HMEI REPORT 
General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), Vienna, Austria 2-7 April 2006

The EGU General Assembly 2006 is a conference that brings together geoscientists from all over Europe and the rest of the world into one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences. The scope is huge and in April 2006 there were over 600 lecture sessions, plus hundreds of corresponding poster sessions.
Lecture Topics covered:
Atmospheric Sciences; 
Biogeosciences; Climate; 
Cryospheric Sciences; 
Energy Resources & Environment; 
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Vulcanology; 
Geodesy; 
Geodynamics; 
Geomorphology; 
Geophysical Instrumentation; 
Hydrological Sciences; 
Magnetism, Paelomagnetism, Rock Physics & Geomaterials; 
Natural Hazards; 
Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics; 
Ocean Sciences; 
Planetary and Solar Sciences; 
Seismology; 
Soil System Sciences; 
Solar-Terrestrial Sciences; 
Stratigraphy, Sedimentology & Palaeontology; 
Tectonics ands Structural Geology.

The exhibition associated with the meeting was held on the ground floor of the Austria Center Vienna (ACV), from the 3rd to 7th April, 9am to 6pm each day. The situation for the was excellent for the 45 exhibitors, as it was at the entrance to the conference areas and all attendees inevitably passed through the exhibits area. whilst the exhibitors covered a range of related sciences, many were focused towards to the seismic and vulcanology or geological sciences and 8 were science book vendors.

Five HMEI members exhibited at the EGU this year:

The HMEI Secretariat, Bruce Sumner and Christine Charstone, attended this exhibition, thanks to the generous sponsorship by Gerhard Pevny from Logotronic, who paid for accommodation expenses for the Secretariat attending EGU in Vienna. 

Bruce and Christine were pleased to be able to renew acquaintances with the attending HMEI Members, as well as participants and attendees at the conferences. They introduced the  HMEI Association to potential new HMEI members. Valuable information and contacts were also gained for a future publications section on the HMEI website, which will allow Members to easily access relevant science publications. 

Contact was established with Katja Gaenger, the Copernicus meeting organizer, which will assist with future Copernicus meetings such as EMS 2006 and the 2007 EGU in which HMEI and its Members will be interested in participating.