The first international field workshop “DIG – 1st Workshop on Dinaric Glaciation: Early/Middle Pleistocene glaciations of NE Mediterranean – filling the gaps in reconstructing its geological history and climate change” was held in May 2013 as part of the Croatian National INQUA Committee activities, and with financial support of “INQUA Skills Enhancement Grant” (2500€), the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport, the Department of Geology of the Faculty of Science (Uni. Zagreb) and Public Institution Paklenica National Park. Ljerka Marjanac (Institute of Quaternary Paleontology and Geology, CASA, Zagreb) and Tihomir Marjanac (Geology Dept., Faculty of Science, Uni. Zagreb) authored and led the Workshop and authored the “Workshop Field Guidebook”. There were 11 participants from four different countries (Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia and Croatia). The four-day programme included four lectures about key-sites, field work and evening discussions including additional presentations, which fostered collaboration in further research.

   The goals of the first DIG Workshop were establishment of an international focus group for Dinaric glaciations within the scope of INQUA Commission on Stratigraphy, organization of annual or biannual workshops in the following years with aim to gather young researcher to work on the topics, to prepare international research project, preparation of the summer school programme on glaciations in the Mediterranean. Following the goals, the second DIG Workshop took place in 2014.

    The »DIG – 2nd Workshop on Dinaric Glaciation: Early/Middle Pleistocene glaciations of NE Mediterranean – filling the gaps. Focus on glacials and interglacials of Northern Dalmatia.« was again financially supported by INQUA and also the Foundation of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and authored and led by Ljerka Marjanac (CASA) and Tihomir Marjanac (Uni. Zagreb). The workshop was held in two terms, the first in May and the second in October 2014. The grant supported 9 students and early carrier researchers to participate in the workshop, besides the participation of five senior scientists from Norway, Poland and the Netherlands.

    Fostering the aims listed below, the third workshop DIG-3 took place in Starigrad-Paklenica in September 2016. An additional goal was to communicate conservation and public presentation of the very vulnerable geological heritage of past glacials, in other words, unique glacigenic sediment remnants in the Maritime (External) Dinarides. The framework discussed during DIG workshop has been presented by workshop leaders at the international ProGEO symposium in Ljubljana 2008, Slovenia.

     The DIG - 4th Workshop moved to Krk Island in order to show other glacial features not preserved in the formerly visited region. Unique key-locations shown were kame-terrace deposits of Baška Valley and Zarok complex with glacifluvial deposits.

 

Aims:

• Organize annual or biannual workshops

• Encourage young researchers to choose these topics as their research focus

• Accomplish skills and competences

• Preparation of summer school on sedimentology on glacigenic palaeoenvironments in karst regions

• Conservation and presentation of glacial geological heritage