Vilas, Lorenzo

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Editorial
Dedication to Carmina Virgili
ISSN (print): 1698-6180. ISSN (online): 1886-7995
www.ucm.es /info/estratig/journal.htm
Journal of Iberian Geology 33 (2) 2007: 139-141
It is for me an honour that the editors of this journal 
have asked me to describe, in a short space, the main fac-
ets of Carmina Virgili. This task is, however, an enor-
mous risk because of the number of virtues Carmina has 
and, moreover, because I could forget some detail that 
she would consider essential. I have, therefore, decided 
to focus on my subjective and personal impression of 
her professional work based on my relationship with her, 
which today mounts to over 40 years.  
Carmina’s work activity, I think, can be summarized 
as three main lines: teaching, research and politics. 
Here, I shall outline the ﬁ rst two and will only touch 
upon certain points of the third; and only those linked to 
the ﬁ rst two lines.
Carmina was born in her beloved Catalonia on a day in 
the XX century.  This is where she undertook her studies. 
Already in these early years there were signs emerging 
of her promise for the future: she was awarded Extraor-
dinary Prize in her Final Baccalaureate Examination (un-
like today’s version, this consisted of seven years of work 
plus a ﬁ nal exam of all the subjects covered), Extraor-
dinary Prize in her BSc in Natural Sciences at the Uni-
versidad de Barcelona, Extraordianry Prize in her PhD 
read at the same university, and meanwhile, so as not to 
waste time, she completed the degree course in Teaching 
in Tarragona.
With such qualiﬁ cations it is hardly surprising that Dr. 
Solé (as she always refers to) picked her out for his re-
search group (or did she perhaps choose him?).  It is with 
Dr. Solé’s group that she expanded the teaching of Geol-
ogy to the whole of Spain, creating the (then) sections of 
Oviedo and Granada, and greatly encouraging ﬁ eldwork 
for teaching purposes and a dynamic view of Geology. 
Other members of this team I should mention were Noel 
Llopis and José María Fontboté, with Carmina and Oriol 
Riba as younger collaborators.
During this time, she held several positions at the Uni-
versidad de Barcelona: Assistant Lecturer, Associate In-
tern and ﬁ nally Associate Lecturer of Physical Geology. 
Carmina fulﬁ lled these posts alongside her research work 
as: fellow of the “Lucas Mallada” Institute (Barcelona 
section), Research Assistant at this centre and ﬁ nally as 
Scientiﬁ c Collaborator of the recently created “Jaime 
Almera” Institute.
Her teaching and research tasks during the twelve years 
spent at the Universidad de Barcelona were devoted to 
Physical Geography and Stratigraphy (newly emerging at 
this time), especially focussing on the Triassic deposits of 
the Catalan Range on which she conducted both her ﬁ rst 
degree dissertation and doctoral thesis.
At the same time, with her investigation group she took 
the opportunity to prepare the trips performed in Cata-
lonia within the framework of the International INQUA 
Congress; these were her ﬁ rst steps in the research ad-
ministration area that were to provide such good results 
in the future. It was through her subsequent contacts with 
geologists of other countries and ﬁ elds of expertise, that 
she widened her research horizon and was later to trans-
mit this type of collaboration to her students.  
In 1963, Carmina’s life took a turn when she was 
awarded the Chair of Stratigraphy at the Universidad 
de Oviedo.
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140 Vilas / Journal of Iberian Geology 33 (2) 2007: 139-141
This move from Barcelona to Asturias meant a huge 
change in her teaching and research activities along with 
her social life, both because of the group of friends left 
behind in Catalonia and the increased responsibility that 
came with the new post.  
Carmina had the extreme fortune of being accompanied 
by her mother Doña Carmen, whom we all remember 
with great affection and admiration.
It was in Oviedo that I ﬁ rst met Carmina during a visit 
with Professor Lecompte to the Devonian of Asturias.
The idea of teamwork, always defended and practised 
by Carmina, led to the creation of a group of people work-
ing on the Asturian Mesozoic, so different to what she had 
seen in Catalonia, and the start of several doctoral theses 
both on the Jurassic and Cretaceous, which owing to the 
shortness of her stay in Oviedo, she completed in Madrid.
Her work in research management within the Spanish 
Research Council’s (CSIC) Applied Geology Institute in 
Oviedo, was ﬁ rst undertook as Head of the Stratigraphy 
section and subsequently as Director of the Institute.  
Her transfer through competition to the Universidad 
Complutense of Madrid in 1968 represented a second 
change in her teaching duties (number of students, study 
plans, etc.) and research activities: now she found herself 
in the surroundings of the Iberian Range, with its magnif-
icent outcrops and a simpler tectonics than in Asturias.
After this transfer as a consequence of the death of Prof. 
Llopis, she was faced with a Department of Stratigraphy 
ﬁ lled with lecturers and large numbers of students, who 
were writing their ﬁ rst degree dissertations or starting 
their doctoral theses.
Although part of the teaching staff was transferred to 
Oviedo, Carmina quickly became organised following 
the usual strategy: essentially, practical teaching, re-
search conducted in teams and links with ﬁ rms and other 
research groups.  
Her teaching practice did wonders with her students, 
attaining what for me are her two main achievements in 
this area: promoting and generalizing ﬁ eld studies and 
setting up a faculty library.  Both feats she pursued dur-
ing her stage as Faculty Head, but had been preceded by 
her routine work with students, which had demonstrated 
a need for these goals at the faculty level.
 Field studies at the faculty level were the result of two 
endeavours: the ﬁ rst was the purchasing of a bus, to which 
end she gave up the ofﬁ cial car used by faculty heads 
in those times, proposing that its chauffeur (our beloved 
Benito) switched to driving the bus; and the second was 
to obtain from the university rectorate, an annual budget 
for these practices, which over time became a ﬁ xed fac-
ulty budget.  
Another of Carmina’s accomplishments was the com-
mon library, which involved bringing together funds 
from the different departments, ﬁ nding the appropriate 
building and providing it with the corresponding funds. 
At this point we should mention the excellent work from 
the very beginning of Hortensia, and later on the help 
of Mariví, in cataloguing, ordering and establishing the 
rules for the library.
Her research efforts involved the creation and promot-
ing of research teams.  These included scientists of differ-
ent specialities within the ﬁ eld of stratigraphy, related to 
each other through the age of the materials on which they 
worked. This work including what today is denoted basin 
analysis, and was then an important innovation. 
The most numerous teams were those focusing on the 
Triassic, Cretaceous and the Palaeozoic-Precambrian. Al-
though she personally headed the ﬁ rst of these groups, 
she was always aware of what was going on in the others 
and willing to help or resolve any problems arising dur-
ing the course of these investigations. 
I consider this stage of Carmina’s life in Madrid as the 
most intense in terms of research, as one of growth within 
the scientiﬁ c community and the most proliﬁ c in results, 
always achieved along with her group, as she constantly 
speciﬁ es.   
Some of the outcomes of this work are the stratigraphy 
of the Triassic deposits of the Iberian Range, their cor-
relations and facies changes, comparisons with data from 
the Catalan Range, and the discovery, study and tectonic-
sedimentary relationships of the Permian in the Iberian 
Range at its connection with the Central System. 
Although it is often said that the goal of the life of an 
investigator is not to exhaust a topic but rather to take 
a step forward in its understanding, we would have to 
admit that the size of the step taken by Carmina and her 
team in improving our current knowledge of the Permian 
and Triassic sedimentary basins in the centre and east of 
the Iberian Peninsula, is considerable.
Among these results, drastically summarized for this 
description, I would highlight that she has written over 
one hundred scientiﬁ c articles for Spanish and interna-
tional journals and is the author of several books.
Carmina has received numerous prizes and awards such 
as the “Great Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X” and 
“Ofﬁ cer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour” 
of France. Among the scientiﬁ c posts held not mentioned 
so far we ﬁ nd: Vice-president of the Geological Society of 
France, President of the International  Subcommision of 
the Stratigraphy of the Triassic of the IUGS, Member of 
the Management Council of the UNESCO’s International 
Geological Correlation Programme, Board President of 
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141Vilas / Journal of Iberian Geology 33 (2) 2007: 139-141
Madrid’s Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, etc.
All these awards and posts were obtained by Carmina 
exclusively through her hard work, scientiﬁ c knowledge, 
management skills and endless effort.       
Her return to Barcelona after her stay at the Univer-
sidad Complutense de Madrid, enabled her to readdress 
topics of research that she had worked on at the start of 
her scientiﬁ c career and, above all, to analyse the history 
of science, with special emphasis on Geology, by publish-
ing a series of articles and books on persons whose work 
has marked the development of geological knowledge. 
This project did in no way interrupt her ongoing work on 
the problems of studying the Permian, which gave rise 
to an excellent dissertation as her entrance speech to the 
Academy of Sciences of Barcelona, an act in which her 
personal contribution to research in general and to geol-
ogy in particular was recognized.
And alongside her research work and teaching and 
management activities, we encounter yet another facet of 
Carmina’s professional work: her political activity.   
For me, without a doubt, the fact that she accepted the 
post of Secretary of State for Universities and Research, 
falls within the framework of her attitude towards life 
and especially was consistent with her commitment to the 
management and development of university teaching and 
scientiﬁ c research. 
As a product of these actions, I would have to men-
tion the creation of the Laws of Universities and Science, 
which despite its critics has represented a milestone in the 
activity of both ﬁ elds.
Finally, I cannot end this piece without again remem-
bering a person who constantly appears in the life of Car-
mina: her mother, Doña Carmen Rodón, who accompa-
nied her from her ﬁ eld work for her doctoral thesis to her 
arrival at the Ministry.
All who have had the fortune of knowing Doña Car-
men, have an indelible picture of her. Her intelligence, 
her composure, her wise advice, her moderate outlook on 
life and a long list of personal values have come together 
in the minds of all of us who knew both the mother and 
daughter, to form a tangle of inseparable memories.
I would like to conclude this informal note by recall-
ing a typical phrase Carmina uses before she approaches 
someone: “oye guapito/a….” (very loosely translatable 
as “hey handsome....”).  This introduction is always fol-
lowed by a long pause that could even be awkward but 
that has not prevented so many of us to continue to love 
and admire her. 
Lorenzo Vilas
Departamento de Estratigrafía
Instituto de Geología Económica CSIC – UCM
Facultad de CC. Geológicas, Universidad Complutense 
28040 Madrid (Spain)
vilasl@geo.ucm.es
vol 33_2.indb   141 12/07/2007   18:56:02


Dedication to Carmina Virgili

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Dedication to Carmina Virgili

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