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I am sad to report that our friend and colleague Klaus Keil passed away peacefully Friday night at home after a long battle with cancer. He was Emeritus Professor, former Director of the Hawai`i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, and former Interim Dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Klaus was an outstanding scientist, spectacular mentor, educator, and leader, dedicated family man, and enthusiastic tennis player. His academic and science leadership skills glittered at the University of Hawai`i since 1990 and at the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico from 1968 to 1990. He was 87 years old. Klaus was a pioneer in the use of the electron microprobe in meteoritics and in petrology and mineralogy in general. In the early 1960s, he worked with colleagues at NASA Ames Research Center, Ray Fitzgerald and Kurt Heinrich, to make the first energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer for use in microanalysis. This device was the first to focus on terrestrial and extraterrestrial geological materials, and the first to use a solid-state lithium-drifted Si detector. Over his long and illustrious career, Klaus studied practically every type of meteorite and lunar sample, addressing big problems in planetary science, from chondrule formation to pyroclastic eruptions on the Moon and achondritic bodies, from asteroid disruption to the composition of the Martian surface. More…

A special issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science honoring John T. Wasson, who passed away on 8 September 2020 is planned for fall 2021. Wasson spent more than 50 years as a professor and meteorite researcher at UCLA. He was President of the Meteoritical Society in 1979-1980. He received the Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society in 2002 and the J. Lawrence Smith award from the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. The mineral wassonite (TiS) and an asteroid (4783 Wasson) were named in his honor. Manuscripts should be submitted before 28 February 2021 at the MAPS website and will be reviewed following the regular MAPS procedures. Prior notification of submission to Sasha Krot will help to speed up the review process. Articles should be as concise as possible and should not exceed 16 printed pages. The journal assesses a charge of $70 per page for each printed page over this limit. Authors should limit their appreciations of John Wasson to one or two sentences in the acknowledgements. A tribute to John will preface the issue. Sasha Krot, Alan Rubin, and Ed Scott Special issue associate editors More…

The monthly lectures at the UCLA Meteorite Gallery are open to members of the Meteoritical Society. The UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lecture Series will now operate on the third Sunday of every month. More…

Institute of Meteoritics (IOM) at University of New Mexico is holding their weekly seminars every Tuesday by telecon and would like to open these seminars to any member of the society interested in attending. More…

The McKay Award for the 81st Annual Meeting in Moscow is given to Timothy Gregory (University of Bristol) for the presentation " Using refractory forsterite grains to test models of 26Al/27Al heterogeniety". More…

Anyone with an interest in meteorites either as a collector or researcher knows the name, Frederick Charles Leonard (1896–1960). Leonard was an academically trained astrophysicist, receiving his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1921. As a promising young astrophysicist, there was not the slightest hint that he held any interest in meteorites. Yet, meteoritics was to totally consume him in his future. Ten years after he accepted a teaching appointment in the Mathematics Department at UCLA he would organize UCLA's Department of Astronomy. Leonard's exceptional organizational skills would come to bear two years later by founding The Society for Research on Meteorites, the first name of the Meteoritical Society. In 1933 he would become its first president and would carry the task of Editor of the Society's journal for the next 25 years. As a former student of Frederick C. Leonard, I would like to share some remembrances of this extraordinary man. More…