Stefan M. Schmid as a great contributor to Serbian geology: A personal view

It is known that foreign geologists had important role in the birth of Serbian geological science. Renown scientist from France, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Germany were coming to this country in the early 19^th century (i.e., during our pre-university times), bringing critical knowledge that was later of great help to the real fathers of Serbian geology. In the years that followed, our geoscience became progressively more independent, which made the personal influence of geologists from abroad less prominent. Having all this in mind, I feel free to say that the recent contribution of Swiss Professor Stefan M. Schmid (hereafter Stefan) to our better understanding of Balkan tectonic architecture, is in the line of those of Ami Boué, Franz Toula, Auguste Viquesnel and only a few others.

Stefan made his first research visits to Serbia in the early 2000s, in the post-war time in the Balkans. The Serbian geologists just came out of a decade-long scientific isolation and, at the same time, were facing a serious succession of generations. Both facts made this geoscientific community unfavorable for accepting new ideas, which makes the Stefan’s brainstorming influence even greater.

Stefan had crucial role in paradigm shift regarding the Mesozoic geodynamics of the Balkan region. Coming from the Alps and having already considerable experience in the Carpathians, he was logically aimed at extendeding his research interests to the Dinarides. He did it in a most appropriate way, first by establishing fair contacts with local geologists and then by organizing serious field campaigns supported by solid-funded research projects. All this, eventually resulted in the organization of 13^th Alpshop (September 2017, Zlatibor, Serbia), as the first Émile Argand Conference held well outside the Alpine realm.  

By his research in the Dinarides, Stefan tackled one of the longest debates related to one- vs multiocean hypothesis. Stefan and his PhD/Post-Doc candidates preferred the one-ocean scenario, arguing that, albeit geographically separated, all Balkan ophiolite belts represent remnants of a single ocean – Neotethys or Vardar Tethys. One of their main arguments was that all pre-Mesozoic units correspond to progressively more distal (or proximal) parts of Adria, rather than representing microcontinents (terranes). Furthermore, Stefan was first – at least to the author’s knowledge – who differentiated between the large(plate)-scale tectonic structures in the Dinarides and those that result from so-called out-of-sequence trusting, emphasizing that the latter may easily be the only structures observable in the field.

Today, the majority of Balkan geologists agree that all Jurassic ophiolites in this region came from a single (Mesozoic) ocean and, alone for this, Stefan’s elegant documentation of an earlier proposed interpretation is regarded truly groundbreaking.  

Herewith, I wish to thank him sincerely, not only for helping us in dealing with conflicting hypotheses but also for his unconditional and supportive friendship that we have enjoyed all these years.