Isidro Parga Pondal (1900-1986) and the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain. A story of agreements and disagreements

Abstract

The Laboratorio Xeolóxico de Laxe, founded by the geochemist Isidro Parga Pondal in the 1940s, was a relevant center for the study of Galician geology. The activity carried out in it allowed him to collect in a few years a large amount of data. It was also a recognized research center beyond our borders, bringing together national and foreign geologists with a common goal. Its antecedents can be found in the Laboratorio de Xeoquímica of the University and Seminary of Galician Studies, also created by Parga during the 1920s at the University of Santiago. On that date he began his relationship with the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain through the mining engineer Primitivo Hernández-Sampelayo who, after the Civil War and the expulsion of Parga from the university, promoted the establishment in Galicia of a territorial headquarters of the Institute, in which Parga would be in charge. This was not possible, but Parga's collaboration with the mappping plan was articulated through the making of 1:50,000 scale geological sheets of Galicia, as well as the publication of other maps at different scales. The problems detected by Parga in the design of the mapping plan of the IGME resulted in some disagreements that were difficult to overcome. They were aggravated by the impossibility of the participation of the Laboratorio Xeolóxico de Laxe, for administrative reasons, in the new IGME’s geological mapping design at a scale 1:50,000, the MAGNA plan. In any case, the IGME incorporated into its maps the information obtained by Parga and by the geology schools that he coordinated from the Laboratorio Xeolóxico de Laxe, which allowed, among other achievements, for Galicia to be the first region in Spain to have a complete geological cartography at a scale of 1:50,000.