Volume 30 of Reviews in Mineralogy introduces in understanding the behavior of magmatic
volatiles and their influence on a wide variety of geological phenomena in doing this it also
becomes apparent that there remain many questions outstanding. The range of topics we have
tried to cover is broad going from atomisticscale aspects of volatile solubility mechanisms
and attendant effects on melt physical properties to the chemistry of volcanic gases and the
concentrations of volatiles in magmas to the global geochemical cycles of volatiles. The
reader should quickly see that much progress has been made since Bowen voiced his concerns
about Maxwell demons but like much scientific progress answers to old questions have prompted
even greater numbers of new questions. The Voltiles in Magmas course was organized and
transpired at the Napa Valley Sheraton Hotel in California December 2-4 1994 just prior to
the Fall Meetings of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
