Petra-AGU is AGU and EGS is European Geological or Geophysical Society. AGU always has a spring meeting, but the one time I went I thought it was lame compared to the fall meeting. This year they had a combined meeting in Nice France (major oceanographic institutions in France are in Nice and Brest-what does this mean?). They had 15,000 abstracts, so it was bigger than fall AGU-but a lot of geology and atmospheric and space boring stuff. I went to give a talk on the North Anatolia Fault in Marmara Sea, Turkey-which was a bit of a trick because I have only dabbled in this area.....Chris