Jahresrückblick 2020 des Arbeitskeises GeoMUWA

The year 2020 was a special one due to the corona pandemic with enforced restriction of social contacts that hampered also the work of our AK GeoMUWA. Nevertheless, some activities were successfully carried out, and that

–   the symposium “Klimawandel – Anzeichen, Ursachen, Folgen”, held as usual on February 13 still before the pandemic outbreak partly documented in Sitzungsberichte der Leibniz-Sozietät Band 144

–    the Plenary Session on December 10 with the online presentation “Die Ziele der Vereinten Nationen zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung bis 2030 und der Rohstoffabbau – ein Gegensatz?” by Prof.Prof. e. h. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Carsten Drebenstedt (TU Bergakademie Freiberg). The zoom conference was well attended (60 attendees). The video recording of this presentation is available on the website of the Leibniz Society.

–   the participation in the Colloquium on September 10 in honour of some members of our Society (H. O. Dill, P. Knoll, H. Laitko, D. Linke), where Dipl.-Ing. Hans-Jürgen Kallwang (Saarbrücken) presented “Grubengasproduktion und -verwertung im Saarland vor dem Hintergrund der Energiewende” on the occasion of our member Peter Knoll’s 80th birthday.

Planned was also the Raumfahrthistorisches Kolloquium 2020 on November 7, 2020 with the participation of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt – Lilienthal-Oberth e. V. (DGLR), Deutsches Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), and Stiftung Planetarium Berlin (Archenhold Sternwarte) but postponed to next year.

There were some relevant commemoration days this year announced on the website of the Leibniz Society, and that
the 1st anniversary of the death of Sigmund Jähn, the 100st birthday of Ernst August Lauter, and the 80st birthday of Peter Knoll.
We are pleased about the selection of Prof. Dr. Markku Poutainen from the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute as a new member of the Leibniz Society this year.
And we are sad to have lost Eric Grafarend, an active member of our society, called from his colleagues as “a lighthouse of modern geodesy”.

What are the next plans?
We already announced the symposium „Zur Kopplung von Erd- und Weltraumwetter“ in memoriam of Ernst August Lauter on February 12, 2021 as an online meeting on our website.
We hope that the Space Flight Historical Colloquium will be held next year at the Archenhold-Sternwarte in Berlin.
But it seems to be no virtue in organizing the planned symposium “Geology of Eurasia II” as an online meeting next year. Thus it will be postponed to 2022.
We hope to get Joszef Adam (Budapest) and Carsten Drebenstedt (Freiberg) as new members of our society and thus active members of GeoMUWA.

Dietrich Spänkuch, speaker of AK GeoMUWA