The " ESS Earth Science Workshop " took place in Wolfson Court, Girton College, Cambridge, UK, from Sun. morning Jan. 6th to Tues. evening Jan. 8th according to the programme reported in the appendix. The format was kept quite elastic in order to accommodate for a number of changes which were made during the course of the Workshop in response of the duration of the various presentations and according to contingency plans which followed the evolution of the discussion. Of the 44 scientists invited to participate, 22 responded positively to the call but only 13 actually made it to the Workshop. The 9 "defections" were all by cause of "force major" such as the lack of available seats in flights from Australia (one case), the unavailability of entry visa from India (one case), unexpected tying commitments (transfer to other Institution, Court hearing, new teaching loads, exams and various other academic commitments), flu and the like (one, last minute case). Three of the people apologising for not attending sent material for discussion at the meeting and for improving the Science Case. All participants were very active each one providing a very well documented presentation and actively contributing to the discussion sessions at the end of the presentations and during the last day which was entirely dedicated to the general theme of the Workshop.