Dear Colleagues

This is to extend a cordial invitation to attend the International 
Eclogite Field Symposium in Scotland next summer. This is the next in
the biennial series of Eclogite Conferences that have run since 1982. 
The meeting will run from Friday 29th June - Saturday 7th July, and 
will be followed by an optional post-conference excursion in Brittany 
and Vendee, France from Monday 9th - Thursday 13th July. The meeting 
immediately follows the joint MSA/MinSoc/MAC Frontiers in Mineral 
Sciences conference in Cambridge, so if you come to the UK for the 
Frontiers meeting it should be possible to stay on for the Eclogite 
Symposium.

The Symposium will commemorate the life and work of Tony Carswell, who 
died in June this year. Tony made a huge contribution to studies of 
eclogite facies terrains during a period of over forty years, and we 
wish the meeting to celebrate his achievements and reflect the breadth, 
rigour and insight of his work.

The meeting incorporates the next Workshop for the International 
Lithosphere programme Task Group IV "Ultradeep Continental Crust
Subduction". We look forward to welcoming members of the Task Group and 
all those working on UHP rocks (we haven't found any UHP rocks in 
Glenelg yet, but we're working on it!).

Essential details of the meeting are set out below. If you are 
interested in attending and have not replied to previous announcements,
we would ask at this stage that you indicate your interest in attending 
both the main meeting in Scotland, and the post conference field trip 
(please indicate for each "Definite", "Likely" or "Possible"). Full 
details of costs, registration, financial support and abstract 
submission will be published shortly on a conference website.

The Eclogite Field Symposium will comprise a mix of short conference 
sessions and field visits. The field work will focus on the
Glenelg-Attadale Inlier, that exposes Grenville-age eclogites, garnet 
peridotites, felsic eclogite-facies rocks and some unusual 
high-pressure lithologies including Fe-Mn-rich eulysites. This will be 
a rare opportunity to visit an accessible and well-exposed example of 
Grenville eclogites, and will be the first of the Eclogite Conferences 
to visit an area of Precambrian eclogite-facies metamorphic rocks. In 
addition to being the first place in which eclogite-facies rocks were 
discovered in Great Britain (by Clough, a colleague of the great duo 
Peach and Horne), it is also the area in which Ramsay began to develop 
his seminal work on fold patterns and mechanisms.  Set in Glenelg and 
Loch Duich, among the mountains and sea-lochs of the north-west 
Highlands of Scotland, the field area is one of outstanding natural 
beauty, and is of great cultural interest. We have the option to visit 
further field sites in the Dalradian of the Grampian Highlands terrane 
en-route to the Symposium base, and a one-day trip to see garnetiferous 
ultramafic rocks in the sole to the Ballantrae ophiolite to the south 
of Glasgow. The Symposium will include some social events - suffice it 
to say at this stage that they will involve drinking a good deal of 
Scotch Whisky! We anticipate that, depending on the number of delegates 
and accommodation preferences, the cost for travel, accommodation, 
meals, publications and administration during the main Symposium will 
be similar to other, recent Eclogite Field Symposia, i.e. less than 
£800 or Euro1200 (this excludes travel to the meeting and some social 
activities). Some bursaries will be available to support participation, 
on application to the organising committee.

The base for the Symposium will be the Cuillin Hills Hotel in Portree 
on the beautiful Isle of Skye, adjacent to the field area. There is a 
range of accommodation options available in Portree from low cost 
hostels to luxury hotels, including the conference centre itself. Two
days of the Symposium will be set aside for conference sessions. 
Suggested themes are Proterozoic and Archaean eclogites, micro- and 
macro-structures associated with eclogite-facies rocks, unusual bulk 
compositions, kinetics of metamorphism and preservation, novel 
analytical methods in HP and UHP metamorphic petrology, and 
high-pressure metamorphism in the British Isles. However, the meeting 
is open to all subjects relevant to the geology of eclogite and related 
rocks.

The post-conference trip will depart from Glasgow airport on Mon 9th 
July and will start in Lorient, Brittany. The excursion focuses on the 
high-pressure rocks of the Armorican Massif, which form part of the 
Moldanubian Zone in the Variscan orogen. We will visit the spectacular, 
transitional blueschist-eclogite rocks on the Isle de Groix (led by 
Michel Ballevre from Rennes). We then move on to the Vendee area near  
Nantes (led by Gaston Godard and Gisella Rebay), where we also have the 
opportunity to see a variety of different eclogite types, including a 
superb 3-dimensional exposure inside a large eclogite pod that is 
currently being quarried, plus high-pressure schists and cordierite 
gneisses overprinted by high-pressure kyanite-garnet assemblages. 
Participants will no doubt enjoy the relaxed atmosphere after the 
rigours of the Scottish mountains, and the good food and wine of this 
attractive region. The trip finishes on 13th July in Nantes, which has 
connections from its airport to several European locations, and a fast 
rail link to Paris and its airports. The full cost of the 
post-conference field trip, including flight from Glasgow, 
accommodation, food and travel in the field area should be about 
Euro600.

Please note that your indication of interest does not imply any 
financial commitment on your part or that of the University of Paisley
or other participating institutions at this stage.

If you have any queries about the meeting, please don't hesitate to 
contact me at this e-mail address.

Looking forward to meeting you in Scotland and France in 2007.
Sincerely,
Simon Cuthbert
(on behalf of the Organising Committee)