On the one hand, specialists from all over the world had the opportunity to meet, discuss and learn about current research ideas and findings on granitic pegmatites. On the other hand, the tradition of gathering members from the scientific community every two years to advance our understanding on pegmatites was maintained, following on the “LERM” conference in the Czech Republic in 2003 and the “Crystallization processes in granitic pegmatites” conference on Elba Island (Italy) in 2005. Research on granitic pegmatites will continue to expand and, in 2009, the PEG2009 meeting will take place in Recife (Brazil). Information on the PEG2009 meeting is already available on the webpage at http://www.ufpe.br/geologia/peg2009brazil/.
The PEG2007 conference was attended by 74 participants, representing 16 countries. There were 24 oral presentations and 19 poster presentations, abstracts of which are available at http://www.fc.up.pt/peg2007/. A selection of six papers presented at PEG2007 constitutes this thematic issue of the European Journal of Mineralogy. The topics of the papers presented in this issue encompass several aspects of modern pegmatite research, from regional (Neiva et al.) to detailed mineralogical studies (Novák et al., Uher et al.) through crystal-growth (Sánchez-Muñoz et al.) and trace-element (Müller et al.) aspects, as well as a review on the latest discoveries and theories on pegmatites by Simmons & Webber.
We would like to thank Chief Editor Fernando Nieto and special issues coordinator Walter Maresch who helped us with the manuscripts. We are also in debt to the referees who helped us in the reviewing process of the manuscripts. A thank you also to Tania Martins and Romeu Vieira for helping in the PEG2007 organization.
Although 2007 was a good year for “pegmatologists”, thanks to this meeting, it was also a sad year, because of the loss of two well-known researchers who contributed to the development of studies on granitic pegmatites. We take this opportunity to dedicate these contributions to the memory of François Fontan and Bernard Charoy.
