Dear colleagues,
I hope this email finds you very well.
I just wanted to share some news with you and provide an update on coming activities of our TC. Our committee falls into the category “Impact on Society” and we are the TC308. Please find below the link to our ISSMGE web page: http://www.issmge.org/en/technical-committees/impact-on-society/641-energy-geotechnics
I have created in GeoWorld a group associated with our TC: http://www.mygeoworld.info/groups/profile/65920/energy-geotechnics-tc308. I will send you (from GeoWorld) an invitation to join this group. Please share this invitation with your collaborators and students. Thank you.

John McCartney and I have been working on our web page, it will be ready soon. I will keep you updated. Please contact your Member Society requesting the consideration of your nomination as a ‘Core member’ or ‘Corresponding member’ for your country. Please do this ASAP, we have a few official members in our TC. Thank you..

Our first TC meeting in 2014 will be on Wednesdays 5th March. It is not easy to find a meeting time convenient for everyone. I would suggest meeting in Skype at 8:00pm GMT. Perhaps this is late (i.e. 9.00 pm) in France, Germany, Spain and other European countries, but (I think) still possible for most of you. It is quite early in Australia (7.00 am), but it may also be feasible for you. It will be at 2.00 (EST) in the US. For some other countries it will be a difficult time to meet, we will try to favor them in another occasion. In a couple of weeks I will circulate the tentative agenda for this meeting.

News about upcoming events:

- Geo-Congress 2014, Atlanta (US) February 23-26: http://content.asce.org/conferences/geo-congress2014/index.html. Our TC is not organizing a session in this event, but there will be a good number of contributions related to our topic. I will be attending this congress, please let me know if you are planning to attend it. It will be very nice to see you there.

- 14th International Conference in Unsaturated Soils Mechanics. Sydney Australia. 14th International Conference in Unsaturated Soils Mechanics http://www.unsat2014.com. Several topics of this Conference are related to our TC’s activities. I think many of us will be attending this meeting. This can be a very good opportunity to have a TC meeting in Sydney. Please confirm me if you are planning to go. Thank you.

- 7th Int. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics to be held in Melbourne (Australia), 10-14 November http://www.7iceg2014.com. Malek is planning TC-Environmental Geotechnics and TC-Energy Geotechnics joint sessions with associate theme lectures for these sessions.

- XVI European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering to be held in Edinburgh (UK), 13-17 September 2015: http://xvi-ecsmge-2015.org.uk/. Theme C: ‘Environment, Water and Energy’ looks very appropriate for us. The deadline for submitting abstract is 31st January 2014. It will be very good if we have a good number of contributions in our area in this conference.

- XV Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering to be held in Buenos Aires (Argentina), 15-18 November 2015. http://www.panam2015.com.ar. We are organizing a Session on Energy Geotechnics (Chairpersons Narsilio, Sanchez Santamarina). The deadline for submitting abstract is 1st July 2104. This is another excellent opportunity to submit abstracts.

My best wishes,
Marcelo
_________________________________
Marcelo Sanchez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering
Texas A&M University
3136 TAMU | College Station, TX 77843-3136

Tel. (+1) -979- 862 6604 | Fax: (+1) -979- 862 7696
Email Address: msanchez@civil.tamu.edu
Skype: marcelo_2305