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Dear Colleagues, We are organizing the General Session described below for the 2004 IGC in Florence. The session has a half-day oral component in the morning, followed by a poster component in the afternoon of the same day. We have organized a group of oral presentations that will touch on some key aspects of the interrelations among microstructures and dynamics processes. We are now advertising for volunteer submissions for the poster component of the session. We hope you will join us in beautiful Florence. Scott Johnson, Dave Prior, Richard Spiess General Session G-05.05 "From atoms to lithopheres - microstructural control on dynamic processes". Microstructures influence or control a large range of dynamic processes that have shaped Earth and other planets. Over the past decade, new approaches and technologies have led to an enormous increase in our understanding of the interrelations among microstructure-influenced processes. For example, analogue and natural rock experiments are providing mechanistic links between grain-scale deformation and fluid migration. Analytical methods are extracting deformation mechanisms from finite microstructures, and providing in-situ ages on rates of microstructurally controlled processes. Numerical modeling is addressing a wide range of microstructure-related issues from folding mechanisms to subduction initiation. These new approaches and technologies have helped field- and laboratory-based Earth scientists focus on new issues and tests that provide essential feedback and real-world constraints on models and experiments. As new understandings emerge, conceptual models are reaching for new, unified syntheses regarding the coupling and synergism among deformation, metamorphism and magmatism, and their geodynamic relations to mantle convection and plate tectonics. We welcome petrologists, structural geologists, experimentalists, geophysicists, geodynamicists and material scientists to bring together their different approaches, ideas and discoveries. Poster contributions that address any aspects of this broad theme will be welcome. The deadline for abstract submission is January 10, 2004, and more detail can be found at http://www.32igc.org/default1.htm Scott E. Johnson Department of Earth Sciences 5790 Bryand Global Sciences Center University of Maine Orono, ME 04469-5790 USA email: [log in to unmask] phone: (207) 581-2142 Fax: (207) 581 2202 http://www.geology.um.maine.edu/user/scott_johnson/HM.html David J. Prior Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences Liverpool University L69 3GP email: [log in to unmask] phone 0044 (0)151 794 5193 fax 0044 (0)151 794 5196 Richard Spiess Dipartimento di Mineralogia e Petrologia Corso Garibaldi 37 35137 Padova Italy email: [log in to unmask] tel. +39-049-8272016 fax +39-049-8272010