Seventh International Conference on Mars
July 9–13, 2007
Pasadena, California

First Announcement

There will also be:
http://new.marsstuff.com/c/Conventions/2007

Put this down in Your agenda:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/jan07.cfm

The second announcement has been out for a while, but for those who do not want to wait for a couple of more weeks for the formal program with embedded links, most of the abstracts have been available via FTP for several weeks.

Hint: access "Report.pdf" in the root directory as a guide to individual abstracts.

Some of those (this one, for example) look like more than just abstracts.

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Stephen

Mars 7 has a 4 page limit for the abstracts. That means you can write about 1/4 to 1/2 of a paper...or put in lots of big, colorful figures!

The term "abstract" for conferences like DPS, EGU, and GSA has been apt; for LPSC, Mars 7, etc. it has long been a misnomer.

The standard term for these is "extended abstracts". They are essentially "progress report" non-peer-reviewed short papers. They end up being excellent status reports on things that don't necessarily get professionally published (like the status of planetary cartorgraphy projects and interim investigations) and provide a quasi-real-time history of the field.

I agree that most of the LPSC-type abstracts tend to be informative and sometimes even interesting. The key point, as you note, is that these conference presentations are not peer-reviewed. It's true that extended abstracts often get expanded into full-length papers published in peer-reviewed journals like, say, JGR-Planets, Icarus, Planet. Space Sci., etc., but it's just as important to note that, for various reasons, many do not. And frankly, I've found that 10% of LPSC abstracts are iffy at best or flat out borderline kooky. That's why I never hyperventilate over the conference abstracts when they come out. I like perusing them to see what's new but I certainly don't rate them in the same category as a product that makes it through the peer review sieve.

The final program with embedded links to sessions/abstracts is now available.

The final announcement and author index are now available.

Tons of good stuff here, but the one that most surprised and delighted me was this one:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/7thmars2007/pdf/3136.pdf

in which we are treated to the first geologically useful earth-based radar images of Mars. Fascinating stuff with great potential...

Phil

For those who might be interested, there is a nice summary of the sessions on the MEPAG website (335 Kb PDF).