QUOTE (antipode @ Feb 9 2012, 09:01 PM)
'abstracts of the abstract' which made me laugh
There is a degree of unbuttoned informality about the whole event. The organisers give sessions quirky titles and in the mini-papers the scientists can use language freely, sometimes coining new words, and invoke extra-scientific cultural references for effect: comic, serious, or both at once. Such things might not pass peer review but they do not detract from the science in any way, quite the opposite in fact. The party mood is infectious even for a distant onlooker.
Thanks to antipode and others for the pointers to interesting topics. I loved the Martian basalt columns. I have a small piece of a much narrower basalt column in my attic rock collection (Carboniferous, Fife, Scotland).