With 2025 having come to a close, SGA says farewell to two of its longest serving members on council:
Jan Pašava and Bernd Lehmann.
Bernd Lehmann
Bernd Lehmann, former professor of economic geology at the University of Clausthal, Germany, is the longest standing Editor-in-Chief of Mineralium Deposita in the history of the journal. In 2000, the European office was transferred to Clausthal, when Bernd was appointed co-editor. He succeeded David Rickard, and was co-Editor with Richard Goldfarb (until 2003), Larry Meinert (until 2008), Pat Williams (until 2012), Geroges Beaudoin (until 2023) and Karen Kelley (2023-present). In 2026, Bernd is stepping down after 25 years of dedicated service. Prior to becoming Chief Editor, Bernd also served a number of years as associate editor. During Bernd’s tenure, Mineralium Deposita has become extremely well-recognized around the world as a first-class publication on the geology of mineral deposits. The quality and numbers of papers submitted to our editorial offices continue to steadily increase, in large part, due to Bernd’s efforts. Bernd will be greatly missed, and we sincerely appreciate his efforts and service to Mineralium Deposita.
Jan Pašava
Jan Pašava has been SGA’s executive secretary for the incredibly long period of 27 years. That covers almost half of the entire period SGA has been in existence! Jan’s active involvement in SGA began with a big bang: When he attended the 2nd SGA Biennial Meeting in Granada, Spain, in 1993, he was asked by the SGA Vice-president at that time, Dr. Zdenek Johan, to organize the next, 3rd SGA Biennial Meeting – a huge challenge Jan promptly accepted. Thus, in 1995 Praha became host of the SGA Biennial Meeting, which laid the foundation for a highly successful development on the international conference calendar in general and for SGA in particular – a trend that continues to this day. Instead of resting on his laurels thereafter, Jan took up the position of executive secretary in 1998 and, since then, dedicated an enormous amount of his time to SGA affairs in spite of his ever-increasing workloads at the Czech Geological Survey, where he eventually held the position of Research Director. Having worked together with, amongst others, 14 SGA presidents, three treasurers, five promotion managers and six chief editors of Mineralium Deposita, Jan became SGA’s centre of gravity. He held the strings together and made sure that SGA could grow from strength to strength in a fast-moving world and regularly changing SGA councils. SGA deeply owes him, and we wish him all the best for his retirement.
Karen Kelley & Hartwig Frimmel