The Clay Minerals Society
The Clay Minerals Society began as the Clay Minerals Committee of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council in 1952, in response to the need for a formal way to hold national clay conferences. By 1962, the Clay Minerals Committee had become strong enough to stand on its own, and The Clay Minerals Society was incorporated. From 1952 to 1964, Proceedings of the annual conferences were published. The journal Clays and Clay Minerals was first published in 1964.
The primary purpose of The Clay Minerals Society is to stimulate research and to disseminate information relating to all aspects of clay science and technology. Through its conferences and publications, the Society offers individuals a means of following the many-sided growth of the clay sciences and of meeting fellow scientists with widely different backgrounds and interests.
The primary activities of The Clay Minerals Society consist of publication of the bi-monthly journal Clays and Clay Minerals, organization of the annual meeting, workshop, and field trip, awarding student research and travel grants, publication of a workshop lecture series, slide sets, and special publications, providing clays for research purposes through the Source Clays Repository, and publication of the lively newsletter CMS News. Various committees within the Society deal also with such matters as regulatory issues and nomenclature. The Society also maintains a list server dedicated to increasing world-wide communications pertaining to clay minerals.
The membership of The Clay Minerals Society is a diverse group because the study of clay touches upon so many fields. Members include clay mineralogists, crystallographers, physicists, chemists, geochemists, soil scientists, agronomists, ceramic scientists, civil engineers, petroleum geologists and engineers, and industrial scientists in fields involving products ranging from catalysts to cat litter. The Society has about 800 members, more than 40% of whom represent countries outside the United States.
Awards given by the Society include the Marilyn and Sturges W. Bailey Award, the George W. Brindley Lecture, the Pioneer in Clay Science Lecture, and the Marion L. and Chrystie M. Jackson Mid-Career Clay Scientist Award. Awards are also presented for student papers and posters at the annual conference. Student research grants totaling $10,000 per year are awarded.
The ten volumes in the CMS Workshop Lectures Series include Quantitative Mineral Analysis of Clays, Electron-Optical Methods in Clay Sciences, Thermal Analysis in Clay Science, Clay-Water Interface and Its Rheological Implications, Computer Applications to X-ray Powder Diffraction Analysis of Clay Minerals, Layer Charge Characteristics of 2:1 Silicate Clay Minerals, Scanning Probe Microscopy of Clay Minerals, Organic Pollutants in the Environment, Synchrotron X-ray methods in Clay Science, and Teaching Clay Science. The Society also publishes the Proceedings of the International Clay Conference 1985, annual abstract volumes, a special publication Kaolin Genesis and Utilization, a Mica Polytype slide set, and a Crystallography Slide Set.
By-laws of the Clay Minerals Society
Further information can be obtained from:
The Clay Minerals Society
Leslie Shivers, Manager
P.O. Box 460130
Aurora, CO 80046-0130
Phone: (303) 680-9002
FAX: (303) 680-9003
Email: cms@clays.org
