Welcome
Invitation
On behalf of Swiss applied geophysicists, I am pleased to invite you to Near Surface 2010, the 16th European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics to take place in Zurich on 6 – 8 September 2010.
The conference will be held in the main building of ETH, which was built in the 1860's based on a design by the famous ETH Professor of Architecture, Gottfried Semper. This classic building overlooks the fashionable city of Zurich with its breathtaking views of the Swiss Alps. Numerous high quality bars, cafés, restaurants, discos and nightclubs can be found throughout the city. The pleasant ambience of central Zurich is enhanced by pedestrian-only streets and cobblestone alleys on either side of the picturesque Limmat River. For those conference participants and spouses who are interested in hiking and mountaineering, it is possible to travel by rail or road from Zurich to the high mountains in less than 35 minutes; September is often the optimum month (great weather and few tourists) to visit the Alps. For those who wish to experience diverse cultures, Switzerland's borders with Germany, France, Austria, Italy and the tiny Principality of Lichtenstein are all within a short distance of Zurich.
ETH has a well deserved academic reputation. In recent global assessments, it has been consistently ranked as the top university in continental Europe. The most famous graduate of ETH was none other than Albert Einstein! He is one of twenty-one Nobel Prize Winners to have been associated with ETH during their student and/or professional careers. Although not a Nobel Prize winner, the contribution of former ETH Professor of Geophysics Fritz Gassmann (Gassmann theory and equation) to our understanding of wave propagation through porous media was a landmark in applied geophysics. The current ETH group of environmental and engineering geophysics dates from 1992. Two of its former employees are now professors at the University of Lausanne, the other major centre of Swiss geophysics. Research activities at the two Swiss centres of applied geophysics range from theoretical and algorithmic developments to applications of state-of-the-art geophysical methods in archeological, geological, hydrological, engineering, environmental and hazard-related investigations.
In addition to the feast of lectures and posters that will cover many areas of environmental and engineering geosciences, conference participants will also have the opportunity to attend a hydrogeophysics workshop that will be given by a world-class group of environmental and engineering geophysicists. It will also be possible to visit an active hydrogeophysics test site or a spectacular Alpine underground rock laboratory in which a wide variety of geoscientific experiments are being conducted as components of numerous national and international radioactive waste disposal programmes.
Near Surface 2010 will be an ideal venue for you to learn about the latest developments in environmental and engineering geosciences, to network with new and existing colleagues and to experience a vibrant European city and the nearby Swiss Alps.
Alan Green
Chairman of the Local Advisory Committee, Near Surface 2010
Over the past 15 years the annual Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics has brought together practitioners utilising and benefiting from the full range of applied geophysics outside of petroleum exploration. Since the meeting has been operated within the EAGE, our delegate coverage has been expanded to include all aspects of geoscience and “near surface” has extended deeper into the earth!
Each year there has been a wish to give a different local geoscience community the opportunity to present and listen to method development and interesting case histories as well as drawing participants from further afield. Often this leads us to a particular centre of excellence and thus Near Surface 2010 will be hosted by ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. This is one of three leading European science and technology institutes offering a two year joint degree programme for Master of Science in Applied Geophysics. With Delft University in The Netherlands and RWTH Aachen University in Germany, ETH’s principal strength is engineering and environmental sciences. What venue could be better for our 16th meeting?
Our profession is concerned with meeting the growing demand for natural resources, resolving problems created by our misuse of the land, providing critical data to architects and civil engineers, forecasting the effects of natural disasters and investigating man’s past heritage. For this it is necessary to acquire detailed information on the structure, composition and condition of the outer skin of the earth. We work with generally non-invasive methods on land, on and under water and from the air. Increasingly our skills need to be multi-disciplinary, our data analysed in conjunction with a range of other information and the results integrated to provide the most plausible sub-surface prognosis. Our meetings are designed to facilitate this approach.
The Near Surface Geoscience Division committee of the EAGE therefore invites you to participate in our Zurich meeting in the heart of Europe and at the centre of Switzerland. We hope that you will enjoy presenting the results of your research and show your colleagues (and even your clients) from around the globe what benefits can accrue from geoscience intelligently applied and with data carefully gathered.
We welcome you to this exciting city by the water with its magnificent views of the snow-capped Alps on the horizon and hope that you will be able to sample the culinary delights in the vast range of cafes and restaurants surrounded by greenery, in a courtyard or directly on the waterside. We look forward to meeting you.
John Arthur
Chairman of the Near Surface Geoscience Division of EAGE 2010-2011
