Sunday, June 7, 2009

Dr. Font travels to Europe

Dr. Robert G. Font, one-time student at Baylor and then a professor here, traveled to Ireland late in May to represent AIPG at the annual meeting of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG). He has done so for the past thirteen years and was national AIPG president in 2005.

The meeting is always held in a different part of Europe. This year, it took place in Dublin, Ireland. Among the countries present were Spain, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belgium, Finland, Irleand, Sweden, The Russian Federation, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Italy and others, in addition to Canada and the USA. Robert's role this year was to wrap-up the comments on the 3IPGC (Third International Professional Geolog Conference) held in Flagstaff in 2008 (of which he was the General Chairman) and to promote the 4IPGC in Canada in 2012. Since he had formally invited our Canadian colleagues to host the next one, they were quite appreciative that Robert was there promoting support for it.



Included pictures are from the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, known for the fantastic exposures of its columnar basalt. In the photo above, Robert is standing on top of a heap of this basalt, along with the current President of the AIPG, John Bognar (2009) wearing the Oakland A's jersey, and Bill Siok, AIPG's Executive Director. In the picture below, taken by John Bognar, Robert is standing in front of a series of tilted, fractured and overall impressive basaltic columns.