Publisher © Czech Geological Survey, ISSN: 2336-5757 (online), 0514-8057 (print)
The inheritance of the significant arctic explorer Prof. Josef Sekyra in the Czech Geological Survey
Published online: 31 October 2017Abstract
Prof. Josef Sekyra, a world-renowned and respected geologist, geomorphologist, Antarctic explorer, and one of the highly regarded experts in desert geology, collected during his numerous missions a wide range of rocks and other materials which he left as a bequest to the Czech Geological Survey (CGS). This exceptional material is now located in a newly renovated facility and collections of the CGS at the Lužná village near the town of Rakovník, ca 36 km west of Prague. This unique inheritance consists of several thousand geological and paleontological samples (weathering crusts, sands, wind-worn pebbles, faceted boulders, etc.) collected in Antarctica, various deserts, and high mountains around the world. These geological samples are accompanied by an extremely rich archive material (hundreds of hand-drawn maps, sketches, remarks, observations, field notes, printed maps, photographs, ethnographic material, etc.) including his scientific library. All this material has been carefully processed, sorted, enriched by supplementary data, catalogued, digitized, and inserted into the CGS databases (in the frame of the Internal CGS project No. 344500). The geological collection was prepared to be included in the Central registry of collections of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, based on the Act No. 122/2000 Coll. Archive materials will be, after processing, protected by Act No. 499/2004 Coll. Only such highest care is considered to be appropriate to assure State protection of this unique material.
