The four day long “Mineral Resources for Society” conference, organized by the SGA Student Chapters group under the auspices of the Faculty of Science, took place on April 16-19. Attended by 40 mostly foreign students from Russia, Finland, Germany and Poland and 15 Czech students, its programme concluded with a tour of historical mining shafts in Příbram and Jáchymov.

The conference, aimed at students of geology in Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral programmes, was supported by the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits (SGA) international association, which is funded by international mining companies and which aims to support students’ research activities related to deposit geology by organizing lectures, training and field trips to mines and quarries. 12 years ago, the SGA founded its Students Chapters in Prague in cooperation with students from Freiberg. Five years ago, the groups relaunched their activities after a break and it was the Prague Student Chapters who set up this 1st international meeting of the future generation of geologists.

The conference offered a programme of four plenary lectures of renowned professors: Precambrian VMS and gold with case studies from the Fennoscandian Shield by Professor Pär Weihed from Sweden, Diamond deposits in general, with a case study from India by Professor Bernd Lehman from Germany, Orogenic gold deposits in the Bohemian Massif: review and case studies by Dr. Jiří Zachariáš from the Charles University Faculty of Science and Actual problems of metallogeny in Slovakia: Au-porphyry mineralisation at Biely vrch and Kremnica hydrothermal systém by Dr. Petr Koděra from the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Students of mostly doctoral programmes contributed to three lecture series: a) Ore deposits of magmatic and metamorphic terrains, b) Hydrothermal mineralization styles, and c) Mineralogy and crystal chemistry.

Among the most attractive parts of the conference were two field trips. First of them was the tour of the Anna adit in a historical mine in Příbram, which also included exploration of the Příbram ore dump, which is of interest as a deposit of polymetallic minerals and minerals related to mineralization of silver. The Svornost mine in Jáchymov is a witness of a whole different era of mining. Being a uranium mine from the 1950’s, it is closed to the public. Among its interesting features is the fact that water from the mine is being pumped into the Jáchymov spa which offers radioactive water treatment. Students also visited local mining museums and observed their collections of mining technology and minerals.

Kateřina Schlöglová

And what can a geologist find in an old mine? “Mineralization control, ore structures, veins with mineralization and structural faults that the mineralization is bound to”, said the organizer of the conference, Kateřina Schlöglová, “also relicts of original ores and minerals as they are found in the terrain and historical ways of silver mining, such as polymetallic deposits used in production of medieval coins. In Jáchymov, the modern uranium mining is interesting, too.”

(Marie Kohoutová)