Mapping Course Pyrenees

The structural geological mapping takes place every two years in August in the Pyrenees at Pedraforca, a 2,500 m high mountain in the Pre-Pyrenees, south of the Serra del Cadí in the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park. The present shape of the "rock fork" is the result of complex tectonic structures. The areas of about 10 km², each to be recorded by groups of two, are only part of a large structure, which only becomes apparent when the individual map sheets are put together. This results in the necessity to be in exchange with the other mapping groups, which happens by itself in the evening in the hostel, an old converted mill on the outskirts of Gosol with the Catalan hospitality by Roger.

In the mapping area, field PCs will allow you to combine modern mapping and recording methods. Aerial photographs and drone footage will be blended with other layers of data in geographic information systems to support field surveys. You will be expected to correctly interpret and evaluate the natural region around Pedraforca with its complex structures through detailed field reconnaissance and recording of relevant observations. By working together on profiles that run across each area, you will reconstruct the blanket structure, stratigraphic inversion, and history of syn- and post-tectonic conglomerates and breccias. And at the right outcrop, you will witness a global killer, dinosaur tracks still on the left, the iridium band in front of you, and Cenozoic lake sediments on the right. You will summarize your observations and interpretations in a mapping report, with emphasis on deformation-related structures, geodynamic interpretations, and evaluation of the relationships between tectonics, climate, environment, and surface processes.