Now, in May there is an exact five-year anniversary of the first international field event organized by the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań Student Chapter of AAPG (Poland), which took part in May 2015. During the following years, this initiative transformed into the strict and fruitful cooperation of several AAPG student chapters from Central and Eastern Europe, namely from Bucharest (Romania), Kiev (Ukraine) and Sophia (Bulgaria). As an effect since this time, the series of six international events has been organized. None of these field camps and field trips was restricted to a small group of students. The bulk, summed up number of participants of all the six events exceeds two hundred (205 persons). Each time, the number of participants was ca. 30-40, while their affiliations were not constrained to the above-mentioned chapters. Among the participants, there were also students from nine other AAPG chapters in Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and United Kingdom. In terms of nationalities, the field trips included also people from Brasil, Colombia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
All these events were located within the specific large area in Europe, which is very special from the point of view of hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, i.e. in the Carpathians and at the Black Sea coast. The chapters from Bucharest (IV 2016), Kiev (VI 2018) and Sophia (IV 2018) organized their own fantastic events in their countries (dates in brackets), while the Poznań SC was responsible for three field trips in Poland (V 2015, IV 2017, V 2019).
The reported events have been a big challenge for the students engaged in their successful organization. Their efforts resulted in wide and diverse experiences connected with a delicate matters of logistics, economy, marketing, etc. During these five years several tens of students had the chance to try their possibilities and to develop their organizational skills. Besides, it must be stressed, that these events could not have been realized without the engagement of the faculty advisors, who in many cases were also the main field guides and instructors. Prof. Relu Roban from the University of Bucharest, Prof. George Ajdanlijsky from the University of Mining and Geology „St. Ivan Rilski” and Prof. Ivan Virshylo from the Taras Shevchenko National UniversityofKyiv were the supervisors, but they also played major roles in organization of the specific field-trips. Thank you! The relevant financial help from the side of the AAPG, especially in case of two first events, which were co-funded by the AAPG Europe needs also to be acknowledged. Also in the next years, the LA Weeks Student Chapter grants were a helpful contribution for the budgets.
We would like to strongly stress that, as it was in case of the previous events, we are widely open for the participation and collaboration of the students from the other European and worldwide AAPG chapters! We invite all to join our initiative, now based mainly on the cooperation of four universities from four CE-European countries.
The lesson learned is that the common, international initiatives, which are open for high number of participants are a fantastic occasion to learn geology across borders, to invest in students’ competences, skills and knowledge, but also to start new friendships and to understand better each other.
We kindly thank all the students and advisors from Bucharest, Kiev and Sophia AAPG chapters, with whom we have had a privilege to cooperate so far, as well as we express our acknowledgments to all the other participants of the common events described above. All of you are our friends! It is thanks to every single person who was included. It is because of you that our memories are so fond, and our will to continue is so strong!
See you next time in the field!
