Field Trips

Pre-Con­gress Field Trips

UNESCO World Heritage Site Spiš Castle

We will dis­cov­er mod­ern indus­tri­al oper­a­tions at the mag­nes­ite plant in Jelšava, one of the world’s lead­ing pro­du­cers of mag­nes­ite refract­ory mater­i­als, the Ocht­in­ská Arag­on­ite Cave as a glob­ally unique UNESCO World Her­it­age site and the icon­ic Goth­ic Route of the “Iron Heart of Hun­gary”.

Dur­ing 2 days, we will explore the region.

image: SMZ a.s. Jelšava

Mid-Con­gress Field Trip 1

Central and Eastern Slovak Mine Sites

In Smol­ník (🇦🇹 Schmöllnitz), par­ti­cipants will vis­it one of the most import­ant his­tor­ic­al min­ing sites in Cent­ral Europe. It was here that the cement­a­tion pro­cess for cop­per recov­ery was first described in the 15th cen­tury and later applied on an indus­tri­al scale, influ­en­cing min­ing and metal­lur­gic­al prac­tices across Europe and becom­ing one of the earli­est recor­ded examples of hydro­me­tal­lur­gic­al pro­cessing.

In Nižná Slaná (🇦🇹 Nieder­salz), we can observe the con­nec­tion between min­ing his­tory and present-day envir­on­ment­al chal­lenges. Fol­low­ing the clos­ure of the last oper­at­ing iron ore mine in Slov­akia, mine water has recently re-emerged in the area, cre­at­ing a unique oppor­tun­ity to observe the pro­cesses and chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with mine clos­ure and post-min­ing water man­age­ment.

Mid-Con­gress Field Trip 2

Dubník Opal Mine and Tokaj Region

Vis­it­ors will explore the world’s old­est opal mines in Dub­ník, whose his­tory dates back to pre-Roman times and whose pre­cious opals fas­cin­ated mon­archs, sci­ent­ists, and col­lect­ors for cen­tur­ies.

Then we will exper­i­ence the renowned Tokaj wine region, fam­ous for its cen­tur­ies-old wine­mak­ing tra­di­tion. This par­tic­u­lar wine is spe­cial because of the excep­tion­al meth­od of fer­til­iz­a­tion and plant pro­tec­tion approaches, where min­ing waste is a core for this product.

Mid-Con­gress Field Trip 3

Karst Region of Eastern Slovakia

The field trip will take you to the karst region of east­ern Slov­akia and to Slov­ak UNESCO World Her­it­age Sites.

Post Con­gress Field Trip – Zuz­ana Bártová | tba Euros

Central and Eastern Slovak Mine and UNESCO Sites

We will explore the Cent­ral Slov­aki­an Vol­can­ic Field region with a spe­cial high­light of the Sala­man­der Days cel­eb­ra­tion in Banská Štiavn­ica (🇦🇹 Schemitz) – bring your Min­ing uni­form! It is one of Europe’s most icon­ic min­ing fest­ivals, where his­tor­ic min­ing tra­di­tions come alive in a vibrant parade through the streets of this UNESCO World Her­it­age town.

Known as one of Europe’s most import­ant min­ing centres, Banská Štiavn­ica became a cradle of min­ing innov­a­tion. Here, Samuel Mikovíni designed pion­eer­ing water-man­age­ment sys­tems, while the Hell fam­ily developed revolu­tion­ary machinery that enabled the dewa­ter­ing of deep­er mines and trans­formed min­ing oper­a­tions through­out Europe. It is there that the world’s first met­al pump was found.

Over 3 days, we will explore much more of the region.