Tomislav Kurečić is a scientific associate at the Croatian Geological Survey (HGI-CGS). He is specialised in sedimentology, with emphasis on recording of sedimentological columns, facies analysis, sedimentary petrology applied to clastic sediments. As part of the HGI-CGS, he is involved in geological mapping, sample preparation, and analyses of granulometry (laser diffractometer), XRD & SEM, and polarised microscopy (thin sections, heavy and light mineral assemblages analyses). He graduated with a Geology BSc from the University of Zagreb in 2010 and then joined HGI-CGS in 2011, starting a PhD in the same year. His thesis is titled: “Sedimentology and paleoecology of Pliocene Viviparus beds from the area of Vukomeričke Gorice”.
You can connect with Tomislav on ResearchGate and see more of his scientific work.
Becoming a geologist
From his youngest age in his village, Tomislav was passionate about the outdoors. His interests spanned the entirety of the landscapes around him: mountains to forests, creeks to animals, physics and rocks. These interests led him to start a successful career in geology. Tomislav: “Contrary to biology, the object of interest in geology can’t run or fly away, can’t bite or poison you (in most cases), so I assumed it was a lot more convenient to study geology. I also considered studying geology is a lot simpler then studying physics!”.
His current work is focused on Pliocene clastic sediments within the framework of the project Basic Geological Map of Croatia, at scale 1:50,000, but he is also very interested in speleology (speleogeology). Tomislav considers speleology a combination of way of life and state of mind, combining hobbies as cave rigging and cave cartography and scientific work on facies analysis of cave sediments and construction of geological profiles through the deep pits of Dinaric karst.
United Federation of Sandstones
Every geologist has a favourite rock. For Tomislav, these are sandstones and their younger, juvenile relatives: sands. Tomislav: “They are not discriminating, they accept members of different origin no matter of colour, shape, size, origin, etc. Sandstones are some type of ideal community, something like the United Federation described in the Star Trek saga.”.
The power of 3D
In GeoConnect³d, Tomislav is involved in well log interpretation and borehole core interpretation of the Croatian subsurface. He is also working on the unified lithostratigraphic chart for the Pannonian part of Croatia (one of the project’s areas of interest), based on surface data from lithostratigraphic geological mapping. He believes that the greatest contribution of GeoConnect³d will be to build a unified 3D model of the larger Pannonian area.