To: GIGE Council Members, GIGE Senior Fellows, GIGE Fellows, GIGE Junior Fellows, and Yoshida’s other friends

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

I m sending you my hearty greetings of the New Year 2016. I believe you are doing well, and to my happiness, I could keep my health during last year and could generally continue activity of the GIGE main office in Hashimoto, Japan.

4th student Himalayan exercise tour team on the east of Kagbeni, March 2015

 

GIGE has been concentrating its effort in these years to conduct the student Himalayan exercise tour in March every year in collaboration with the Department of Geology, Tri-Chandra Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu.

However, one month after the tour last year, Kathmandu and surrounding areas were attached by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake with a large tremor of Marcealli scale 8 - 9, which resulted in large damages over the above areas.  Staff and students of the Department luckily survived, but they as well as the Department itself suffered various damages.

Since last April, GIGE has also been making effort in reporting the earthquake and its damages and collecting charity for damaged staff and students of the Department and the Department itself at various occasions.  On the other hand, even amid the pain of the damages of the earthquake, the Department decided to positively join the preparation and fulfillment of the Student Himalayan Exercise Tour in 2016.

The conveners of the Student Himalayan Exercise Project decided to conduct the 5th Student Himalayan Exercise Tour in March 2016, collecting data of damages of the earthquake and ideas from the Department as well as trekking agencies and hotels in Nepal, and further, considering that the tour will be useful in helping Nepal to recover from the earthquake damages.

Major activities of GIGE last year included the fulfillment of the 4th student Himalayan exercise tour, publication of the report book of the tour, preparation for the 5th student Himalayan exercise tour, spreading information of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, and collecting charity for the Department of Geology, Tri-Chandra Campus and its staff and students who suffered damages by the earthquake, and editing books including geo-guidebooks of the Himalaya and of some other topics.

 

The summary of activity of GIGE last year above could be found in the following site.  http://www.geocities.jp/gondwanainst/2015yearlyreport/Report-GIGEactivity2015En.pdf

In addition, detailed monthly activity of GIGE is shown in the following site.

http://www.geocities.jp/gondwanainst/2015yearlyreport/Monthly-reportEN.pdf

And a total figure of the GIGE activity in general is given on the GIGE home page below: http://www.geocities.jp/gondwanainst/

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IAGR 2015 Convention in Tsukuba, October

On the other hand, the International Association for Gondwana Research (IAGR) and its journal Gondwana Research (GR) have been developing constantly for nearly 20 years. The IAGR has been organizing the International Symposium on Gondwana to Asia every year and contributing in increasing knowledge on Gondwanaland-related topics specifically in Asian countries. Further, Gondwana Research (GR) has been keeping its top-group-rank of the impact factor among international earth science journals.  Excellent talent and sincere effort of Professor M. Santosh, the General Secretary of IAGR and the Chief Editor of GR are very much praised. The 2016 convention of IAGR and 13th International Symposium on Gondwana to Asia are scheduled to be held in Trivandrum, which is one of the two birthplaces of the IAGR along with Osaka, on the 18th - 24th November 2016. I would like to request your kind support to encourage IAGR and GR, as well as the symposium in coming November.

 

January 2016

Prof. Masaru Yoshida

President, Gondwana Institute for Geology and Environment (GIGE)

http://www.geocities.jp/gondwanainst/

147-2 Hashiramoto, Hashimoto 648-0091 JAPAN

E-mail: gondwana@oregano.ocn.ne.jp  Tel & Fax: 0081-(0)736-367789