Geoscientist Online

IUGS-GEM Annual Meeting and Workshops, Windhoek, Namibia

by Laurance Donnelly & Brian Marker*

Geoscientist 21.07 August 2011

Image: Members of IUGS-GEM at the summit of the highest sand dune at Sossusvlei, Namibia.

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) was founded in 1961. It is a member of the International Council for Science and is one of the largest and most active non-governmental global scientific organizations. IUGS encourages and promotes the study of geology and particularly those geological issues of global significance relating to governments, academia, and industry and include for example; energy, mineral resources, geological hazards, environmental geology and global change.

The IUGS has several Commissions, one of which is the Commission for Geoenvironmental Management (GEM). GEM supports Working Groups to undertake world-wide collaboration with colleagues, organizations and policy makers to produce authoritative papers and publications and to host conferences and workshops for decision makers and stakeholders on topics of current concern. Some Fellows may be aware already of the activities of GEM through its contributions to the IAEG 2006 Conference in Nottingham (Engineering Geology Special Report 22) and Special Report 305 on communication of geoscience information.

GEM currently has seven Working Groups listed, together with their conveners, as follows:

• Land subsidence and groundwater (Qingcheng He, Peoples Republic of China)
• Communicating geoscience (David Liverman, Canada)
• Gold and mercury (Kevin Telmer, Canada)
• Climate change adaptation (Philipp Schmidt-Thomé, Finland)
• Man made strata and geopollution (Hisashi Nirei, Japan)
• Dust (Antonio Centeno, USA, and Brian Marker, UK)
• Forensic geology (Laurance Donnelly, UK)

Image: IUGS-GEM team at Sossusvlei, Namibia (photo courtesy of Prof.Dr. HE Qingcheng)

Image: IUGS-GEM delegates in Sesriem Canyon, a narrow canyon cut in alluvial fan conglomerates and associated sedimentsNamibia.

Previous working groups included; Environmental Impacts Across International Borders, Urban Geology, Geology and Ecosystems. A new working group on Geoscience for Drinking Water has also recently been proposed but has not yet been approved. Full information on GEM can be found at www.iugs-gem.

The annual general meeting of IUGS-GEM was held at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Windhoek, Namibia from 2nd to 8th October 2010. It was supported by the Geological Survey of Namibia and coordinated by the GEM Chair (Dr Kevin Telmer, University of Victoria, Canada) and Dr Ben Mapani of the University of Namibia, Department of Geology. Among those who attended were UK based geologists Laurance Donnelly (Wardell Armstrong), the IUGS Officer responsible for the Forensic Geology Working Group, and Brian Marker (formerly in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) who is co-convening the new Dust Working Group.

The IUGS-GEM Forensic Geology Working Group was established at the IUGS-GEM meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2009. This followed on from the success of The Geological Society of London Forensic Geoscience Group (FGG) founded in 2006. Both groups work closely to promote and develop forensic geology throughout the UK and globally. As part of the IUGS-GEM Forensic Geology Working Group the Geoforensic International Network (GIN) has been recently established. This unites forensic geologists engaged in academic research and operational case work with the police and other law enforcement agencies throughout the world. GIN also includes police officers and other non-geological earth scientists with interest in the ‘trace evidence’ and/or ‘search’ aspects of forensic geology. An aim of IUGS-GEM, GIN is to produce a document called ‘A Guide to Forensic Geology’ which will be written by and endorsed by the international forensic geology community.

Image: Alluvial fan conglomerates exposed on the walls of Sesriem Canyon, in Namibia.

The Dust Working Group is keen to stimulate debate and research on dust from geological sources (e.g. soil erosion, volcanic activity, mineral extraction and wastes) in terms of sources, pathways and receptors including human and ecosystem health. Activities of the group will include a number of symposia leading, form the first time, to a book on the relevance of geological sources to planning, management and the well-being of society. Already, links have been established with international unions for volcanologists and soil scientists

A series of successful meetings, workshops, presentation and debates took place during the IUGS-GEM annual meeting. Here, particular attention was draw to the current status of the rapidly expanding mining industry in Namibia. Mining and minerals are major contributors to the Namibian economy and are envisaged to continue to contribute to future growth and developments of the country. The mineral commodities current being produced include; gold, placer diamonds along the Atlantic coast, sediment hosted base metals, sedex deposits (copper, lead, zinc), manganese and rare earths and some carbonatites are also mined. There is also currently a ‘Uranium Rush’ whereby the exploration, mining and processing of uranium ores have experienced unprecedented growth in recent years. However, consistent with many other mining countries in Africa (and other parts of the world) the past mining and processing of minerals has resulted in damage and degradation to the environment and to peoples lives in parts of Namibia, which has now stimulated careful environmental impacts assessments on, and design of mitigation measures for, new developments.

Image: Deposition of copper compounds in the concrete slab and bedrock beneath the remains of the processing plant, Klein Aub mine, Namibia.

As part of the IUGS-GEM annual meeting field visits took place to observe and examine the effects of mining at the Klein Aub copper mine, which was abandoned in the early 1980s. This led to a ghost town, negative impacts on the environment and detrimental affects on the lives of people who live and work nearby. However, in Namibia there seems to be a general drive and incentives to investigate, mitigate and where possible remediate such impacts. Following overnight camping in the Namib Desert the IUGS-GEM field team visited Solitaire, Sesriem and Sossusvlei, in the spectacular Namib-Naukluft National Park. At Sossusvlei this provided the opportunity to inspect classic hot desert geomorphology, to climb to the summit of the highest and oldest sand dunes in the world and to observe ‘dead pan’ evaporate deposits. This was followed by an inspection of Sesriem canyon, an impressive steep to vertical sided canyon, consisting of conglomerates and associated sedimentary sequences. These had been eroded and were exposed on the walls of a deeply incised canyon on the floor of the desert and clearly had formed by flash floods and river erosion under climate conditions very much different from those which exists today.

The 2011 business meeting of GEM is likely to take place in Asia, linked to a suitable event or conference, but other activities are being planned. The Forensic Group has developed the Geoforensic International Network (GIN) to help write ‘A Guide to Forensic Geology’. The Dust Working Group is convening a session at the 4th International Conference on Medical Geology at Bari, Italy (see www.medicalgeology.org).

• More information about GEM can be found at www.iugs-gem.org If you are interested in the work of GEM or its Commissions you are encouraged to contact either Laurance Donnelly ([email protected]) or Brian Marker ([email protected]).