Date of the conference: 20.5. - 23.5. 2024
Number of participants: 28
Number of oral presentations: 23
At the end of May 2024, the Volcandpark 2024 international
conference took place, which, after being postponed due to covid
restrictions, took place after 8 long years (year 2020 was cancelled).
The location of the conference was chosen in the town of Jičín
in the Czech Republic, i.e. a historic town located in the Geological
Park Bohemian Paradise. Unfortunately, probably due to the past "covid"
years, the participation in the conference was relatively low (which is
unfortunately a common phenomenon today). Nevertheless, a number of
interesting contributions were presented (the conference program can be
viewed here, conference proceedings here).
Also two of the three planned field trips were succesfully
completed. Unfortunately, the last field-trip was canceled because of
low participation.
Day 1 - Pre-conference field-trip (May 20, 2024)
During the first day, we visited a total of 4 interesting locations within the theme "Lusatian Volcanic Field". The first stop was at the Panská skála
geological natural monument near Kamenické Šenov. It is
an abandoned quarry revealing a beautiful sequence of columnar basalt.
The second stop took us to the rock castle Svojkov
near Nový Bor. Sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age can be found
here, but thanks to the covering by the surrounding volcanic products,
these sediments were protected to erosion and thus provide an important
window into the knowledge of the geology of the original terrain on
which the volcanic products propagated. This was followed by a stop and
a lunch break at a glass workshop in Lindava,
where we could observe the use of siliceous sedimentary rocks for the
production of glass, which included the typical local livelihood of the
population in the past centuries and partly even today. The third
geosite visited was a abandoned quarry on Kamenický vrch
near Zákupy. Here we could observe a volcanic diatreme with
several interesting geological phenomena (for example, emplaced bed
veins, paleo-relief of a shallow freshwater lake, volcanic breccia,
lava lake, etc.). The last stop was headed to the world-famous
geological monument - Great Devils Wall
near the village of Smržov. This emplaced volcanic vein is found in a
number of geology textbooks around the world. The evening was followed
by an ice-breaking party with a tasting of great Pilsner Urquell beer
and traditional Czech food.
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Panská skála near Kamenický Šenov
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Group photo on top of the columnar basalts
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Rock castle Svojkov near Nový Bor
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Glass worshop in Lindava
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Abandoned quarry on Kamenický hill near Zákupy
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"New Mexico" team on Great Devils Wall geosite
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Day 2 - First day of presentations (May 21, 2024)
On Tuesday, the first two blocks of presentations took
place within three sessions. Session 1 belonged to the topic "Volcanic geoheritage from volcanic geology perspective" and 7 contributions were presented within it. Session 4 with the topic "Sense of place and its influence on geocultural development in volcanic regions" was devoted to 1 contribution, and session 8 with the topic "Geoheritage for developing resilient society against volcanic hazard" was also devoted to one contribution. Individual contributions can be found here and their abstracts here.
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The presentations took place in the hall of the cinema in Jičín town. |
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Presentation by M. Petronis "Volcanic and Tectonic Applications of Paleomagnetism"
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Geological topics were also discussed during the coffee breaks.
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Presentation by F. Tomek "Simple plumbing system of a scoria cone filled by lava lake:
the mythical Říp Hill"
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Day 3 - Pre-conference field-trip (May 22, 2024)
On Wednesday, the second planned field-trip with the name "Volcanic Geoheritage of the Bohemian Paradise Geopark"
followed, which was affected by the rainy weather. The original plan
thus had to be partly edited in the end. The first location was the
well-known Trosky Castle,
which is built on two double-diatrem and a relic of a scoria-cone. This
was followed by a transfer to the tuff cone at the Zebín
hill near Jičín and a tour of the abandoned quarry. The
participants were particularly interested in the large number of mantle
lherzolite xenoliths. Next, we moved to the brewery, where "Novopacké pivo"
is brewed. Although brewing beer is not in direct context with volcanic
activity in the region, this activity is a traditional craft in the
Czech Republic. We saw the entire process of local beer production, and
of course there was a beer tasting and lunch. Then we moved to the Municipal Museum Nová Paka.
Beautiful semi-precious stones of the Carboniferous and Permian
"melaphyrs" so basalts of this age are represented in the rich
exposition here, mainly represented by siliceous masses such as quartz
of various variants (e.g. amethyst, smoky quartz, ...), but also
chalcedony and its variants (agate, jasper, carnelian, ...). The
exhibition also includes a large collection of fossil woods from the
same geological period and an extensive collection of rocks. Because of
the rainy weather, the visit to the active quarry in Studenec with
samples of the above-mentioned minerals, but also with nice samples of
pillow-lavas and volcanic breccias, was cancelled. Instead, we visited
an abandoned quarry in the heart of Jičín town on Čeřovka hill and observed examples of contact metamorphism of Cretaceous claystones in basalts.
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Trosky rock castle |
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Presentation by V. Rappprich in Trosky rock castle
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Abandoned quarry on Zebín hill near Jičín
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Tuff-cone of Zebín hill.
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Tuff-cone survey
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Abandoned quarry on Čeřovka hill in Jičín town
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Day 4 - Second day of presentations (May 23, 2024)
The second day of presentations was also very interesting
and informative. A total of 4 sessions were presented in one block.
Session 2 with the topic "Qualitative and quantitative methods to measure geodiversity within volcanic regions" had a total of 3 contributions. Last session 5 with the topic "Geoconservation of volcanic regions under rapid urbanization and global change" had one contribution. It was followed by session 7 on the topic "Volcanic geoparks: from local to global" with 4 contributions and finally ending session 9 with the topic "Communicating volcanic geoheritage to wide public" and five contributions. The conference then ended around 4:30 p.m. Individual contributions can be found here and their abstracts here.
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Presentation by M. Hencz "Multidisciplinary Earth Science research as
key to enrich geoheritage of a globally significant inverted
monogenetic volcanic landscape: Bakony-Balaton UNESCO Global Geopark,
Hungary"
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Presentation by M. Ashor "The role of
the Saudi Geological Survey to develop geoparks of monogenetic volcanic
fields such as the Aspiring Khaybar UNESCO Global Geopark, Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia"
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Discussion in "Overview of the Volcanic Geoparks in China" by J. Xu.
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Remarkable presentation by I. Fritz "Windows into the history of Earth
– a journey through time in the “Steirisches
Vulkanland” (Austria)"
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Final evaluation
The Volcandpark 2024
conference took place on the given date with a lower representation of
participants than was originally planned, but the informative value of
the contributions and both field trips was very high. Thank you to all
participants for participating and we hope you enjoyed the conference.
The next conference will be Volcandpark 2026 and will be held in Hungary in the town of Sopron. See you in 2 years!
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