AGU: Twenty Thousand Geeks by the Sea

This week San Francisco pays host to the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Most of us just call it "AGU." I always go. Here's what it's like.

The AGU meeting is the world's largest gathering of Earth scientists, and it's been held in San Francisco in early December since the 1960s. By now it's been around longer than Herb Caen. Over the years it has grown into a Woodstock-size event and moved from the old Civic Center to the Moscone Center. What do 20,000 scientists do for a week?

They give scientific talks, of course, the traditional short lecture with slides, given to a roomful of colleagues. Prominent scientists give longer lectures to very large rooms, and often it's standing room only. Sessions may deal with dry topics, but sometimes there are intangible extras, like the session I saw Wednesday in which the speakers all paused to remember their colleague, the late Jean Francheteau, with photos and reminiscences.

But more and more, the meeting's science is presented on posters: a 4-by-6-foot panel on which a scientist hangs a large printed poster, standing there for a scheduled time period to discuss the work with anyone who stops by. Posters fill the entire open space of Moscone Center South, several acres worth. The nice thing about posters is that the interaction is of high quality, unlike a lecture where time is limited and you can't have a proper dialog. They can be quite popular, especially in mid-afternoon when the beer is served.

The atmosphere is high-energy, even at 8 a.m. when proceedings open. The whole world is represented, as well as all ages. You can see the gleam in a student's eye who is meeting a grand old scientific titan for the first time#&151;and the corresponding pleasure of passing wisdom on to the next generation.

There are lots of meetings that go on: task forces, society committees, interest groups. I've seen participants who do nothing but these, and they seem to be happy to do it. "Town meetings" take advantage of the occasion to gather widespread researchers in one room. One example I attended was for the great EarthScope program, a ten-project that is covering the entire United States with a moving network of seismographs like a doctor moving a stethoscope. Over a hundred people were on hand for that.

Social events abound as well. Medals are awarded Wednesday night; receptions are held for all sorts of groups; geoscience bloggers get their own lunch. There's something for everyone, even a 5K run and a sort of science slam Wednesday evening where people gave 5-minute talks.

A gathering of this size is a magnet for the universe of suppliers to the trade, who have a whole floor of Moscone Center West to spread their wares. High-tech instrument dealers, scholarly and textbook publishers, government and industry agencies, and fancy rock and gem dealers create a veritable casbah, and there's plenty of talk in the long beer lines.

More than a hundred reporters and writers occupy the pressroom, many shuttling across the hall to a room outfitted for press conferences. This year there have been a lot of them centered around earthquakes, climate change and interplanetary space. Is all that really the realm of geology? It is in my book.