For the past 2 weeks, the European Center for Geological Education at the University of Warsaw hosted a field trip of paleobiology students organized by the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg (Bavaria). This was the students' first visit not only to the Swietokrzyskie Mountains, but also to Poland.

The field course, led by Prof. Rachel Warnock and Prof. Axel Munnecke, was supported by Dr. Emilia Jarochowska from Utrecht University and Dr. Kenneth De Baets and PhD student Niklas Hohmann from the Faculty of Biology at Warsaw University. The students, who came from Erlangen, were an international group, also joined by one student from Utrecht University. Thus, the trip brought together participants of eight nationalities, from Belgian, Dutch and Indian, to Irish, several people from Germany, Serbian, Polish and Scottish

The students found an excellent field base at the Center. During the course, they performed, among other things, a classic exercise in mapping the Chocin anticline, visited the Geologists' Rock in Wietrznia and the fold in the Śluchowice Nature Reserve, analyzed the way Devonian tetrapods moved in the Zachełmie quarry, documented the record of earthquakes in the Mogiłki quarry and collected a collection of graptolites in the Prągowiec Gorge. The unique structure of the Swietorzyskie Mountains allowed them to visit almost all geological systems from the Cambrian to the Neogene. The Center's logistical support enabled the group to enter active quarries: Wiśniówka (Eurovia), Małogoszcz (Lafarge Polska), Ostrówka (Nordkalk) and Kowala (Dyckerhoff). The students enjoyed the natural and culinary riches of the region and expanded their knowledge of the range of fossils, depositional environments and tectonic structures, which they would not have found in similar diversity anywhere else in Europe.

Thank you for your cooperation