The Aliakmon Legacy Project (2005-2009) hosted international university students and researchers, who were invited to study the Vourinos Ophiolite emplacement zone and related rocks along the Aliakmon River in the province of West Macedonia, Greece.
This stretch of the river has since been submerged by the construction of a large earthen dam, obscuring rocks of the sub-ophiolitic melange and suture zone, beneath the present-day Lake Ilarionas. Many thanks to the Public Power Corporation of Greece, the Regional Offices of West Macedonia, and the Hellenic Survey, for giving their support to this project.
This video was created by Anna Batsi and features some of the students, professors, and locales of this ambitious undertaking. Many of the sites pictured, which were crucial to the development of plate tectonic theory, have now been, for all intents and purposes, lost forever, but the knowledge gained by this project has expanded our understanding of the plate tectonic history of the region and the mechanisms of ophiolite formation and emplacement.
This area is now part of the geopark Grevena-Kozani.
Music: Rod Stewart 'Sailing'
Tina Turner 'Simply the Best'
