NEWS
American Geophysical Union
NEWS
June 8, 2000 |
Contact: Harvey Leifert (202) 777-7507 hleifert@agu.org |
WASHINGTON - The 38,000 member American Geophysical Union has added Biogeosciences as a new Section, by unanimous vote of its governing Council. Biogeosciences is AGU's eleventh section, and the first new one in over 30 years. The last section was Solar-Terrestrial Relationships, later renamed Space Physics and Aeronomy.
This new section brings together AGU scientists studying diverse fields of earth and planetary sciences that involve biology. These include astrobiology, the biogeochemistry and biogeophysics of terrestrial and aquatic systems, land-atmosphere interactions, and planetary ecosystems.
The spatial and temporal scales of processes studied within biogeosciences range from the transport of a bacterial cell in a groundwater aquifer to the evolution of life in the solar system. "Future advances in biogeosciences will contribute to a more holistic understanding of the Earth and will help in addressing the many resource and environmental challenges ahead, such as global climate change," says Prof. Diane McKnight of the University of Colorado in Boulder, Acting President of the Biogeosciences Section.
Biogeoscientists, acting as an informal committee within AGU, contributed over 500 oral presentations and posters at AGU's last Fall and Spring Meetings. The section begins with around 360 members, some of whom are new and some of whom have transferred from other sections.
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