Riba i Arderiu, Oriol

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Revistes CientÃ­fiques de la Universitat de Barcelona

Emeritus Professor of Stratigraphy and Historical Geology, University of Barcelonaand Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of BarcelonaFacultat de Geologia, Departament d’Estratigrafia, Paleontologia i Geociències Marines, Universitat de Barcelona.Zona Universitària de Pedralbes. 08028 BarcelonaDoctor Reguant’s thesis in contextO. RIBA i ARDERIUI have been asked to write a short review of the thesisof Salvador Reguant i Serra. This is a commission that Iam more than happy to undertake in the light of the bondof friendship that unites us, though it is also a commitmentthat involves some risks, since we were not very close atthe time he was producing his Doctoral thesis.I would also like to place on record the fact that I havedrawn on the work of our friend, Jaume Truyols, who hasalready written on Reguant’s thesis.The 1950s were years of fundamental importance forCatalan geology, and in fact for geology throughout Spain.I would like to focus on three aspects: one which is pro-fessional in nature, a second which is more practical, anda third that deals with the development of geologicalknowledge of our subsoil, in Catalonia.1). With regard to professionalism, there were hardlyany geologists in Spain. The very few natural sciencegraduates who specialised in geology were unable to com-pete, professionally speaking, with the Mining Engineerswho emerged from the only ‘special’ school that existed atthat time, in Madrid. Those qualified engineers wereimmediately employed in companies involved in theextraction of minerals and very few of them did any geol-ogy. The university graduates, on the other hand, hadalmost no alternative to working as university teachers, oras secondary school teachers in the few High Schools thatthere were.Professionally speaking, the university graduates ofthe 1940s were able to study for a Doctorate in Geology.However, it was necessary to study for the doctorate, dur-ing two years in Madrid, and to present the thesis there.For this reason, the Complutensewas entitled the “CentralUniversity”. By the end of the ‘40s, it had become possi-ble to study in the students’ own centres and to apply forthe qualification of Doctor specialised in Geology. Thefirst student to qualify in this way was the author of thisarticle. The ‘provincial’ students, however, were requiredto present their thesis before May 1st, a discriminatoryrequirement that the author fell foul of.Accompanied by my father Carles, I pleaded my casebefore the Director General of University Education,Señor Joaquín Pérez-Villanueva. He was a man of fairlyopen-minded disposition who took note of my request –Sr. Pérez-Villanueva was in fact the person who authorisedthe first poetry congresses in Segovia 1952, which attract-ed an extraordinarily large audience of Catalan literary fig-ures such as Carles Riba, Marià Manent, Josep VicençFoix and others, at a time of extreme control and repres-sion. A few months later, in 1953, an official decree con-ferred on all universities the right to award doctoral quali-fications to their students.The first doctorate student to qualify from BarcelonaUniversity was Carmina Virgili, with her monumental the-sis on the Triassicof the Catalan Coastal Ranges (Decem-ber 1954).We should remember that the Natural Sciences degreeof those days was a real ragbag in terms of the subjectstaught. Despite the course having been extended to fiveyears in length (1944), the geological content was mini-mal. From 1953 onwards, as a result of a Decree publishedon 29th August of that year, two separate degree faculties,Biology and Geology, were established. Our friendReguant, together with three others – J. Assens, J. J. Irao-Geologica Acta,  Vol .1 ,  Nº2,  2003,  163-166Avai lable onl ine at  www.geologica-acta.com© UB-IJA 163Geolog ica  Acta ,  Vo l .1 ,  Nº2,  2003,  163-166 164Doctor Reguant’s thesis in contextO. RIBA i ARDERIUla and A. Vila – was one of the first students to register forthe new course, as well as being the first to graduate, andwith all the honours that might be expected for a brilliantand hard-working student.Another fact of fundamental importance was the cre-ation of two new Geology sections at Oviedo and Grana-da Universities. The two professors fortunate enough to beappointed to head these departments were Noël Llopis andJosep M. Fontboté, respectively. Some years later thesedevelopments led to the promotion of many geologistswho had completed their doctoral theses to the position ofProfessor, via the unfortunate method of competitiveexams (called oppositions).2). In the practical realm, there was a significant senseof excitement, of a reawakening. The ending of the SecondWorld War did not lead to a significant opening up of theSpanish borders, but it did allow the gradual reestablish-ment of international relations. For those of us involved inthe production of theses based on fieldwork, such as Font-boté, Carmina Virgili and myself, in the laboratory of theDepartment of Geology at Barcelona University, it wasnecessary to apply for very special permits in order to gainaccess to the so-called ‘Pyrenean frontier zone’. This areawas completely sealed, and off-limits to internal tourists.To go wandering around the Pyrenees with a map and ageological hammer in your hands was seen as being tanta-mount to an act of espionage. We were pursued by theGuardia Civil as if we were resistance fighters (the“maquisards”). That was far from being the only difficul-ty we had to labour under, however. The 1:50,000 topo-graphical maps, where they existed, were of such poorquality that following them inevitably meant getting lost!And, on the other hand, access to the collection of mapsheld by Dr.Solé at the laboratory was restricted to a degreethat seems absolutely incredible these days, when theWorld War was over!Remember that throughout the ‘40s and a good part ofthe ‘50s food was still scarce and rationed; to put it moresimply, people were hungry, languishing away. Moreover,many roads were unusable – the road from Setcases waswashed away by the floods of 1940 and by 1947 it had stillnot been reconstructed. In the ‘50s and ‘60s there wereroads that were impassable, like the regional routes fromOlot to Figueres, or that which runs from Solsona toBerga, and the majority of roads were not tarred. Thepavement was an unending series of potholes; they wereroads swept by torrents every time it rained. It was necess-ary to do everything on foot, or if you stretched your luck,by bicycle. This represented an additional source offatigue to that involved in geological fieldwork and evi-dently it meant wasting time, which in turn meant that theproductivity of research workers was very low. Nobodycould even dream of having a motor car. It was necessaryto wait for the ‘Stabilisation Plan’ of July 1959 before such‘luxuries’ became possible.There was another notable deficiency that sloweddown our work, the absence of aerial photographs. Thecombatants in the World War had already made use ofthem and the Dutch had discovered their geological use-fulness when combined with stereoscopic analysis. In1951 and 1953 the Dutch scientific journals were full ofthem. I wrote an article calling for their use in 1957, but Iwas not able to use them professionally until 1959.3). The facts I have briefly outlined above spannedalmost two decades. Towards 1959, the period we mightterm the ‘post-war’ finally came to an end, a period domi-nated by autocratic government and inferior practical con-ditions, shortages of personnel, restrictions and a crushinglack of financial support.This was, then, the prelude to the ‘Great Leap For-ward’ in geological knowledge of our country. Geologistsbegan to be churned out by the four universities previous-ly mentioned. The 1959 Decrees that had progressivelyliberalised the search for hydrocarbons led an avalanche offoreign companies to enter the hunt for oil in both penin-sular Spain and the ‘African provinces’. Remember that,until 1953, the whole territory of Spain was the privatereserve of the Spanish State, and unfortunately almost noprospecting was undertaken. There was a lot of work todo. Many newly qualified geologists took advantage of thesituation. The search for oil meant work in geological car-tography, in stratigraphy and micropaleontology, and wellas in geophysics and the drilling of bore holes.The geological landscape began to take on a more defi-nite shape as the 50s drew to a close. It was like the smil-ing faces –never seen before- of our “Caudillo” and Pres-ident Eisenhower that beamed out of the postersannouncing Twenty-five years of peacethat littered thesides of the main roads in 1965.For example, during the ’60s Professor Fontboté beganto churn out shoals of graduate geologists from GranadaUniversity. They presumed to be the best, the best pre-pared, the crème de la crème, the wisest of all. Basking inthe reflected prestige of their mentor, they came to occupya large number of university teaching positions, and primeposts in research companies. Six of them ‘landed’ in myuniversity in Zaragoza; and the new University of theBasque Country was ‘occupied’ from the very beginningby graduates from Granada.4). Reguant, who had studied at the Seminary in Vic,was one of the first students in the newly created GeologyFaculty while he was still teaching sciences at the Semi-nary and various other schools in Vic. He continued toGeolog ica  Acta ,  Vo l .1 ,  N º2,  2003,  163-166Doctor Reguant’s thesis in contextO. RIBA i ARDERIU165teach in this city until 1969. He, and the others who grad-uated with him, were veritable pioneers.On the other hand, the object of our tribute also had areal vocation for palaeontology. It is undoubtedly true thatliving in Vic, the surrounding land offered him a first classrange of fossils to study. It was Father Lluís Via that intro-duced the young Reguant to the paleontology of the VicEocene, and particularly to an aspect that had hardly beenworked on at that time. Very soon, Reguant was captivat-ed by the bryozoa of the Gurb Formation. It should bepointed out that the special interest he had in this fossilgroup has never waned. Even today, it is one of the areasof research he continues to work on, and he is an acknowl-edged international authority on bryozoa.However, his decision to begin the scientific study ofthis group was not a particularly fortunate choice – it wasfar from clear if working in this area would enable him toproduce a doctoral thesis. His visit to Paris, to the MuséumNational d’Histoire Naturelle, did not produce very grati-fying results for various reasons. The teacher under whosewing he was supposed to work was not there. Moreover,the fossil group of bryozoa had not been the object ofmuch study. In the end, he decided to change the subjectof the thesis.5). In Dr. Solé’s laboratory, after the departure of Font-boté to Granada, our friend Carmina Virgili – whoreceived her Doctorate in December 1954, the first womanto do so in Barcelona! – had been appointed laboratoryassistant. She held this position for ten years until, in 1963,she won the Chair of Stratigraphy in the Oviedo Faculty(Asturias region, NW Spain). It must be recorded that forDr. Solé, Virgili’s prolonged stay in the Barcelona labora-tory produced excellent results – Carmina was his trustedright hand.Dr. Solé had long nurtured a desire to cover the wholeof the territory of Catalonia with modern research projectsand thesis. To some extent the ‘Catalanids’ had alreadybeen covered by Llopis’ thesis. However, this thesis hadnot stood well the test of time – there were some deficien-cies in the work, and it reflected certain German-inspiredviewpoints that had become obsolete. We need only toremember the stratigraphic and structural changes intro-duced by Virgili.Dr. Solé, together with the newly graduated Catalangeologists, began to draw up a research plan that wouldcover the whole of the Pre-Pyrenees and the inland mar-gins of the Coastal Ranges. In other words, he located astring of doctoral theses in such a way as to cover thewhole of the Tertiary of the Central Catalan Depression.Joan Rosell, Miquel Gich, Pere Mascarenyes, RaimonObiols, the younger Lluís Solé and Lluís Pallí covered anenormous and little known area of the Pre-Pyrenees. Onthe southern boundary of this area, there were geologistsworking with the oil companies such as Jordi Ferrer, JoanRosell, Valentí Masachs and Lluís Via. Meanwhile,Eduard Clavell, Josep Fontboté and Oriol Riba were work-ing in other areas (the latter being responsible for thewhole of the Tertiary basin). All were actively collaborat-ing with foreign geologists such as Defalque (from Petro-fina) and Hentschel and R. Brinkmann (from Ciepsa-CarlDeilmann Bergbau).6). Salvador Reguant, with the support of Dr. CarminaVirgili, began working on his thesis. His task was to linkthe Pre-Pyrenees’ studies with those of the CoastalRanges. He launched himself into the work in 1962. Short-ly afterwards, Dr. Virgili entered the process of competi-tive exams on which the Chair of Stratigraphy at OviedoUniversity would depend. Her selection marked the begin-ning of a period in which she took a special interest in thework of Reguant, and he lost no time in applying for hisdoctorate to be transferred to the Asturian capital. For Reguant, the decision to study the Vic Plain, andthe neighbouring hills of Lluçanès and Bages, suited himperfectly - it was after all his own back yard. His studyarea extended from Roda de Ter to Sant Feliu de Codines.He fitted his fieldwork in around his teaching obliga-tions in Vic. As Pere Busquets has reminded me, they wentout into the field three times a week, with the other daysbeing dedicated to laboratory work. Pere Busquets actedas Reguant’s assistant, and incidentally received an educa-tion in geology, similar in many ways to my own trips intothe Pyrenees, around the headwaters of the Ter, with Font-boté (1946-47).The subject of the thesis chosen by Reguant was themarine Eocene that lies between the Pre-Pyrenees and theCoastal Ranges. It covered that area misnamed by the Ger-mans in the 30s as the threshold of Empordà. This mono-cline, only slightly deformed, formed an excellent subjectfor a detailed stratigraphic study. The conventional cross-sections of the strata, from the Palaeozoic of the Guilleriesto the Upper Red Sandstone of the Artés Formation (Coll-suspina), provided him with very reliable samples and datato undertake a comparative stratigraphic study.He already had aerial photographs at his disposal,which enabled him to produce not only a good geologicalmap, but also allowed him to establish the correlationsbetween the cross-sections he was producing and the posi-tion of the isochrones.Reguant’s research, to our way of thinking, is perfect-ly balanced. The lithostratigraphy, that is the study of theunits of rocks that make up the substrata, precedes thebiostratigraphy. This, the study of the fossil content, thenpaves the way for the chronostratigraphic synthesis, inwhich the various units identified are dated in line with theages and subdivisions established in the international geo-logical time scale. The classical model is rigorously fol-lowed.The fundamental correlations are backed up not onlyby the fossil content, but also by data on the mineral andpetrographic content based on detailed samples taken atvery close intervals. It is easy to understand the quantity ofwork that the analysis of heavy and light minerals, of indi-cators such as the presence of representative minerals likeglauconite, the morphoscopic analysis of the lithic andbioclastic components, and the analysis of grain size, rep-resented for the aspiring doctorate student. These are tech-niques that to a certain extent are now ignored by moremodern authors, and have been superceded by the analysisof sedimentary structures and depositional sequences.However, it should be remembered that these techniquesof structural and sequential analysis had not yet beendeveloped. I also recall that Dr. Reguant had no financialsupport to undertake the enormous task he had set himself.He was faced with the necessity of using analytical labo-ratory techniques that were very laborious.The lithostratigraphic structure described in Reguant’sthesis follows the traditional norms of binomial nomen-clature – the Vic Marls, the Centelles Clays, the Sant MartíXic Limestones. They are clearly explained and definedunits that meet the norms of the American StratigraphicCode, and also with the later International Code. Theserules which were subsequently used in the publications ofJoan Rosell, Jordi Ferrer and Reguant himself, were com-monly used in the stratigraphy of the American school ofoil company geologists.Reguant’s work also dealt with the fossil content. Pale-ogene biostratigraphy was in the process of being thor-oughly overhauled at that time, with new stages such asthe Biarritzian and Ilerdian being established and defined.Reguant turned for help to specialists in microfacies likeDr. Linares of Granada University, L. Hottinger of Basel,a specialist on macroforaminifera, Dr. Chevalier of Parisfor help with corals... the list of specialists is endless.The overall synthesis of his work was exemplary, andremains perfectly valid today. The paleogeographic mapsdemonstrate the main north to south marine transgression,while the existence of the Guilleries’– Montseny Rise andthe questions of the sedimentary environments and thepaleoclimate were all adequately considered.7). I would not like to finish without recalling that faroff day – 35 years have already passed! - when the thesiswas presented at the Science Faculty of Oviedo Universi-ty. For the director of the thesis, and host to the jury, Dr.Carmina Virgili, that 10th of October 1966 was a memo-rable day, a day to hang out the flags! Can you imagine ina university so far from Catalonia, all the deliberations ofthe jury were carried out in Catalan? It was unforgettable– we felt as if we were at home!.Doctor Reguant’s thesis in contextO. RIBA i ARDERIU166Geolog ica  Acta ,  Vo l .1 ,  N º2,  2003,  163-166

Doctor Reguant's thesis in context

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Doctor Reguant's thesis in context

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Revistes CientÃfiques de la Universitat de Barcelona

Doctor Reguant's thesis in context

Abstract

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Revistes CientÃ­fiques de la Universitat de Barcelona

Revistes CientÃfiques de la Universitat de Barcelona