Dejan Šram finished a BSc in Geology in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering (Ljubljana, Slovenia) in 2011. Since then he has been working at the Geological Survey of Slovenia (GeoZS) as an expert for 3D modelling and GIS analyses. His main field of work is focused on 3D structural modelling and hydrological numerical modelling in MODFLOW and FEFLOW. He is also part of a well logging team responsible for well data interpretation. He is involved in several national and transnational projects.
Check out Dejan’s scientific results website.
Becoming a modeller
During an Erasmus exchange in Portugal as an undergraduate student, Dejan took a course on remote sensing and GIS that sparked his interest in the subject. Since then, he found a way to combine his passions into a successful career in 3D modelling and GIS spatial analyses.
The geologist in every kid
Dejan has been passionate about nature and outdoors since his early years. Even more since he was a young boy, geology always seemed to be an interesting and intriguing topic to him, which he believes is a common experience for everyone during their childhood. Dejan: “The interest first appears when you are picking up the stones and seashells on the beach, and watching all Jurassic Park movies. This interest might slowly fade away, but some of us decide to become geologist, and we wake up that child in us that wants to start looking for dinosaurs again”.
At present, his focus is on how to keep that “geologist kid” in everybody alive as long as possible, to keep the public aware of the importance of geological knowledge. Dejan sees big opportunities in 3D printing and is currently involved in the development of 3D prints of the geological-structural model of NE Slovenia. Dejan: “With the prints we will provide insights into the subsurface combining science and game, where a ‘LEGO’ building technique comes in play. This way a wider audience could get a better view of what lies beneath their feet and where thermal groundwater, oil and gas come from.”.
Geopotential hidden from the eyes
Dejan believes GeoConnect³d is a great project because not only it has synergies with other GeoERA projects (for example with HIKE), but also because it is going to gather all known geomanifestations into a single 3D model where it will be possible to easily visualise the rich geopotential of the underground.
Within GeoConnect³d, Dejan is working on the big challenge of implementing all geomanifestations into the 3D structural model of one of the pilot areas in the Pannonian Basin, and of then implementing them into numerical models. He thinks the result of that will be one of the greatest contributions of GeoConnect³d to the society. Dejan: ”This is going to be a good tool for stakeholders, decision makers and wider public to understand our underground better. Same with the 3D prints. And that’s all that matters – to understand better what is hidden from the eyes.”.