Goldschmidt in California meant a drive instead of a flight. The route from Pasadena to Sacramento lead us through the Central Valley of California. While living in greater LA we have been well aware of the drought going on in this state, it was still quite sad to see the many fields transformed into desert, and almond plantations dead and cut down. We also saw the thermometer steadily go up to a balmy 43 °C.

Monday was mostly a day of talks on the solar system. Starting off with Andrew Westphal talking about fluffy interstellar particles, and Meenakshi Wadhwa showing that the Solar System originated in an active star forming region, it was very interesting to learn about the latest science coming from the Curiosity Mars Rover, during the plenary by Pamela Conrad. David Blake had a great follow-up on this with his keynote on the mineralogy of mudstones at Yellowknife Bay, Mars. Who knew that the best Earth-analog for these mudstones is also the entrance to the Bat Cave!

Today’s session on Coastal Archives of Climate Change was one of my highlights so far. Very interesting catching up with what has been happening in sclerochronology and related fields. Howard Spero showed some beautiful seasonal isotope records of oyster shells from Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Heather Black also spoke about oysters, but showed human influence in historic nitrogen isotope records.

Goldschmidt is also the conference where there are always lots of people that look at biomineralisation in great detail. This afternoon’s keynote by Susan Stipp was an excellent and engaging presentation on why this is relevant, and how some of the regulation on mineralization by organisms works.

For my own session and presentation I still have to wait until Thursday evening (posters) and Friday morning (orals). In the meantime there will be a lot more exciting science to hear about. You can follow some of it on Twitter #goldschmidt2014.