Members of the research group have organized the international conference, which took place between 22 and 24 of October 2014 in Hotel Park, Bled. The conference was a part of the SNAP-SEE project. 74 delegates from 17 countries and members of the European Commission participated at the event. The main topic of the conference was planning of the sustainable supply of aggregates, which are needed in every modern society. 29 multidisciplinary scientific contributions and expertise have been presented during this 2-day event, including presentations on minerals policy, recycling, environmentally friendly extraction practices, minerals data, dialogues, stakeholder consultations, and others. The last day of this event has been the excursion to the Acroni Jesenice steel plant, the Zelenci springs and Kranjska gora. The proceedings book was prepared and printed. Electronic version is available on the project web-page www.snapsee.eu. The conference conclusions, and report was prepared and sent to the all participants.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 2340693Within the INCOME project (http://www.life-income.si/) the members of the research group Mineral Resources have cooperated with the colleagues hydrogeologists in order to design and build the decision-support system. This system is needed for the management authorities for public water supply in Slovene capital to help them to maintain good status of underground aquifers, which is the main drinking water source for this area. The developed mathematical models helps to select best measures in order to protect underwater resources, especially in the case of contamination event, where best measure means best cost/effects ratio. System also estimated the decrease of the concentration of contaminant after suggested measures are implemented, and prompt the user whether target concentrations are supposed to be reached or not. Such decision support systems contributes to the maintaining of good chemical status of drinking water, while decision support system architecture allows it to be easily transferred to be used for other water protection areas in Slovenia and abroad.
F.17 Transfer of existing technologies, know-how, methods and procedures into practice
COBISS.SI-ID: 37868845The lecture was presented within the 4th cycle of popular astronomy lectures entitled “A walk through the Universe”, which is aimed at learning about the Universe and discovering astronomical sights and was organized by the Slovenian Museum of Natural History and the Portal to the Universe (Slovenian version). The aim of the lecture was to present in a popular manner to a wider audience, meteorites as the oldest material on Earth and the importance of meteorite research for the enrichment of our knowledge of our solar system, celestial bodies, and finally knowledge of the origin of life on Earth.
F.28 Organising an exhibition
COBISS.SI-ID: 2278997The occurrence of mineral resources in Slovenia is closely related to its heterogeneous geological setting. Some of them can be found only locally and are poorly explored, such as a group of common clays - brick clay, ball clay, and fire-clay – which appear in younger stratigraphic units and only in a few places. Nevertheless, their concentration reaches commercial quantities. The advantage of clay exploitation over the exploitation of other mineral resources is that it causes spatial degradation only for a limited period of time. However, clay deposits remain inaccessible for exploitation far too often, mostly due to the prevalence of agriculture, forestry and other forms of land use. For this reason, clay exploitation has been aggravated, which has led to a difficult situation in Slovenia with its characteristic lack of space and insufficient domestic supply of mineral resources. The Monograph is a review of the majority of known clay deposits in Slovenia. It assembles and upgrades the results of the author's own research as well as of previous research of the scientists from the Geological Survey of Slovenia carried out in the field of clays and clay deposits in Slovenia. For that purpose these clay deposits were examined describing common geological characteristics and clay application values, stress on actual exploration and exploitation areas. All essential factors influencing exploration and exploitation are exposed. The book is a compressed presentation of the Slovenian brick and tile market showing possibilities and good practices of remediation and new kinds of land usage in abandoned open pits. Forty-seven Slovenian clay deposits were included in the analysis. Basic mineralogical and grain-size distribution characteristics have been described, defining different application values of clays from different deposits. With the methodological approach to exploration, exploitation and land reclamation in selected mineral deposits, a quantitative contribution to prompt incorporation of mineral deposits into spatial plans has been made. This will lead to optimal land use as well as more profitable exploitation of available mineral resources. By analogue evaluation process also other non-metal deposits could be classified in different value levels referring to their crucial deciding parameters.
F.04 Increase of the technological level
COBISS.SI-ID: 268655616Teaching geological contents in primary as well as secondary schools is carried out mainly under the auspices of geography in Slovenia. Presentation of this extremely broad and interdisciplinary science is therefore curtailed in many ways, often even completely inappropriate. One of the basic weaknesses in the current system of informing young people about Geology is the inappropriateness of cartographic material that was attainable for this purpose. Partly it was too detailed or too simplistic, thereby losing the basic message. This gap was filled by the issuance of a new geological map of Slovenia in the scale of 1: 450 000. This scale still allows displaying some smaller, but important geological phenomena, and at the same time enables picturesque insight into the basic lithological and geotectonic structure of the national territory. The base is therefore here, but the problem "of reading" the map and proper presentation of geological contents to young generations, remains opened.
D.10 Educational activities
COBISS.SI-ID: 274773504