The Earth Science Institute SAS participated in the event 10th European Researchers’ Night in two Slovak cities (Bratislava and Banská Bystrica) on September 30, 2016. Geologists presented their results in four scientific stands. There was great and unceasing interest in the stands, which confirmed the public attention to geological sciences.
In Stará tržnica, Bratislava, the ESI SAS was represented by three stands: “Why the volcano does erupt molten lava?”, “The journey to the Earth past”, and “Make your own earthquake”.
There is no question that the smoke-emitting model of volcano, which was a part of the presentation entitled: “Why the volcano does erupt molten lava?”, was ranked among the greatest attractions of the campaign. Through the professional explanation of scientists, adult and child visitors could have learnt the answers not only about that but also about other questions concerning volcanoes and their activity. Also, exemplars of volcanic rocks from Slovakia and all over the world as well as thin sections of volcanic rocks, which visitors could have seen under a binocular microscope, were available.
Visitors viewed a lot of fossils from various periods of the Earth history in the stand entitled “The journey to the Earth past”. There was mainly great interest in looking over different fossils, preparations, and outwashes under two binocular microscopes.
The stand entitled “Make your own earthquake” was focused on a demonstrative explanation of a destructive natural phenomenon, the earthquake. Visitors could have viewed concrete models, experiments, and animations explaining these interesting phenomena associated with earthquakes. Moreover, they could have listened the sounds of Earth. The possibility to make their own earthquake was the greatest attraction of the stand.
Ján Madarás, Dušan Starek, Silvia Ozdínová, Katarína Gregorová, Kamil Fekete, and Jakub Urblík from the Geological Division and Lucia Fojtková, Miriam Kristeková, Jozef Kristek, Andrej Cipciar, Kristián Csicsay, and Zuzana Margočová from the Geophysical Division presented their knowledge in the aforementioned scientific stands.
In Banská Bystrica, results were presented by scientists and PhD students of the Earth Science Institute SAS in a co-operation with the Central Slovakia Museum — Tihányis’ Manor House.
In the stand entitled “Ice Age”, we brought information about ice ages and animals that lived at that time to the broad public. Exhibited items were findings of Quaternary animal fossils, among which the mammoth tooth and the brown-bear skull achieved the greatest success. Cave decoration exemplified on the Zlomísk Cave in the Nízke Tatry Mts., which was destroyed during ice ages, was a part of the exposition apart from the fossil bones. Demonstration of imaging and survey of the glacilacustrine deposits of the Batizovské Pleso Tarn and the Velické Pleso Tarn in the Vysoké Tatry Mts., using a paleolimnological swimming platform and sonar, was presented as well.
Another great eye-catcher of the stand was the 120 cm-tall exhibit of a young mammoth borrowed from the Slovak National Museum, which attracted attention of adult and child visitors already from a far distance. Likewise, we aimed to bring closer the world under a microscope, which largely took attention of the younger generation — in detail they admired bones and teeth of Quaternary rodents from the Borinský Karst and discovered the beauty of structures of azurite, pseudomalachite, garnets and polished sections of dropstones that displayed growth zones.
The exposition was created and presented to the public by Ľubica Luhová, Hana Demeterová, Jana Rigová, Zuzana Pulišová, Stanislava Milovská, Rastislav Milovský, Csaba Tóth, and Adrián Biroň.
Text: Silvia Ozdínová, Radovan Pipík
Translated by Marek Vďačný