From 30 September to 1 October 2024, a scientific conference was held in Belgrade (Serbia) entitled. ‘100 Years of the Paratethys – Conceptual History and Modern Challenges’, organised by the Serbian Geological Society (Srpsko geološko društvo – SGD) under the auspices of the Regional Committee on Mediterranean Neogene Stratigraphy (RCMNS) and the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO).

The conference was attended by nearly 50 participants representing Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Poland. The Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute was represented by Marek Jasionowski, PhD. Other participants from Poland were Prof. Barbara Studencka from the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and Krzysztof Bukowski, PhD, from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. The conference was organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the term Paratethys by Vladimir Laskarev, which is now in common use.

The Paratethys can be defined as a system of pre- and mid-ocean sedimentary basins that formed in the early Oligocene (and developed throughout the Neogene until today) in the area of the northern periphery of the Tethys ocean in association with its disappearance during the Alpine orogenesis.

During one of the paper sessions, PhD Marek Jasionowski from the PGI-NRI, as a representative of a team of authors from Poland and Ukraine, presented a paper on Polish-Ukrainian studies of Upper Baden sediments in Podolia (Ukraine).

W drugim dniu konferencji odbyła się wycieczka geologiczna, podczas której przedstawiono siedem odsłonięć osadów miocenu i pliocenu basenu panońskiego w okolicy Belgradu. Zwieńczeniem wycieczki był późnopopołudniowy rejs po Dunaju, którego głównym celem było 50-metrowej wysokości odsłonięcie plejstoceńskich lessów w klifie na brzegu Dunaju w podbelgradzkiej miejscowości Zemun (obecnie włączona do Belgradu), badane przez Łaskarewa w 1922 r., niedługo po jego przybyciu do Belgradu.

On the second day of the conference, a geological excursion presented seven exposures of Miocene and Pliocene sediments of the Pannonian Basin near Belgrade. The excursion culminated in a late afternoon cruise on the Danube, the main focus of which was a 50-metre-high exposure of Pleistocene loess in a cliff on the Danube bank in the sub-Belgrade village of Zemun (now part of the Belgrade), studied by Laskarev in 1922, shortly after his arrival in Belgrade.

Exposure of Pannonian sands in the village of Zaklopača near Belgrade (photo: Marek Jasionowski)

Exposure of Pleistocene loess in Belgrade's Zemun neighbourhood as seen from a boat on the Danube (photo: Marek Jasionowski)

Read more: https://sgd.rs/100Paratethys/

Text: Marek Jasionowski, Barbara Studencka