INTRODUCING THE CHAPTER

Founded in 1981, that time members of this chapter came from the geoprospecting and mining companies of the region (Geoprospecting and Drilling Company, Borsod Coal Mining Co, National Ore and Mineral Mining Co.) as well as from the  University of Miskolc, professors, researchers, and students. In the last decades,  with a declining mining activity in this region, the base of this chapter shifted to the Geophysical Department of the  University of Miskolc.

Address: 3515 Miskolc-Egyetemváros,
Department of Geophysics

Tel.: +36-46-565-064      
 Fax: +36-46-361-936

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Professional and scientific meetings and conferences of the Chapter, as events of the Association, are organised using the Department’s background. To the present day, the Chapter has undertaken to set up several Autumn Meetings, Meetings of Young Geoscientists, as well as junior teach-ins. In the recent years, the biennial Inversion Conference, organised jointly by the Miskolc Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Science - HAS, the Geophysical Department, and the Chapter, became an event of great significance, with international attendance, partly in English language. Moreover, this chapter regularly participates in the events of the region’s professional and scientific organisations (Miskolc Committee of HAS, National Association of Miners and Metalworkers, the University), and acts as a co-organiser at the Borsod Week of Technology.

The members of the Chapter are actively involved in the work of the Association at national level. They served and serve the interests of our profession as board members, committee chairmen and members, editors (see the lists of the Scientific, the Junior, the Mining Geophysics and Engineering Geophysics Committees, for example). The members of the Chapter were awarded many times for their work in the Association (9 Honorary Memberships, 2 Eötvös medals, 6 Egyed medals, 5 Renner medals, 15 diplomas of merit).

The members of the North Hungarian Chapter are involved in the activity of the international associations as well. Our members are in the EAGE, SEG, DGG and  EGS, regularly acting as referees, chairmen and editors. They participated in the organisation of international conferences (for example: EAGE–Budapest, EEGS–Budapest, EEGS–Bochum). The Chapter acted several times as host for EAGE delegations; the Board of Trustees, PACE Foundation held a meeting  in Miskolc. As a „Distinguished Lecturer”, Mr. Wim Goudswaard had delivered series of lectures  at the University on several occasions.

The Department operates as a part of the Institute of Geophysics and Geoinformatics inside the Faculty of Earth Science and Engineering (formerly: Faculty of Mining Engineering) in Miskolc. This faculty has a history of more than 270 years: its predecessor, the „Berg Schola” was established in 1735 in Selmecbánya (Schemnitz, Banska Štiavnica now), in a famous northern mining town of the Hungarian Kingdom that time. The later Mining Academy was transferred to Sopron, Western Hungary after WWI.

In September 1, 1951 a Department of Geophysics was established in this town to ease the shortages in the geoengineering disciplines, because of the increasing demand for mining and prospecting. As a result of the organising work of prof. Károly Kántás, founder of the Department, in 1951 mining–prospectors, and (in 1953) engineers of mining geophysics were graduated at the University. The Department moved to Miskolc in 1959, where it became the member of the newly founded Technical University of Heavy Industry. In Miskolc, the educational and research works were commanded by prof. János Csókás.

Practicing a magnetic survey

In-mine measurements

Mineral prospecting and in-mine geophysical methods: these were the all-along focal educational topics of the Department. From 1992, geophysical methods in environmental investigations were introduced as majors, supported by a TEMPUS project, and in 2006 the two-level (Bsc/Msc) courses were universalized.

Fundamental geophysics is in the earth science engineering (Bsc) curriculum, for those opting Earth Sciences in higher volume. At the Master’s degree (MSc) program of geoscience engineering, this Department is responsible for the geophysical engineering and the geoinformatical engineering majors, while it participates in education of other majors in master’s degree as well. Courses of doctoral (PhD) programme are at the Geoscience Doctoral School “Sámuel Mikoviny”.

Our students of all education levels  take part in trainings and lecturings abroad, supported by the IAESTE, Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, and Leonardo exchange programs. The Department is regularly receives foreign students from over the whole word in the framework of the Master’s level education by Erasmus Mundus, and the European Geotechnical and Environmental Course projects.

Even the research activity in the Department of Geophysics has been characterised by the mineral prospecting. Staff members of the Department played a significant role in introducing (later further developing) the telluric mapping, later the magnetotelluric sounding methods, used for oil and gas prospecting. In this field, the first and the greatest event was the Chino-Hungarian Expedition between 1956 and 1959, resulted with the discovery of a giant oilfield in NE China.

Seismic field exercises

Issuing a certificate on 
an international English course

Even now the results in developing in-mine geophysical methods and devices for coal and bauxite mining are widely recognised at  international levels. Our research work  recently focuses on the investigations of joint inversion methods, serving the effective extraction of geoscience information from field data. Results of investigations are published regularly (6-10 publications per annum), the most successful ones have 50-60 citations from all over the world. 

As a result of sixty years of education, starting in 1951, the Department issued about 470 diplomas in geophysical engineering and environmental engineering geophysics, as well as (from 1962 on) nearly 60 doctoral (drUniv/PhD) diplomas.

The Department has been making connections with numerous foreign universities (Moscow Mining University, Bergakademie Freiberg, Universita della Studi „La Sapienza” in Rome,  Aalto University in Helsinki). An eminent cooperation exists with the Institute of Geophysics of Ruhr University in Bochum, with more than two decades of joint research in the mining and environmental geophysics and in the field of inversion methods.