Scientific mission
The department is active in field of dynamic and environmental sedimentology, facial analysis and integrated stratigraphic research. It is performed by developing of standard courses of sedimentological study of deep-water turbidite basins, shallow-marine and transitional sedimentary systems of the molasse basins, hemipelagic basins and carbonate platforms, long-lived lakes, rivers and alluvial fans. The research is carried out by study of sedimentary textures, flow hydrodynamics, lithology nad petrofacial composition of clastics, trace fossils and ichnofacies, planktic and benthic components of microfauna, marine and freshwater meifauna, microfacial composition of reef-building organisms and diagenetic recrystallization of carbonates, isotopic composition, lithogeochemistry and clay mineralogy of sediments, and so on. Research data are interpreted in terms of bathymetry and hydrography of the basins, paleocurrent systems and sedimentary architecture of the basins, eustatic sea-level changes and sequence stratigraphy of sedimentary formations, activity and composition of basinal sources, accommodation of the basins and their subsidence history.
Analysis of sedimentary basins is combined with stratigraphic research, which provides the data for dating of the sedimentary record. It is implemented by study of the stratotype sections of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations of the Western Carpathians, which allows to determine the age and stratigraphic boundaries related to geologic time scale. Age determination of the stratigraphic formations is based on the findings of index species of microfauna and calcareous nannofossils, ammonites, brachiopod and bivalve fauna, and other stratigraphically important groups of fossil organisms. Application of high-resolution stratigraphy in study of the formations makes possible to define and correlate the events of extincition and morphogenesis of the species, blooms of bioproductivity, orbital cycles and sequences, paleoclimatic changes, global ocean anoxic events (T-OAE, chalk OAE-1,2, 3), carbonate platform demise events, volcaniclastic and impact events, and another stratigraphic records.
The integrating approach of sedimentological and stratigraphic research provides a synthesis of paleogeographic, paleoclimatologic, paleoceanographic and geotectonic evolution of Mesozoic and Cenozoic basins of the Western Carpathians.
Staff
- Head of department:
doc. RNDr. Ján Soták, DrSc.
- Staff:
RNDr. Silvia Antolíková, PhD.
Dr. Radovan Kyška-Pipík, PhD.
doc. RNDr. Jozef Michalík, DrSc.
Mgr. Vladimír Šimo, PhD.
doc. RNDr. Ján Soták, DrSc.
Mgr. Dušan Starek, PhD.
Mgr. Adam Tomašových, DrSc.
Mgr. Marek Vďačný, PhD.
Mgr. Peter Vršanský, PhD.