 Next year (13-17 April 2009) the Chamber of Geological Engineers in Turkey is organising the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Turkish Geologists. This reflects a tradition of more than half a century of gatherings about the geology of one of the most interesting spots on the earth, a meeting place of three continents and two oceans! Two oceans indicate those still extant, because Turkey also contains remnants of numerous others (the exact count is disputed). Turkish geologists have chosen to designate their annual meeting by a word of Mongol origin: Kurultai. Kurultai, in Ghengiz Khan‘s Empire was the highest council that, among other duties, elected the Great Khan. Attendance to it was compulsory, no matter where a member might find himself. When Ogedai Khan died, for example, his nephew Hulagu was directing operations in the Middle East. He dropped everything and went to the Kurultai, as did his brother Kubilai, who at the time happened to be in China. So we regard our scientific Kurultais: as meetings where attendance is compulsory. We regard it imperative that we come together, all of us, at least once a year to exchange ideas, data, even anecdotes. More, most important of all, we wish to meet the youngest who joined our ranks, we wish to know what they are doing, what they are thinking and, what they are doing for. We wish them to tell us their wishes, their desires and their projects. We insist on hearing their views about us and about the state of our science world-wide. That is why it is important that as many of us as possible be present in the Kurultai. We also wish that our colleagues outside Turkey come to our Kurultais. Geology is the science of our planet, not the science of Turkey. It is especially important that our neighbours come, because we have so many common problems. Mother Gaia knows no political boundaries and respects none. We, her sons, must do so likewise if we wish to get to know her and to live comfortably and safely in her bosom. That is why the organisers of the sixty-second Kurultai of Turkish Geologists extend a cordial invitation to the geologists (including physical geographers, climatologists, oceanographers, geophysicists, geochemists ... anybody who studies the earth the world over, but very especially those of our neighbouring countries to come to it and be a part of it. We would be delighted if they volunteered to organize special sessions, symposia ... under the overall canopy of the Kurultai. The Kurultai would not be much remembered if its proceedings remained at the verbal stage. We wish to publish them in international journals in the form of thematic or special issues or even a bundle of thematic papers in a journal. Every thematic session, symposia, ... should ideally have its papers published somewhere easily accessible to world community of geologists. The Organising Committee of the Kurultai will do whatever in its powers to further such aims and help the individual organisers. The traditional locale of our Kurultais has always been Ankara, the capital of Turkey and so it will be for the sixty-second Kurultai. April is a time when central Anatolia begins greeting the Spring and we would advise all our participants coming there from the outside to take their time to get to know its cultural and natural riches. They can get to know the Hittite culture or even earlier cultures including the very first city known to mankind in the museum of Anatolian civilisations or they can visit the Museum of Ethnography to get to know the Anatolian people of more recent times. The grand mausoleum of Atatürk, the Anıt-Kabir, houses a magnificent museum devoted to showing how modern Turkey was founded. Come and enjoy geology and culture in the sixty-second Kurultai of the Turkish Geologists. |
