Following the decision of the European Commission, the EPOS-ERIC consortium officially launched on the 8th of November this year. This means transforming the EPOS programme into a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).
EPOS (European Plate Observing System) is a programme for the integration of earth science research infrastructures, and constitutes the largest European scientific project that facilitates the better understanding of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the occurrence of tsunami and other geohazards, including those related to mining.
Countries involved in EPOS-ERIC include: Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. Greece, Iceland and Switzerland also participate in it as observers. The work coordinator of the EPOS-ERIC consortium is the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The Central Mining Institute has been taking part in the work related to project EPOS since 2014. Its objective is to build a national earth science research infrastructure and to integrate it with international databases, servers and services supplied as part of the EPOS programme. GIG is responsible for maintaining specialist testing grounds for measurements and observing the geodynamic processes in mining and post-mining areas of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. This primarily concerns induced seismicity, which means seismic events provoked by human activity. A classic example is the seismicity occurring as a result of conducted mining activities. Subterranean testing grounds for measurements are provided by Polska Grupa Górnicza.
An international conference dedicated to the EPOS project will be held in Jachranka on the 19th-21st of November, 2018, as part of the EPOS-European Plate Observing System (EPOS-PL) project. The meeting will serve to further expand the process of the integration of earth science research infrastructures and to strengthen the cooperation and exchange of knowledge concerning science and economy in Poland. It will also be an occasion to celebrate Poland’s accession to the European EPOS-ERIC consortium and to present specific elements of the established research infrastructure.
The conference is co-financed by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund.
More about EPOS:
https://www.epos-ip.org/about/epos-implementation-phase/epos-legal-entity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYs7Qj-ZnmU
