80th Annual Meeting of The Meteoritical Society

Presented by the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico

Welcome Address

You are cordially invited to attend the 80th Annual Meeting of The Meteoritical Society, which will take place 23rd – 28th July, 2017 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.

The Annual Meeting is organized by the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  It will be held at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center , which stays true to Santa Fe’s historic adobe architecture. Oral sessions, plenary sessions, and the public Barringer Invitational Lecture will take place in state-of-the-art auditoria of various sizes. Poster sessions will take place on-site throughout the week in dedicated rooms that open up to the beautiful courtyard of the Convention Center. A Friday night farewell party also will be held in the courtyard.

Meeting registration and the welcome party on Sunday, July 23rd 2017, will be held in the historic La Fonda hotel , situated on the famous Santa Fe Plaza, only minutes away from the Convention Center ( book a room at La Fonda ).

On the afternoon of the Wednesday meeting day, several excursions will be offered that explore the city of Santa Fe and surrounding areas (including the Santa Fe impact structure ). The meeting banquet on Wednesday evening will again be held in the beautiful La Fonda hotel .

The pre-meeting workshops are Impact Structures , and Mars Sample Return .  The post-meeting workshop is  Martian Meteorites under the Microscope .

A number of post-meeting excursions will be presented, including:  Walnut Canyon , Sunset Volcano Crater , Wupatki Pueblo , Grand Canyon , and the Barringer Meteorite Crater;  a 3-day trip to the Petrified Forest ; a trip to the Valles Caldera volcanic area; a trip to the mantle xenoliths from the Pliocene Rio Puerco volcanic field )

We have reserved blocks of rooms in multiple hotels, offering a range of price categories and distances from the Convention Center. Most are within walking distance, others offer regular shuttles. The Fort Marcy Hotel and Suites offers apartments of different sizes, making it ideal for families and students.
The city of Santa Fe is the state capital of New Mexico. It was founded by Spanish colonists in 1610 and is the oldest state capital city in the USA. It is located at 2194 m (7199 feet) above sea level, making it also the highest state capital in the USA--closest to the sky. Santa Fe (meaning "holy faith" in Spanish) has a population of 70,000. It experiences a dry steppe climate with an average temperature in July & August of 25°C (77°F) and monthly rainfall of 6.5 cm (2.5”) due to the arrival of the North American monsoons.

Santa Fe is well known as a center for the arts that reflect the multicultural character of the city. It has been designated a UNESCO Creative City in design, crafts and folk art . Santa Fe and the surrounding areas have a high concentration of artists who have come over the decades to capture the natural beauty of the landscape, flora and fauna. Canyon Road has the highest concentration of art galleries in the city and is a major destination for international collectors, tourists and locals. Further information about Santa Fe and its environs can be obtained at SantaFe.org .

Santa Fe can be reached by air directly from Dallas and Denver via the Sunport, the nearby (106 km, 66 miles) Albuquerque airport , which offers 30 shuttles daily to Santa Fe, the  Rail Runner train, and numerous car rental companies.