With the overarching theme “The Changing Ocean Environment: From a Multidisciplinary Perspective,” the Third Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS-III, http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/conference/3XMAS/) was held at Xiamen University’s Science and Art Center from January 9th to 11th, 2017.
The symposium consisted of 4 general sessions, 9 special sessions and 2 workshops, covering physical oceanography, marine biogeochemistry, biological oceanography, and marine ecotoxicology along with workshops for emerging topics in marine environmental sciences.
UD faculty Dr. Wei-Jun Cai was one of the conveners of General Session 2: Marine & estuarine biogeochemistry. Wenfang Lu who is involved in the UD-XMU dual PhD program, and UD faculty Dr. Xiao-Hai Yan both gave oral presentations at the meeting.
The conference attracted more than 620 scientists and graduates from 150 institutions covering 21 countries and regions, including the USA, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. A total of 211 oral talks were scheduled and 308 posters were presented during the conference.
In addition to oral and poster sessions, the conference organized several other activities:an Open Discussion Session on Publication Practice in JGR-Oceans, Student Activities, and Women in Science Salon, which attracted large audiences.
The XMAS series meeting was initiated by the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science (MEL, http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/en) of Xiamen University. XMAS-III was co-sponsored by the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, together with other institutions. More details of the meeting can be found at: http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/en/supervisefile.asp?id=670. The fourth iteration, XMAS 2019, will be held in Xiamen 2019.