A Brief History of the Reynolds Cup

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 phases¹ or splits from natural samples with unknown mineral composition², 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 ChampionÕs 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 make it a biennial event.

First (2002) Reynolds Cup

Results of the first RC competition were presented in 2002 at the CMS meeting in Boulder, CO³. The winner was Reinhard Kleeberg of the University of Mining and Technology, Mineralogical Institute, Freiberg Germany. The second-placed finisher was Reiner Dohrmann of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hannover, Germany. Tied for third-place were Denny Eberl of the USGS, Colorado and Stephen Hillier of the Macaulay Institute, Scotland.

Second (2004) Reynolds Cup

The winner of the first Reynolds Cup, Reinhard Kleeberg, volunteered to organized the second Reynolds Cup competition in 2004. Funding for the second competition was primarily from the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, German Research Council, and IUCr CPD. The top three finishers were honored at the 2004 CMS meeting in Richland, WA. The winner was Dipo Omotoso of Natural Resources Canada, Devon, Alberta. In second place was Douglas McCarty of Chevron, Houston, USA and tied for third were Stephen Hillier of the Macaulay Institute, Scotland and Michael Plotze of IGT Claylab, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Results of the competition were published in the 2005 IUCr CPD newsletter 30⁴.

Third (2006) Reynolds Cup

The third RC competition was organized by Dipo Omotoso, winner of the second Reynolds Cup competition, with funding from Natural Resources Canada. Results of the contest were announced at the 2006 CMS/GFA annual meeting in Oleron, France. The winner of the contest was Douglas McCarty of Chevron, Texas, followed by Stephen Hillier of the Macaulay Institute, Scotland and Reinhard Kleeberg of TU Bergakademie, Freiberg, Germany. Details of the quantitative methods used by the top three finishers were published in the December 2006 edition of Clays and Clay Minerals⁵. In addition to the commemorative plaques and trophy awarded to the top-placed finishers, the champion received $1000 towards travel expenses. Diffraction patterns and chemical composition of mineral standards used to prepare the 2006 contest samples could be obtained from Dipo Omotoso (oomotoso@nrcan.gc.ca).

1. Madsen, I.C. Nicola, Scarlett, N.V.Y., Cranswick, L.M.D., and Lwin, T. (2001) Outcomes of the International Union of Crystallography Commission on Powder Diffraction round robin on quantitative phase analysis: samples 1a to 1h. J. Appl. Cryst., 34, 409-426.
2. Ottner, F., Gier, S., Kuderna, M. and Schwaighofer, B. (2000): Results of an inter-laboratory comparison of methods in quantitative clay analysis. Applied Clay Science 17, 223-243.
3. McCarty, D.K. IUCr CPD Newsletter 27, 12-16 (2002).
4. Kleeberg, R., IUCr CPD Newsletter 30, 22-26 (2005).
5. Omotoso, O., McCarty, D. K., Kleeberg, R. and Hillier, S. (2006): Some successful approaches to quantitative mineral analysis as revealed by the 3^rd Reynolds cup contest. Clays and Clay Minerals, 54 (6), 748-760.