Dear all,

welcome to the fission track discussion list. This list has been set up to
encourage discussion and dissemination of information relating to all
aspects of fission track analysis. Please share any information you have
related to people, meetings, experiences, jobs, and technical issues. The
success of this forum depends on all of us.

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Well, who wants to start?,

One item Andy would like to broadcast is that he is the new editor of On
Track. The next issue is planned for January and in order to maintain the
extremely high standard set by the previous editor Raymond Jonckheere (whom
we would all like to thank for his hard work and dedication),  he urgently
needs contributions from you, the FT community. So if you have any track
related news, gossip or want to write a short (preferably provocative)
article please contact Andy Carter ([log in to unmask]).

Last month Gunter Wagner chaired a short meeting in the Black Forest of
representatives from the various European FT labs to discuss research
collaboration, agree the location of the next FT conference and consider
some technical aspects relating to the method. Amongst the latter were
several interesting topics including;

is the Chi squared test appropriate for low numbers of grain analyses?;
preliminary results were presented that suggest pressure may retard track
annealing in apatite;
a case was made for standardisation of length measurement;
consider the increasing shortage of suitable reactors.

It was also agreed that to aid research funding it would be useful to
establish an electronic database of  FT analyses made across Europe.
Initially this will only be open to contributors but eventually the aim
would be to have some form of open access.

So lets have your views on these and any other aspects that you feel need
wider discussion.

Best wishes

Andy and Luis





___________________________________________
Dr. Luis Barbero
Grupo de Investigación de Huellas de Fisión
Dpto. de Geología, Facultad de CC del Mar
Universidad de Cádiz
11510 Puerto Real (Cádiz), Spain
Tfno: int-34-956-016279
Fax: int-34-956-016040