The 88th Congresso della Societa Geologica Italiana is the annual meeting of the Italian Geological Society, which took place in Naples at the University of Naples Federico II this year. The overarching theme of the conference was: “Geosciences on a changing planet: learning from the past, exploring the future”. Within the session “Tephras and cryptotephras in Quaternary sciences” we presented parts of our established results, which had been published this year, as well as new results on volcanic activity during the last one million years. Since most of the volcanic ashes we find in Lake Ohrid derives from Italian volcanoes, the conference was an excellence possibility to get in contact with the Italian scientists working on Italian volcanoes. I could meet other scientists working on other important tephra archives in the Mediterranean area and the discussions with them offered a great input of new ideas. I could also get an overview of potential (new) archives, which might be important for my work on the Lake Ohrid record.
The broad spectrum of sessions of different disciplines during the SGI was a great occasion to inform myself not only about my specific topic, but also to get a good overview and an update of new and ongoing projects and work in the Mediterranean area. Furthermore, it was a great opportunity to meet existing collaboration partners in person and maintain and enhance these cooperation. Hence, I would like to thank the GSGS for funding my participation at the SGI 2016 in Naples.

Niklas Leicher
PhD-student

Institute of Geology and Mineralogy

Tephrostratigraphy of Lake Ohrid, ICDP project: SCOPSCO http://www.ohrid-drilling.org/
Title: Tephrostratigraphy of the DEEP site record, Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania),
Rend. Online Soc. Geol. It., Suppl. n. 1 al Vol. 40 (2016)