RC INtro

5th (2010) REYNOLDS CUP Champion and top finishers

THE REYNOLDS CUP Introduction

The Reynolds Cup competition, named after Bob Reynolds for his pioneering work in quantitative clay mineralogy and his great contributions to clay science, was established in 2000 by Douglas McCarty and Jan Srodon of ChevronTexaco and Dennis Eberl of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Unlike other round-robin events that used well-ordered, high-symmetry phases (Madsen et al., 2001) or splits from natural samples with unknown mineral composition (Ottner et al., 2000), the Reynolds Cup competition utilizes mixtures of pure standards that represent realistic sedimentary rock compositions. The first RC competition opened early 2002 and samples were made available to individuals in commercial, industrial, government, or academic laboratories, which could use any method or a combination of methods to obtain the most accurate quantitative phase analysis. Three samples each were given to a total of 40 participants. The top three finishers were presented with plaques and the champion’s trophy went to the first-place finisher. The competition was sponsored by ChevronTexaco and the trophy was donated by the USGS. The success of this competition encouraged the founders to secure funding from The Clay Minerals Society and make it a biennial event.

RC Competition Guidelines

The competition is held on a biennial basis and the process is facilitated by a committee set up by the CMS. Two years prior to the competition, the committee chooses a Principal Organizer who is responsible for preparing the mineral mixtures and conducting and judging the competition. So far, the winner of the immediate past competition has volunteered to organize the next event. Should the winner be unable to organize the competition, prior organizers would be willing to continue with arranging the event. Specific guidelines are described below:

Types of Mineral Samples

The actual sample make-up is left to the discretion of the organizer, within the following guidelines:

Samples should be artificial clay-bearing rock mixtures representative of minerals usually found in natural sedimentary rocks.
High-purity minerals should be obtained from private and public collections.
Samples should be prepared such that the purity of the minerals used in the mixture is known within 1 wt%.
A repeatable sample splitting procedure should be used and splits should be verified for consistency using XRD and XRF prior to sample distribution.

Introduction Rules Winners