December 3rd, GSW Annual meeting at Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory

The 133rd Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of Washington will take place on December 3rd, 2025 in the auditorium of the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory, 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington D.C.

This will be a HYBRID meeting. Please see the email announcement for the Zoom link.

Dr. VED LEKIĆ will deliver the Presidential Address entitled:

A Tale of Two Worlds: The Core-Mantle Boundaries of Earth and Mars

Annual awards will be announced, and election of the 2026 GSW slate of officers and councilors will also take place.

Slate of Officers for 2026:

  • President:  Michael Ackerson* (Smithsonian)
  • 1st VP & President Elect: Michael Walter* (Carnegie EPL)
  • 2nd Vice President: Stephen Mackwell (NSF)
  • Past President: Ved Lekić (Univ. of Maryland)
  • Treasurer: Andy Campbell* (NRC, retired)
  • Meeting Secretary: Karin Lehnigk (NASA)
  • Council Secretary: Beth Doyle* (NOVA Community College)
  • Councilors: 
    • Linda Rowan* (CRS)
    • Ross Salerno* (USGS)
    • David Vanko* (Towsen Univ., retired)
    • Jamie Allan (NSF, retired)
    • Charna Meth
    • Virginia Agostinelli (Montgomery County College)
  • *Officers and councilors carrying over from 2025

GSW Fall Field Trip! Sat. Dec. 20, 2025

USGS Geologist Peter Valley will lead a hike along Difficult Run to the Potomac River below Great Falls. Along the way are metagraywackes, migmatites, and even some petroglyphs! The parking area for Difficult Run Stream Valley Park is small and fills up quickly; therefore, we will arrange carpools.

Meet at 8:00 am at the Reston Town Center Metro station, on the south side in the parking area adjacent to the bus stop and roundabout at the Kiss and Ride. Carpools will be arranged from this point to the Difficult Run trailhead. Wear sturdy shoes or boots that may become wet. This trail is very rocky and steep in places, requiring some rock scrambling in sections. Please bring a lunch and water.

Draft minutes from Nov 12th meeting (1615th GSW)

The draft minutes of our last meeting, on 12 November 2025, are attached for members to evaluate. If you have any additions or corrections please email them to our meeting secretary, Jessie Bersson, at BerssonJ[at]si.edu.

Draft minutes from Oct 29th meeting (1614th GSW)

The draft minutes of our last meeting, on 29 October 2025, are attached for members to evaluate. If you have any additions or corrections please email them to our meeting secretary, Jessie Bersson, at BerssonJ[at]si.edu.

Wed. Nov. 12: GSW Meeting at the Carnegie Institution for Science – Earth and Planets Laboratory

Theme of the event: Extraterrestrial Materials

CONEL ALEXANDER, Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory – What Meteorites and Sample Return Missions Have Taught Us about Conditions and Processes in the Early Solar System

MATT CLEMENT, Applied Physics Laboratory / Johns Hopkins University – Long Term Bombardment of the Habitable Zone at Home and Abroad

ZOË WILBUR, Smithsonian Institution – Exploring Inner Solar System Volatiles with Bennu Samples

The meeting will be preceded by a poster session starting at 6:00 pm. Talks will start at 8 pm and be 20 minutes each with questions to follow. If you plan on presenting a poster, please let us know via this form: https://forms.gle/H8Cv6Bv7qUrPg8BY8

Carnegie Institution for Science – Earth and Planets Laboratory
5241 Broad Branch Rd, NW, Washington D.C.

(free parking plentiful)

* Members outside the DMV can attend via Zoom*

Please see the email announcement for the Zoom link, Meeting ID and Passcode

Upcoming 2025 Fall Meeting: December 3 – Carnegie EPL, Annual Meeting and Presidential Address

Draft minutes from Oct 1st meeting (1613th GSW)

The draft minutes of our last meeting, on 1 October 2025, are attached for members to evaluate. If you have any additions or corrections please email them to our meeting secretary, Jessie Bersson, at BerssonJ[at]si.edu.

Wed. Oct 29-Annual Bradley Lecture at the Cosmos Club

BARBARA ROMANOWICZ

University of California, Berkeley / Collège de France, Paris

From Hotspots to Mantle Plumes: Insights on Deep Mantle
Plumbing and Dynamics from Global Seismic Imaging

Refreshments at 7:30 p.m., formal program at 8:00 p.m.

 If anyone has announcements or informal communications they would like to share with the society, please e-mail Vedran Lekic (ved@umd.edu) ahead of time.

Wed. Oct 1: GSW Meeting at the Cosmos Club

Theme of the event: Geomorphology

MONG-HAN HUANG, University of Maryland, College Park – A Novel Bayesian Near-Surface Geophysics Approach to Constrain Material Properties and their Links to Natural Hazards in Central Puerto Rico

KARIN LEHNIGK, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – The Kakhovka Dam Break Flood: An Unprecedented View of Earth’s Most Powerful Floods

CALEB FASSETT, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab – Geomorphic Evolution of the Moon

Refreshments at 7:30 p.m., formal program at 8:00 p.m., John Wesley Powell Auditorium, 2170 Florida Avenue NW, Washington D.C.

If anyone has announcements or informal communications they would like to share with the society, please e-mail Vedran Lekic (ved@umd.edu) ahead of time.

Draft minutes from Sept 10th meeting (1612th GSW)

The draft minutes of our last meeting, on 10 September 2025, are attached for members to evaluate. If you have any additions or corrections please email them to our meeting secretary, Jessie Bersson, at BerssonJ[at]si.edu.

Wed., Sept. 10 – GSW Meeting at Cosmos Club

Theme of the event: Volatiles

COLIN JACKSON, Tulane University and AAAS STP Fellow at DOE – Experimental magma oceans and volatile depletion of rocky worlds

KATHLEEN MANDT, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – How volatile composition can reveal the sources of water on the Earth and Moon

PATRICK BEAUDRY, Johns Hopkins University – The volatile redox budget of slab fluids and oxidation of the mantle wedge

Refreshments at 7:30 p.m., formal program at 8:00 p.m., John Wesley Powell Auditorium, 2170 Florida Avenue NW, Washington D.C.

If anyone has announcements or informal communications they would like to share with the society, please e-mail Vedran Lekic (ved@umd.edu) ahead of time.