1 The December issue (Volume 31, No. 4) marked the end of Godfrey Nowlan's term as Editor of Geoscience Canada , and the beginning of our term as co-editors. Notably, this is the first time in the 31-year history of the journal that the editorship has been shared and the first time that a woman has occupied this position. We follow a line of seven very capable editors and will do our best to maintain the high standards that they have established.

2 Our predecessors and the readers of Geoscience Canada can rest assured that we do not intend to make major changes to the content of the journal. Like Godfrey, we believe that it "…is generally fulfilling its fundamental goals and needs only minor change." For example, the broad groupings of material, i.e. Articles , Issues in Canadian Geoscience ,Series , Book Reviews and Commentary , will remain the same. Furthermore, the journal has a reputation for delivering clearly written and well-illustrated papers, particularly the Series contributions, which we shall strive to maintain. In our opinion, the Series are one of the main strengths of Geoscience Canada and a number of them, including Facies Models, Ore-Deposit Models and Diagenesis, have been repackaged into very successful, low-cost books that students can afford and most geoscientists have on their bookshelves. Each one is championed by a Series editor, has a set number of papers in it and a proposed time line for completion. Currently, there are five Series in progress. They are: Environmental Marine Geoscience, Geology and Wine, Igneous Rock Associations, Oceanic Lithosphere, and Geology of the Parliament Buildings. Two others, Earth Science Education and Economic Geology Models, have been discontinued because the editors have stepped down. We have decided to transform the first one into "Education Matters" and make it part of Issues in Canadian Geoscience . However, the Models Series needs to be revitalized by a new editor or replaced by one or more new series that will be of interest to our Mineral Deposits Division members. If you have comments about any of the Series, or want to propose a new one, we want to hear from you.

3 There are a few changes that we would like to make at this time. First, in order to facilitate digital submission and publication, we have made changes to the "Instructions to Authors Contributing to Geoscience Canada ", which can be viewed on the GAC website:http://www.gac.ca/JOURNALS/geosauthors.htm.

4 Second, we intend to follow Godfrey's desire to make articles in Geoscience Canada more widely available to the Canadian geoscience community. We will start (with GAC Council's blessing) by extracting all contributions to Issues in Canadian Geoscience and making them freely available in PDF format on the GAC website, along with the Table of Contents and Summaries for each issue of the journal. The various professional associations across the country will be notified each time a new issue of Geoscience Canada is posted to the website, so that they can inform their members. In this way we hope to expand the demographic reach of the journal.

5 Third, we would like to highlight some of the spectacular geologic scenery in Canada by featuring photographs of regional highlights on the front cover. We are hoping to have representation from all parts of the country, and encourage readers to notify us if they have a suitable photograph of a geologic feature or scene that could be used for this purpose.

6 We are also reviewing the entire editorial team, including the panel of associate editors, to verify that we have good representation from the various scientific disciplines, and to ensure that each associate editor has a clearly-defined role to play. This will undoubtedly result in some changes to the composition of the team over the next few months.

7 Finally, we would like to thank Peter Russell and Jean-Alfred Renaud for agreeing to continue in their respective capacities as illustrator and translator, and to introduce Christopher Pereira who will be responsible for copy editing. Karen Dawe, who was already handling advertising, has taken on the additional responsibility for layout, at least temporarily. Collectively, we will do our best to live up to the standards set by our predecessors.

8 As Godfrey noted when he stepped into Roger Macqueen's shoes three years ago: "…right now they feel rather large and loose." We know the feeling!