1. 12TH CARIBBEAN GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
K. Rodrigues (TRINTOC)
The 12th Caribbean Geological Conference was held in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, August 7th
- 11th, 1989. One hundred and forty two delegates attended including participants from Europe, North America,
South America and the Caribbean.
Over the 5-day period of the conference 104 papers were presented on the following topics: Regional Geology and
Tectonics, Hydrogeology and Geological Hazards, Coastal Environments, Marine Terraces and Sea Level Changes, Palaeontology
and Biostratigraphy, Volcanology, Metallogeny, Petroleum Geology, Sedimentology, Igneous Petrology and
Geochemistry. Six GSTT members (F. Hosein, C. Telemaque, L. Tyson, K. Rodrigues, K. Persad and B. Carr-Brown) presented
papers at this conference.
A. Snoke presented the results of his work on Tobago in an oral presentation entitled "Petrotectonic evolution
of Tobago, West Indies: a fragment of Mesozoic Oceanic island arc terrane" and displayed his new geological
map of Tobago in the poster session.
Pre-and post-conference Field Trips included the Cretaceous of St. Croix, Carbonates of St. Croix and a 3-day field
trip to Puerto Rico.
Twenty-eight papers from the original program had to be cancelled because of 'no shows'. This high percentage
of cancellations was also noticeable at the 11th Caribbean Geological Conference in Barbados in 1986 and the Organising
Committee of these Conferences need to address this problem by ensuring greater commitment from authors who submit
Abstracts.
The Poster Session organised for the Wednesday 5th August afternoon session, a first for the Caribbean Conference,
proved to be highly successful. A video presentation of the 1902 volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelee, put on by Michigan
Technological University, was particularly interesting. It is hoped that poster presentations would become a regular
part of the technical program, in addition to oral presentations, in future conferences.
The aim of these Caribbean Geological Conferences is to present work in Geology and related disciplines that is
relevant to the Caribbean Region, including its borderlands and basins. Considering the limited financial
resources available and the time constraints, the Organising Committee of the 12th Caribbean Geological Conference,
under the chairmanship of Dr. Fred Nagle (University of Miami), must be congratulated on a job well done and for
ensuring the perpetuation of these Conferences.
The Publications Chairman has guaranteed rapid publication of the Transactions of this Conference provided
authors cooperate and submit their papers for publication by October 15th, 1989.
The 13th Caribbean Geological Conference is scheduled for Cuba in 1992, with the Cayman Islands as the alternate.
Two interesting abstracts by John Saunders and Fred Nagle from this Conference are reproduced here for the benefit
of GSTT members.
THE CARIBBEAN GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCES PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE - IDEAS AND PERSONALITIES
SAUNDERS, J.B., Natural History Museum, Basel, Switzerland.
The Caribbean Geological Conferences began in 1955 in Antigua with a meeting of only 37 delegates who attended
as representatives mainly from the British territories. The series has run without break since then with a three-year
interval between meetings. The second gathering was held in Puerto Rico with till only 55 delegates. From then
onwards, the conferences have been widely advertised and have attracted a broad spectrum of Caribbean geologists
and kindred spirits.Conferences today can expect anything up to 200 delegates.
Right from the start, the series has been supported by workers domiciled in the region together with interested
participants from further afield who did much, particularly in the early days, to make the connection with academic
institutions in North America and Europe. One thinks immediately of Harry Hess from Princeton who had so many students
writing theses in the region that, in those heady days, no rum Shop from St. Croix to Barquisimeto via Mayaguez
was safe from them. Now these students have sent their students who are busy trying to overturn the work of their
own masters no doubt.
If the actors have changed, so has the geology - or at least the interpretation of it. At the time of the first
meeting the physicists were still telling us there was no way that they would sanction crust sliding about in such
a cavalier fashion as the drifters wanted. There was thus still some surreptitious use of land bridges by harassed
stratigraphers and palaeontologists.
It was lust at the time of the Third Conference in 1962 that the hypothesis of sea floor spreading was first being
voiced. In fact, Professor Hess excused his absence from the Fourth Conference because he had to go to Europe to
defend his ideas which were still treated with caution if not with disdain by some.
So, the Atlantic was finally opened with some panache, or at least the north and south. but what of the middle?
what should be done with the Caribbean? The results from Leg 15 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project were reported
at the Sixth Conference in 1971 and this gave the first direct evidence of what lay beneath, or at least, what
lay at the top of what lay beneath. At the same conference we were given the first plate model for the development
of the Caribbean. This was hot off the press and was to be followed by many others.
Today we know everything, of course. But do we? Perhaps we should go on for a while longer to clean up a few of
the new problems that the old answers have created. Where better than at a Caribbean Geological Conference within
reach of the sharp tongues of our peers.
FORENSIC GEOLOGY : NEW APPLICATIONS FOR STANDARD PROCEDURES
NAGLE, Frederick, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami, Florida.
Two recent Court cases involved the theft of cargo and the substitution of sand for the original cargo. In the
first case a "piggy-back" cargo container arrived in Miami having traveled by truck from Paraguay to
Santos, Brazil and then by freighter to several ports in Brazil and on to Miami. When the container arrived in
Miami it was sealed and its papers were in order, the weight having been checked several times enroute. When the
container was opened, however, the original cargo was seen to have been replaced by sand. One of several insurance
companies was liable but the problem was which one? The question was, where had the switch taken place?
In the second case, a cargo container arrived in Argentina having been shipped from Miami, and again the original
cargo had been replaced by sand either in the Miami area or in and around Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was important
to the court in Argentina to know whether the switch was done in Miami or Buenos Aires, In both cases, since the
tonnage of sand involved was fairly large, the assumption was made that the sand was taken from a local source
near where the switch had taken place. Therefore the problem was to fingerprint these sands and tie them to some
local source. The easiest way to do this, it seemed to me, was to do a provenance study by standard grain size
analysis and thin section studies and then to try to match the sands to samples in the field. Some likely source
areas were selected and others eliminated by studying the route of cargo travel on geologic maps and reference
sand samples in the extensive collection at the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami and samples
from the collections of Dr. Paul Potter at the University of Cincinnati. Both cases were settled on the basis of
these studies.
2. 28TH INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS
J. Beard (TRINTOPEC)
The International Geological Congress (IGC) has its origins in the year 1875, when its Founding Committee recognised
the need and importance of fostering and promoting international communication between geoscientists, The Congress,
held every four years, has adequately fulfilled this need and has developed into the largest and most important
international event for all geoscientists. The IGC was last held in 1984 in Moscow and was last held in the United
States in 1933.
This year I was afforded the opportunity of attending the 28th International Geological Congress held in Washington
D.C., U.S.A. from July 09 to 19. This session provided an important forum for some 6,000 professional geoscientists
from over 100 countries to meet, exchange ideas and present results of research programs in all aspects of the
Earth Sciences.
Selection of the United States as host of the 28th Congress was also significant as it was only the fourth time
since its inception in 1875 that a session of the Congress was convened in the Western Hemisphere.
The program of the 28th. Congress was structured to accommodate a wide variety of interests, and this was accomplished
by means of the following:
Technical Sessions In excess of 3,000 scientific and technical papers covering a broad spectrum of geological
topics in geology, geochemistry, geophysics and other earth sciences were presented. Research results discussed
included the latest leading edge studies in such diverse fields as energy resources, mineral resources,
earth hazards, palaeoclimate, coastal erosion and waste management.
Three sessions allocated to Caribbean Geology and Tectonics provided some insight into current geological research
in the Caribbean area. The work of a number of prominent earth scientists were featured. R.C. Speed presented a
paper on the Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of South East Caribbean. Another presenter, A. Mascle, postulated
that the present configuration of the Southeastern Caribbean corner was due to an active triple junction in
the vicinity of Trinidad in the Tertiary.
Other interesting papers were delivered by J. Carnevalli in the sessions on 'Frontiers in Petroleum Exploration'.
Carnevalli spoke on the major oil finds of El Furrial and El Canto in East Venezuela. He suggested that Mountain
Front areas, although geologically complex, remain a very worthwhile target area for petroleum exploration. Also
mentioned was the
fact that the East Venezuelan Basin is the most prolific and prospective hydrocarbon producing province of the
sub-Andean region, and its systematic exploration could lead to additional giant oil finds.
During the session on 'The Origin of Significant Oil and Gas Fields of the World', K. Persad of Trinidad
co-authored and presented a paper on the Forest Reserve Field, The structure, stratigraphy and production history
of the Forest Reserve Field was discussed.
At times it was difficult choosing topics, as there were 20 to 25 technical presentations being delivered concurrently,
each equally interesting and important.
Poster Sessions: These have become an integral part of geological conferences and a wide variety of poster exhibits
were on display. The poster sessions complemented the technical sessions and were run concurrently. Approximately
40 exhibits were displayed during each poster session. Major work displayed included research in Hydrogeology,
tectonic styles of thrust belts, tectonic framework of North America, problems in engineering geology.
Films: Informative and very topical geological films were run continuously throughout each day of the Congress.
Several films were viewed but of particular interest was R.J. Weimer's 'Sequence Stratigraphy which highlighted
and demonstrated important sequence stratigraphic concepts in outcrops of the Western Interior Cretaceous Basin
of the United States.
Exhibits: The 28th IGC featured a trade fair which was supported by major earth science related industries, scientific
and professional societies, academic institutions etc. A wide range of products were on display. There was the
opportunity to examine new open hole logging tools and to discuss log digitizing and other computer related topics
with several exhibitors.
Field Trips : There was an extensive field trip program which covered many topics in all geologic provinces of
the United States.
Short Courses: Several short courses were available during the Congress including a very informative one day
course entitled 'Application of Personal Computers to Geology'. It afforded hands-on experience in the use of
the computer in drafting geologic maps and incorporated the use of high precision digitizers.
The 28th IGC was a most educational and informative exposition. However, it is regrettable that more Trinidad and
Caribbean geoscientists were not present. Many of the problems and
solutions discussed at this Congress are applicable and relevant to our countries, for example the techniques for
exploitation of our natural resources, erosion of our coastlines, landslips, and other geological hazards of the
region. We did not take advantage of this important forum although it was convened relatively close to the
Caribbean. We must now wait for the 29th session of the International Geological Congress which is carded for Kyoto,
Japan in 1992, from August 24 to September 3.
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