GoingToMeet

The mineralogy and chemistry of aluminium and silicon in soils and the wider landscape is important in the context of many of the process that are key to the environmental functions that soils perform. These include sustainable soil fertility, soil and water acidification and the genesis of soil types. This meeting focuses on the movement, distribution and fate of aluminium and silicon within the pedosphere and the wider environment, the processes and products involved and the ways in which these can be effectively characterized. Of particular interest are the nature and rates of the chemical and biological processes involved in the release of these elements from primary soil minerals, their incorporation into secondary mineral products, their uptake by plants and their removal from the soil in solution or colloidal transport to the wider landscape. The meeting is being held to commemorate the life and work of V. C. Farmer who during his career at the Macaulay Institute made major contributions to our understanding of the mineralogy and chemistry of aluminium and silicon in soils, as well as pioneering the use of infrared spectroscopy in the identification, characterization and reactivity of the amorphous or poorly crystalline secondary minerals involved.