The Swiss Geotechnical Commission (SGTK), a commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT), was dissolved in June 2018 due to organisational reasons. This included also the commission’s office at the Department of Earth Sciences (D-ERDW) at ETH Zurich.
Simultaneously, the Georesources Switzerland Group was founded at ETH Zürich on 1.7.2018, as a group associated to the Department of Earth Sciences but with no more relation to SCNAT. The entire staff of the former SGTK office is now part of this new group. SCNAT is considering to continue the topic of the georesources in Switzerland, probably still in the form of an expert commission.
The new group continues focussing on the topic of the Swiss Georesources in the framework of the D-ERDW. The group conducts applied research in close collaboration with the Swiss Geological Survey (Federal Office of Topography swisstopo) as well as with different industry partners. Main focus areas are the today’s most important mass mineral resources in Switzerland (gravel, sand, clay, limestone, salt, gypsum, natural stone), but also geological energy resources as well as secondary raw materials. Further focus areas are georesources-related questions about the use of the underground and questions about environmental geology.