is a multifaceted geoscientist and technologist with 25 years of international experience, spanning technology development and research, global business development and strategy, and mining operations and mineral exploration.He is also a strong advocate and promoter of sustainability, diversity, and STEM pathways for the next generations entering the resources industry.Aaron's passion is centred around deep engagement and collaboration with the Mining Equipment, Technology, and Services (METS), Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and research sectors for the delivery of Mining Industry 4.0 across the entire mine life cycle and value chain.This draws on his experience in material characterization, sensors, IIoT, analytics, robotics, and automation, as well as over a decade of operational experience.This aligns well with the emerging landscape of decarbonization, digital transformation, automation, and the future of work in the resources industry.Aaron is currently employed by Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) as the Head of Smart Exploration Technologies, concentrating on new opportunities in Saudi Arabia.Prior to this, he spent 15 years focusing on a wide range of mining and exploration technologies, including the adaption of systems used by NASA on the Mars Curiosity Rover.He was also an embedded researcher and project manager at MinEx CRC and Deep Exploration Technologies CRC, where he was a co-inventor of the Lab-At-Rig® system.Aaron spent his first decade working in a variety of management, operational, and exploration roles across a range of gold, nickel, and copper projects.Professionally, Aaron is a proud graduate of the Western Australian School of Mines, Kalgoorlie (WASM), and holds a Bachelor of Science in mineral exploration and mining geology with 1 st class honours.He is a registered professional geoscientist (AIG -RPGeo #10255 for Mining and Geochemistry) as well as a Fellow of the AusIMM, AIG, SEG, and AAG.Aaron is also a qualified snowboard instructor, and you can find him hitting the slopes during the winter in the USA, Canada, NZ, and Australia, as well as 4WD-ing, boating

Alkaline soda lakes are known as some of nature’s most biologically productive ecosystems. Vigorous production (photosynthetic conversion of inorganic carbon into biomass) is countered by incremental biomass degradation, which fuels and feeds a diverse microbial community. Learn here about key adaptations that help microbes survive and thrive in the extreme conditions of alkaline soda lakes. Dive into the interconnected microbial element cycles of alkaline soda lakes and discover how the geochemistry of these environments presents microbes with unique challenges and opportunities. Throughout this article, explore how the microbial inhabitants of alkaline soda lakes have been harnessed in biotechnological applications, including the production of protein-rich food, detergent enzymes, and the purification of biogas.

It is a great honor and a pleasure to become President of the Meteoritical Society. I want to thank Past-President Brigitte Zanda for her term and for continuing to bring that experience to the Council to guide our society for the next two years. I'm also looking forward to beginning to work with Guy Consolmagno as the new Meteoritical Society Vice President. The role of Meteoritical Society Treasurer is crucial to the functioning of our society, and I'm delighted that Tasha Dunn will be continuing in this position. A lot of responsibility for running our society falls to the Meteoritical Society Secretary, and I want to thank Munir Humayun for giving his time and effort to serve in this position for the last four years and to thank Jutta Zipfel for taking on this role. I'm excited about the team we have to lead the Meteoritical Society for the next two years, and we look forward to serving our community. Additional details about the fund and its application process can be found at: www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Awards/Barringer_Fund.

If you are reading this as a member of CMS, then I have a job for you. Please pass on details of the survey link below to any non-members you know that work with clays and ask them to complete it. The world of clays and clay minerals continues to stretch far and wide across many established and newly emerging research, technology, and industrial sectors, and as a Society we are keen to know: What it would take to encourage more clay-related people to join our organisation, attend our conferences, submit papers to our journal, and nominate people for our awards? And of course, if you, one of these people with a connection to clays but not a member of CMS, are reading this, we would be delighted to hear your answers to our survey questions. This will be the link: https://forms.gle/rSN5m8wJTUSdUS597. Stephen Hillier, CMS President Here are some recent papers published at https://www.springer.com/ journal/42860. Predict the Optimal Mineralogy of Smectites as Binders of Aflatoxin, by Szczerba et al. Effect of a Water Phase on the Swelling Pressure and Water Retention of an Unsaturated Bentonite-Sand Mixture with Insignificant Osmotic Suction, by Lang and Baille.

Io is the best place to understand a fundamental process that shaped terrestrial planets, icy ocean worlds, and extrasolar planets: tidal heating.Caught in orbital resonance with other Jupiter moons (Europa and Ganymede), Io is the most tidally heated world and may contain the only extant magma ocean in our Solar System.The spectacular volcanic plumes sustain the atmo sphere and feed the magnetosphere of the Jovian system.The hot lavas on its surface reflect heat pipe tectonics, which is analogous to the volcani cally hyperactive youth of all rocky planets.Io is the ideal planetscale laboratory to study the intertwined processes of tidal forcing, extreme volcanism, and atmospheremagnetosphere inter actions.Investigating Io is necessary to understand ocean worlds, tidallyheated exoplanets, and the early terrestrial planets, including how they evolve chemically.This issue of Elements reviews our knowledge of Io, including discoveries from telescopic obser vations, past missions, as well as perspectives for future missions.Six chapters cover interior dynamics and surface processes, with insights from field and laboratory studies in volcanology, petrology, geochem istry, and geophysics.

In the July issue of TCM, we feature the characterization of three new minerals: bortolanite, Ca 2 (Ca 1.5 Zr 0.5 )Na(NaCa)Ti(Si 2 O 7 ) 2 (FO) F 2 , from the Bortolan Quarry, Poços de Caldas Massif, Minas Gerais, Brazil; håleniusite-(Ce), CeOF, the Ce analogue of håleniusite-(La) from Água de Pau Volcano, Sãn Miguel Island, Azores District, Portugal; and thorasphite, Th 2 H(AsO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 )•6H 2 O, from Elsmore, New South Wales, Australia.In addition, we feature Argentinian tourmalines of the Tusaquillas composite granitic batholith and the magnetic petrology (not a typo, this is a textural analysis based on magnetic susceptibility) of Brazilian granitoids, as well as how sodium and water complement one another crystallographically in beryls.Our recently most-read publications according to GeoScienceWorld include the following:

The Cascade arc has produced a remarkable diversity of volcanic rocks over the Quaternary period. The major stratovolcanoes that define the arc front are dominated by eruptions of andesitic and dacitic intermediate magmas, produced largely by fractionation, melting, assimilation, and mixing within the crust. In addition, relative to many other subduction zones, the arc has produced significant mafic volcanism. These more primitive magmas reveal complexity in mantle wedge dynamics, sources, and magma production processes, and suggest that there are significant differences along the arc in the amount of magma that enters the lower Cascade crust from the underlying mantle.