Brief history

Brief history of the Geological Laboratory of Laxe

The Geological Laboratory of Laxe, is a Galician scientific institution founded in 1940 by Professor Isidro Parga Pondal.Since then its activity is dedicated to the study of Geology in Galicia and to the Iberian Hercynian.This institution develops thanks to the expulsion of Professor Parga Pondal of Geochemistry, from Santiago de Compostela University,due to his nationalistic Galician ideologies and to his progressive conception of the University.These events took place in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War ended.From that moment on Professor

Parga Pondal redid his life and dedicated his free time to the study of Galician Geology and the Peninsular Hercinic,together with the direction of Caolines de Lage S.L.,situated in Laxe in the S.W. of Coruña.

Up to the end of his professional life (he retires in 1965), Parga Pondal settles the basis of the modern Galician geology performing numerous publications, and what is more important the Geological Map of Galicia in scales of 1:50.000, 1:250.000 and 1:500.000, when, for the first time, the geology of Galicia correlates with the adjacent areas: Portugal and the rest of Spain. His key work ending in 1982 is the Geological map of the Hesperic Peninsular Massif in the middle occidental part of the Iberian Peninsula, where he presents the Geology of the Hesperic, arising from the international collaboration of scientists of five countries (France, Germany, Portugal, United Kingdom and Spain) from sixteen European universities. This great work, co-ordinated and directed by Parga Pondal, is the product of more than 40 years of investigation.

Together with his scientific work expressed evidently in his numerous publications, we can find his meritory job as the director of the geological investigations in the NW of the Iberian Peninsula carried out along 25 years, not only coordinating students and investigators of many European Universities (Leiden, Delft, Zurich, Münster, Montpellier, Tolouse, Strasbourg, Nancy, Liverpool, Lisboa, Porto, Coimbra, Barcelona, Madrid, Oviedo, Salamanca and Santiago de Compostela), and numerous prestigious Spanish and foreign Institutions (C.S.I.C., I.G.M.E., I.G.M., B.R.G.M., etc.) that developed their investigation campaigns in Galicia in constant collaboration with the work team of the Geological Laboratory of Laxe.

The result of this first phase of the Geological Laboratory of Laxe was a series of publications of diverse nature and the attainment of an experience with multidisciplinary and multinational teams, working in coordination in the same physical space (Galicia) and making the geological studies occupy a first position in the Spanish country.

There are two phases in the geological study of Galicia that are important to be remarked: one until 1935, when thanks to the work of Guillermo Schulz, third Director of the IGME, Galicia has the most modern map of all Spain. The other between 1936 and 1982 when Isidro Parga Pondal culminates with "The Magna Plan" of the I.G.M.E., the geological map of Galicia in a scale of 1:50.000 that provides Galicia with a more detailed map of geology. In spite of this, Galicia is the only autonomous region without Faculty of Geology, and with no university studies related to it, until the creation of the University Institute of Geology "Isidro Parga Pondal".

In 1978, with the death of José Ramón Parga Peinador, the son of Isidro Parga Pondal, a serious follower of his works, the institution is in serious danger of extinction, but thanks to the support of Isaac Diaz Pardo, founder of the company Cerámicas Sargadelos, this does not happen.

In effect, in 1979, all the documents, library, and newspaper archives were sent to the new site of the Laboratory situated since then in Sargadelos factory (www.sargadelos.com) in O Castro, Sada, A Coruña.

The new structure is reorganised with adequate personnel and means to be able to deliver publications, hold scientific meetings and carry out the promotion of all the geological investigation that is taking place nowadays.