The 2021 Goldschmidt Conference^®

For the 31^st V.M. Goldschmidt Conference, the lion, the historic symbol of the city of Lyon (France) and also the conference logo figurehead, sat down and took his place in front of his computer for the second virtual meeting. During the early planning, it had been hoped that the meeting could have taken a hybrid format, with at least a small on-site presence in Lyon. But, as the date approached, it became clear that this would expose delegates to unnecessary risk. The European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) and the Geochemical Society (GS) then set about building on the blueprint developed, at extremely short notice, for last year’s meeting, to try and reproduce the “Goldschmidt experience” in a virtual environment. An emphasis was placed on live talks but with the assurance to delegates that their time zones would be respected and that no one would be asked to present at 3 a.m.(!) … except the plenary speakers, who very graciously agreed to this. Thus, the shape of the meeting was defined: it required two blocks of talks to allow delegates to the east and west of Europe to take part. Even before you consider how long people (or lions) can sit in front of a computer in one sitting, you come to a length of about two-and-a-half hours for each block, otherwise the talks become too early or too late for some sections of the audience. By recording the live sessions, however, and making them available for two weeks after the meeting, everything was available to everyone. And, although live talks had to be relatively short, there was the possibility of uploading longer talks, which many delegates took advantage of.

We were fortunate to be able to take advantage of the technological improvements, particularly in the reliability of video conferencing, that have occurred over the last few years. The SpatialChat video networking environment provided, perhaps, the closest approach yet to on-site interaction at a meeting, allowing one to move between individuals and groups in a room to discuss a point or just say “Hi”. In fact, a number of clear benefits arose from the format of the meeting. It was very easy to flip between parallel sessions, particularly as session chairs did an excellent job at keeping talks on time. A virtual meeting certainly puts more pressure on the chairs and the conveners, both of whom suddenly have many more responsibilities. But they rose to the challenge with confidence and elegance. Although sessions were tight in order to fit the many talks into the available time, questions posted in the Zoom chat opened up another real-time avenue for interaction. The compressed format of the meeting also meant that delegates had time during the day to do all the other things that just don’t seem to disappear when we fly off to a meeting.

We are very grateful to the geochemical community for the support and trust shown by them towards the meeting. Your support in these difficult times ensures that we can have meetings into the future, and it gives us the chance to meet up again online in Honolulu (Hawaii, USA) next year, and in Europe in 2023!