22/09/2008 Greece: The Last Trip

Today, myself and Annie tried a double act with 22 students from the Universität zu Köln. They picked us up in their bus from Grevena, and we spent the day passing through our usual route in the Vourinos, with a couple of stops along the Pelagonian margin. Apparently the students had been drinking heavily in Kozani the night before, and had got into a fight, so they all looked pretty tired.

I'm not sure whether it was typical of these university students, but very few of them appeared actually engaged - I was surprised by how different they were to the average Cambridge Earth Sciences student. Eventually mine and Annie's enthusiasm, and the quality of the stops rubbed off on them, and by the last stop (the Langadakia Sheeted Dykes, which I took and explained on my own) most of them seemed to have warmed to the Vourinos. We were applauded off the bus back in Grevena, in spite of none of us having any food all day (both myself and Annie were very glad we'd bought Bougatsa (Greek Μπουγάτσα, Turkish boğaça) before we left.

It was very cold that night, dropping to about 6 degrees. An amazing difference to when I had arrived in Greece (39 degrees). Easily solved though - we soon used up a bucket of kindling to make a fire.

20/09/2008 Greece: The Symposium Ends

Well, I have a cold, and I'm utterly exhausted, and yet I'm still up at 11:57 thinking about the past week. It has been absolutely incredible - hectic yet hilarious, exhilating and exhausting - and I had my fair share of work to do. But it paid off, I think almost everyone (if not everyone) enjoyed themselves, and we got to give everyone at least a small taste of Geology geology and life. I really hope I'll see the participants again - and some in particular. Maybe we'll meet again in Turkey...

Today was the day for goodbyes. Most left from Alatopetra first thing, and the last dregs of us returned to the Vourinos to see the crustal magma chamber at Asprokambos again. Yilderim, Emily, Kosta and Vagelis left from Athens after this, and, after two more stops, the rest of us had lunch in Siatista, in an amazing old mansion. A beautiful end to an amazing experience.

19/09/2008 Greece: The Pindos Ophiolite

MY day! Or at least one of the stops! We left Aiani and Chromion this morning, to travel to the Pindos. Our first stop, to see the Mesohellenic Boundary Fault, was followed by a stop at the Avdella Melange (a chance for Dina to pose).


The third stop of the day was the Liagkouna Sole, giving me a chance to shock and amaze with the thermobarometric estimates from my thesis.

After this, we continued up into the high Pindos, towards Valia Kalda and Dramala, and up on to Spanou Springs, where incipient mantle melting features can be seen in narrow dunite layers. These are apparently very rare in the Pindos, and I imagine elsewhere in the world too.

18/09/2008 Greece: Vourinos II, The Return

Definitely our day. Only four stops, to the Garnet Amphibolite above the Chromion Museum, Xerolivado, the sole in the Zavordhas region, and the footbridge section in the Aliakmon River Valley.

Most people enjoyed the sole above Chromion, although some complained that the garnets weren't large enough. Just can't please some people. The rest of the day went pretty much without a hitch, although it was well after 4 by the time we got lunch. But what a lunch.

The Zavordhas Guesthouse, only about 10 minutes from the footbridge was a welcome site for our tired eyes (and my tired feet, or at least it would have been if my feet had eyes). Two cars sat with their bonnets open and two wires trailing from the battery. These were attached to two motors, in turn attached to two spits on which turned two whole lambs (prepared by our wonderful hosts at Chromion, Yianni and Lola). Salads, chicken wings, wine and tsipouro completed the ensemble, and much fun was had by all.

There was no need for dinner back at Chromion, so Annie had organised sweets from Zoom - huge baklava and icecream cake for everyone. It was too much sugar for me, and I forwarded the slides for the talks with more than a little lethargy creeping into my veins.

17/09/2008 Greece: The Vourinos Ophiolite

Today was the first of 'our' days. We started at the fresh harzburgites of Doumaraki, before moving on to the Aetoraches Mine (pictured), to see the 'crescumulate' structures in the chromite of the shallow mantle sequence.

Myself and Dina then took most of the party up to see the Moho. Arjan walked the other side of the road, up the crustal sequence, whilst we showed the group the overturned Moho, with harzburgites of the mantle above and to the east, and cumulate dunite to the west.

The laterites and Pilori Cumulates were next (proto-arc clearly evidenced by wehrlites, dunites and pyroxenites in a thick cumulate pile). After this, we saw the Calpionellid limestones with belemnites, resting unconformably below Cretaceous limestones, on the ophiolitic pillows and dykes. The last stop of the day, the Langadakia Sheeted Dykes, are only about 300m down the road, so I decided to run there whilst everyone else took the cars. At speed (about 25kph). Running was fine, but slowing down took about a square inch off each of my feet. I limped to the outcrop, and, because Annie couldn't get down to the site, gave the spiel to the arriving masses.

Our talks that evening were given over dinner in Chromion by the German Terrain bunch, who seemed very (overly?) keen on double intraoceanic subduction zones, and inception of subduction caused by rifting. Not sure how this is meant to happen, but... well. Thomas Reischman was subject to a minor outburst from me at the end of his talk. I apologised later - but tiredness limits the length of my tether...!

16/09/2008 Greece: The Pelagonian Margin

We left the Arsenis this morning at around 9am, to make our trek along the Pelagonian margin to the North.

It was a day of heated discussion overall... the first stop of the day was at some sheared orthogneisses, dated at 700Ma by Anders et al. (2006), including Dimitri Kostopoulos. Migmatites can be found just round the corner, but these, although on the road, are in an inconvenient place for the bus to stop.

Anyway, the next stop was at a highly sheared outcrop, probably of orthogneiss, very close to a large fault myself and Dina mapped in the summer. The material had plenty of amphibolite, which the germans claimed was orthogneiss affected and completed replaced by fluid flow. Dubious is not the word for my feelings on this matter. After that, however, the germans (who have done some geochemical work in the area) insisted that pretty much every outcrop we saw on the way, and up, Vourinos was sheared orthogneiss.
Sheared the rocks are, but at the third stop the rocks contained significant amounts of graphite (and elsewhere a coal layer has been found) and sandstone pebbles (not to be confused with hydrothermal quartz). Not to mention the fact that the area is kilometers thick, and I can't see a way of the whole place being sheared to the extent that it looks like a sedimentary rock. Meh - maybe I'm wrong, who knows?

Up Vourinos, everyone was fascinated by the view out over the range, and the 'wormy' landscape below caused by incision of streams into landslide material
(studied by Thomas Reinsch in 2007).

We had our evening talks (Annie, Yilderim, Alastair and Zvi) in Lakis restaurant in Paliouria (the petrol station one). Afterwards, we had a fantastic meal, followed by traditional bazouki music (with some Pontik rhythms) and dancing. Dragan and Alastair were particular favourites for the dancing - they should both have won awards! Of course, Dragan's photo-taking - especially of Dina and Emily - was a little disturbing, but we'll let him off! I also failed to find Kosta and family, and met Georgios (who looks very well now, and misses us all, especially Annalisa).

The convoy left for Chromion and Aiani quite late, but we were all in high spirits. So much, in fact, that Dina and Annie took my rucksack with them to the Chromion Museum of the Macedonian Struggle (whilst I was meant to go to Aiani). So distracted by this was I, that I left my other bag on the bus. And so, immediately after arriving at our hotel Kosta (Kidonaki) took me back to the museum. We arrived back late, and I collapsed, falling into a deep sleep.

15/09/2008 Greece: Koziakas

Well, nothing much has happened for the last two days. On the 13th, we drove down to Kalampaka and met the early arrivals. We had a late lunch in the center of town, on one of the plateias. Zvi Garfunkel and Minella Shallo (from Israel and Albania respectively) ate with us, and, after Emily Davis (Fresno) arrived, we returned to the hotel.

The following morning, whilst most of us awaited the arrival of the other symposium members, Dina took the advance party up to Meteora. Note to self: must make my way up to St Stephens
Nunnery at some stage - they make good souvenirs (of higher quality than the komboloi given us by Kosta, our host, at the Arsenis Hotel). In the evening, Alan, Yilderim and Alastair gave their first talks over drinks, after which we went out for food at the Hotel Kosta Famissi in Kalampaka. There are three Famissi hotels in Kalampaka - unfortunately myself, Agni and two of the other symposium members (who arrived during the talks that evening) managed to find the wrong one (the Eden, which is much more tasteful than the one we were aiming for - there's only so many statues of people in various states of undress that I can take!

Anyway, today we made our first official trip of the symposium. The Koziakas mountain range is a stack of nappes, the most obvious feature of which is a Jurassic tectonically disrupted ophiolite complex, 'smooshed' (Annie's word, not mine) against Cretaceous carbonates.

The first picture is of the 'Steinman Trinity' outcrop, where there are exposed, from left to right, serpentines, lavas and ribbon cherts. The second was taken at a cafe after our third stop. The guy about to lay his losing domino was very happy with me taking pictures. I think they spend a lot of time here - there doesn't seem to be much else to do. And yet, importantly, there is no violence here, no vandalism, and no binge drinking or rioting amongst the young folk. So no more 'our kid is alright, he's just bored' nonsense, huh? Let's become a little more like the Greeks!

This evening, Patrick Boyde gave a fantastic talk entitled 'Pangeia in Dante'. I think some of Dante's ideas on obduction were less crazy than a few of the others we heard about in later talks! Overall, the talks went on a little too long, and by the end (around 10pm) we were all pretty knackered. One of the local restaurants in Kalambaka was the location for our dinner in the evening... but not before Kosta had convinced us to clear up the reception after the talks (precipitating a minor nervous breakdown from Anna). On our return, we set about packing for the following day.

13/09/2008 Greece: The Symposium Begins

Well, last night I stayed out with Yilderim (after Annie had left from our dinner of Κοκορέτσι on the plateia), Anna Batsi and Kelly (Dina's boss at the Φροντιστεριον, a private school where students go to learn more after their ludicrously short school days of four and a half hours). We talked about pretty much everything Greek, especially politics and how Northern Greece actually survives (most people here have government jobs, so the answer here is the EU). Kelly (an Australian Greek) seems to be very well connected - which is a great thing for Annie, but not so good for me (I got my hair ruffled by the Prime Minister's right-hand-man, the Minister for Development in Greece).

Anyway, today we're heading off to the Symposium, which starts properly tomorrow. Whilst most people who aren't geologists will think of this as a serious scientific meeting, I think it's best to point out the Ancient Greek root for the word.

Symposium: A drinking party in ancient Greece, usually with music and philosophical conversation (from the Greek συμποτές "drinker with another").

I hope nothing changes!

12/09/2008 Greece: The Adventure Begins

Well, I arrived in Greece on the 8th of September, and, having been travelling since 10:30 on the 7th finally arrived in Grevena (Γρεβενά) at around 16:30 local time. 28 hours journeying and I was quite ready to nap! A pleasant evening was then had with Annie, Dina and Babi at the pizza place on the Plateia, before bed.

On the 9th, we decided to visit the Asprokambos (Ασπροκαμβός) magma chamber. My only geological excursion so far, actually, apart from visits to ΙΓΜΕ to make final preparations for the symposium, to start tomorrow in Kalambaka (Καλαμβάκα), near Meteora (Μετεόρα).

Anyway, the magma chamber. I think I'll leave the photos to speak for themselves - but with magmatic shear along normal slip systems, and at least one roof pendant within a system of layered basics and felsics, I don't think I could have wanted for much more. As dictated by tradition, we then had lunch at the Μακεδονικών.

Yilderim Dilek arrived yesterday, so we went out to the fish restaurant on the Plateia, but apart from that, things have been pretty quiet. Tomorrow things should start getting more interesting though - in total, we have around 57 participants in the conference (not including spouses/friends), from the US, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Roumania. Serbia, Turkey, Israel and, of course, Greece.