The Earth is the shape it is, and works the way it does, primarily because of two phenomena: heat and gravity. Gravity attempts to hold everything together in the vain ambition of forming a beautifully uniform spherical planet, while the generation of heat within the Earth causes all the bumps, lumps and general heterogeneous complexity that we have to deal with day to day as geologists. As thermochronologists I think you’ll agree that we are certainly familiar with complexity, and arguably have a fundamental role to play in understanding the Earth, given that we wield the tools able to quantify and document the legacy that heat has imprinted on the Earth.

Thermo2010 is the 12th International Conference on Thermochronology and is being hosted by the University of Glasgow, Scotland, from 16-20 August 2010. This biennial conference series evolved from the Fission Track Dating series of conferences that started in 1978 with the initial conference held in Pisa, Italy. Over recent years established techniques have evolved and new ones have emerged.  As practitioners we now rarely work with only one technique, and so our brief has changed. A collective decision was approved unanimously at the last meeting held in Anchorage, Alaska in 2008 that the theme of these meetings should be broadened to better represent what most of us are doing, and to provide an international forum for all flavours of thermochronology and related technologies and science.

We hope that Thermo2010 will appeal to all practitioners and users of techniques across the broad spectrum of thermochronology, including, but not restricted to, 40Ar-39Ar, (U-Th)/He, fission track analysis and U-Pb thermochronology.  After consultation with colleagues across a range of theme and technique based expertise, the international scientific committee for Thermo2010 have designed a scientific program that we trust will enable and encourage a wide range of Earth scientists interested in the theory and applications of thermochronometry to contribute and benefit.

The unifying themes of Thermo2010 are Innovation, Integration, and Interpretation. So within this framework the sessions have been designed around topics will be relevant to more than one analytical technique. We hope that a wide range of methodologies, techniques and technologies as well as theoretical aspects of diffusion, thermal history and process modelling and data analysis will be represented within these sessions.

A signature of past meetings has been the successful integration of the formal scientific sessions with space and time for more informal scientific dialogue and discussion. This philosophy has been adopted for Thermo2010 and we have designed a meeting that we hope balances opportunities for presentations and more spontaneous interactions between participants. Key elements of the meeting include a one-day, mid-conference field excursion on Wednesday. The purpose of this excursion is to get out doors to see some of Scotland’s great scenery and geology and to encourage conversations to evolve informally from topics covered during the first two days of presentations. The excursion will take us north from Glasgow past Loch Lomond and across the Highland Boundary Fault and into the Highlands and through one of Scotland’s iconic geological as well as historical places; Glen Coe.

A pre-conference field excursion has also been organised for those wishing to see a bit more of Scotland. This field excursion will take you to the stunning west coast and onto the islands of Mull and Iona where, apart from beautiful scenery, castles and villages it is possible to visit some classic geology from Archean Gneisses to one of the best exposed Tertiary volcanic centres in Britain exposed.

We have also organised a traditional Scottish Ceilidh to follow the conference baquet on Thursday evening.  This will allow you to sample some of Scotland’s wonderful fresh produce, traditional hospitality and music.  A Ceilidh (pronounced "Kay-lee", emphasis on 1st syllable) is many things, deriving from the Gaelic word meaning a visit, it is now used to describe a evening of informal Scottish traditional dancing and live music. “Ceilidhing” is fun, fast, and informal and requires absolutely no previous experience. The main thing is to have a go and have fun!  

The Thermo2010 website is now live, and registration is now open.

So, we would like to extend a very warm invitation to you all, and look forward to welcoming you to Glasgow, and to Scotland, in August 2010.  

Thermo2010 Organising Committee