28/11/2018 – 5 th Informative Talk with Àlex Sendrós

Last 28th of November took place the 5 th session of Informative Talks organized by the Barcelona SGA-SEG Student Chapter. In this occasion, Àlex Sendrós presented the talk “Mineria de la potassa a Catalunya: El paper del geòleg en l’obtenció d’una relació sostenible amb l’ambient” (“Potash mining in Catalonia: The role of the geologist to obtain a sustainable relation with the environment”).

Àlex Sendrós works as an associate professor at the Faculty of Earth Science of the University of Barcelona and also in the Environment Department in the mining company Iberpotash-ICL Group in Súria and Sallent, in Catalonia (http://www.icliberia.com/?lang=en), since 2015.

Àlex talked about his personal experience as a Geology student and how he started working for Iberpotash-ICL Group. He talked about his work in the mine and the different protocols they developed in order to avoid contamination from the mining wastes. His talk was very clear and informative. At the end of the talk the audience asked several questions both related with the mining activities and his job as a geologist in the company, and with the experiences and decisions he made as a student. Àlex ended the session encouraging undergraduate students to travel and learn from different geological and social realities.

We would like to thank Àlex for participating in our Informative Talks sessions.

22/11/2018 – Visit to the Martorell Museum (Natural History Museum of Barcelona) for our 4th Informative Talk

Last 22 nd of November, we visited the Martorell Museum, which is part of the Natural History Museum of Barcelona. We were received by Yousra Haddad Belfkih, member of our Student Chapter, together with Yael Díaz, Marc Campeny and Vicent Vicedo, who are responsible for the petrological, mineralogical and paleontological collections. Yousra is doing an internship at the Museum documenting the petrological collection. To start the visit, they told us that the Museum was built thanks to the legacy that Francesc Martorell i Peña (1822-1878) left to the city of Barcelona in 1878. The Museum has been exclusively dedicated to geological collections since 1924. Then we were able to visit all the facilities. First, Vicent talked about the amount, storage and selection of the paleontological pieces. With Marc, we learnt about the preservation of geological samples and some important safety aspects during the conservation process. Finally, Yael showed us the library, which is specialized in the scientific disciplines of the Museum, the petrography laboratory, and how the team works with historical databases in order to adapt them to new technologies: http://www.bioexplora.cat/ncd/. We also did a small practice cataloging rocks and minerals under the guidance of David Fernández.

We would like to thank the entire team of the Museum for such a warm welcome and for their great predisposition to show us the daily work in the field of conservation and divulgation of geological heritage. If you want to know more about the museum, follow this link: https://museuciencies.cat/en/el-nat/las-sedes/museo-martorell/

5/10/2018 to 6/10/2018 – Field trip to the Western part of the Ronda ultramafic massif (Betic Cordillera)

Field trip to the Ronda Ultramafic Massif (Betic Cordillera)

We would like to invite you to take part in the field trip organized by the Barcelona SGA-SEG Student Chapter to Ronda Ultramafic Massif (Betic Cordillera), with Professor Fernando Gervilla, from the University of Granada.

The field trip will take place the 5^th and 6^th of October 2018. During these days we will be visiting the western part of the Ronda Massif to see the peridotitic section of an ophiolite and the associated magmatic ores.

The accommodation will be in Estepona (Malaga, Spain). Participants are expected to arrive to Estepona the day before, 4^th of October, so we can leave to the field all together from there the day after.

Transportation to the field and lunch (picnic) expenses will be covered by the Barcelona SGA-SEG Student Chapter, thanks to the SGA Educational Fund. The accommodation and travel expenses to Estepona will not be covered. Further details on how to arrive to Estepona from Malaga airport and accommodation in Estepona will be given later.

To inscribe to the field trip, please fill this form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezUMYajhd3jPVJn-s6HgCo2bxzK9SSoVDCUSRACr_Z-mtB6w/viewform?c=0&w=1

Please, notice that field trip places are limited, so we will prioritize those participants who sent us a screenshot of the flight tickets to our email address   Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.  once they receive the confirmation email.

Please, contact us for any question.

22/06/2018 – 3rd session of our Informational Talks

Last Friday 22^nd of June took place the 3^rd session of Informative talks of our Student Chapter. In this occasion, one of our members, PhD student Ariana Carrazana, gave the talk with the title “Desde la exploración al cierre de mina: distintas funciones de un geólogo de mineria a cielo abierto” (From exploration to the mine closure: the different functions of an open pit mine geologist), in which she talked about her former work as an exploration geologists in a mining company in Argentina.

The talk covered all the possible jobs a geologist is expected to perform in a mining company, and how they have a major effect in the good development of the mining operations. Her experience was a good example for many students that want to initiate their carriers in mining exploration, and encouraged them to do so. The session ended with some questions and discussions between the audience and the speaker.

We would like to thank Ariana for her instructive talk that allowed us to finish the Informative Talks of this academic year very successfully.

30/05/2018 - 2nd session of the Informational Talks

The 2^nd session of the Divulgative Talks was last 30^th of May. Sebastián Betancur, an undergraduated exchange student from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, gave the talk “Textures and mineral chemistry of Fe-, Ti-oxide ores in the Santa Marta anorthosite Massif, Colombia”. Sebastián gave a general introduction to the geology of Colombia and centered the talk in the Santa Marta anorthosite Massif, from which he is studying Fe- and Ti-oxides. He shared his experiences in the field during the sampling campaign and his experiences as an exchange student in our university. The audience showed great interest during the talk and found it very profitable. 

 

27/03/2018 Antonio Arribas Moreno (1923 - 2018)

The Barcelona Student Chapter announces with great sadness the passing of our Honorific Advisor Antonio Arribas, at age 95, on the 27^th of March, 2018.

Antonio Arribas obtained the degree of Natural Science in 1948 and afterwards he graduated in Economic Geology in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He was the founder of the Crystallography, Mineralogy and Ore Deposits department of the University of Salamanca in 1965, the first official Ore Deposits department ever settled in the Iberian Peninsula. He was one of the fathers of Ore Deposit research in the Iberian Peninsula and other territories such as the Western Sahara.

We would like to express our condolences to the relatives. 

ANOTHER DOCTOR IN OUR STUDENT CHAPTER!

We would like to celebrate that last 12^th of January Lidia Butjosa Molines, one of the first members of our Student Chapter, successfully defended her dissertation and became Dr Lidia Butjosa Molines!

Her thesis, entitled “The Petrogenesis of the ophiolitic mélange of central Cuba: origin and evolution of oceanic lithosphere from abyssal to subduction and suprasubduction zone settings”, was directed by Dr Joaquín A. Proenza and Dr Antonio García Casco.

Congratulations Lidia!

We wish you a very successful future as a researcher! 

Carl E. Nelson talk and CineForum

Last Friday 16th took place the first Barcelona SGA-SEG Student Chapter CineForum of the year, which was combined with a talk given by the geologist Carl E. Nelson, a consulting economic geologist who largely worked in the Caribbean region with mining and exploration companies and is the president of the consulting firm Recursos del Caribe, S.A. (http://cbmap.net/).

The chosen film for the CineForum session was Gold (2016), which is based on the true story of the 1993 Bre-X mine scandal about a supposed massive gold deposit in Indonesia.

Before the projection of the movie, Carl Nelson gave the talk “Junior Companies: the Risks and Rewards”. He explained the process of starting a mining Junior Company and how it can develop, providing two real examples, one of them being the same on which the movie is based. The talk gave place to some discussion among the assistants and the speaker, and was the perfect introduction for the film.

NILS REINHARDT SUCCESFULLY COMPLETED HIS POSTGRADUATE STUDIES AT THE RWTH AACHEN UNIVERSITY

We are glad to announce that Nils Reinhardt, one of our few foreign members of the Student Chapter, was granted a Master´s degree in Applied Geosciences at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

He first came into contact with the Student Chapter while carrying out a year-long Erasmus stay at the faculty of geology of the UB. After moving back to Germany to pursue his Master´s degree studies in Aachen, he then opted to carry out his master thesis project at the UB in collaboration with the RWTH University.

His project “Geochemistry and mineralogy of rare earth elements in bauxite ores of the Llacuna-Medion area, Catalonia, Spain” was supervised by Dr.Joaquín Proenza as well as Dr.Thomas Aiglsperger andDr. Cristina Villanova-de-Benavent, two of the founding members of the Student Chapter. The study focused on the distribution patterns of rare earth elements in Spanish karst bauxite deposits of the Catalan Coastal Range and also represents the first-ever qualitative description of the rare earth mineralogy in these deposits.