POST-REVOLUTION ROMANIA, 1990: Geodynamics Institute is established

The Institute of Geodynamics "Sabba S. Stefanescu" (I.G.) was established in 1990 by Government Decision No. 364/03.04.1990, being under the supervision of the Romanian Academy. The Institute was officially called the Geodynamics Center under the Romanian Academy.

According to the official website of the Institute (www.geodin.ro), it continues a tradition started within the Geophysical Research Center of the Romanian Academy on the occasion of the total solar eclipse, on February 15, 1961, when it can be considered that experimental geodynamics was introduced in our country.

In the production of the eclipse, in a building belonging to the monastic complex Caldarusani, the first records of the time variations of the gravitational field in Romania were made, using as a sensor an Askania-type gravimeter and its own construction recording systems.

On the same occasion, the recordings were made with a paraconical pendulum, also of its own construction.

In the history of the Institute (www.geodin.ro) it is stated that at present, in the building where these records were carried out, the Observatory of Geodynamics Caldarusani operates. Also, the cooperation established in 1961 between the Caldarusani Monastery - Romanian Orthodox Church and the Observatory of Geodynamics Caldarusani (Geophysical Research Center) - The Romanian Academy was officially celebrated in 2001.

After the dissolution of the Geophysical Research Center of the Romanian Academy in 1970, the various administrative reorganizations that affected the entire research structure led to the functioning of the Geodynamics Observatory in Caldarusani as a research laboratory, first as part of the Bucharest Astronomical Observatory, then, for a short period, as part of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Geology.

Subsequently, until the establishment in the current structure, the Geodynamics Laboratory operated within the Center for Physics and Seismology of the Earth, together with a seismology laboratory, which in 1990 became the National Institute of Earth Physics.

The Geodynamics Laboratory and the research group for natural fields formed the core of the Institute of Geodynamics. Gradually, this nucleus created a material base consisting, at first, almost exclusively of specific geodynamic equipment designed and built within its own laboratories, sometimes and in cooperation with specialists belonging to other research groups in Romania - the institutes of the Romanian Academy, the Department of Geophysics of the University of Bucharest, research units from the Bucharest-Magurele Physics Platform - and abroad : Royal Observatory of Belgium, Institute of Physical du Globe Paris - France, Department of Geodynamics at the Institute of Theoretical Geodesy, Bonn University - Germany, Nagoya University - Japan.

In 1993, the representatives of the European geodynamics elite - Prof. Paul Paquet, Prof. Bernard Dumarme, from the Belgian Royal Observatory, Prof. Manfred Bonatz, from the Institute of Theoretical Geodesy of the University of Bonn, Eng. Jan Flick, from the Walferdange Observatory, Prof. Dorel Zugravescu, from the Institute "Sabba S. Stefanescu" of Geodynamics of the Romanian Academy, Prof. Jean Louis Le Mouël, from the Institute of Physics of The Earth Paris - signed a multilateral collaboration, financed by the European Community.

The Institute of Geodynamics "Sabba S.Stefanescu" is a research institute with legal personality and operates on the basis of subsidies from the state budget. In order to achieve the objectives of its activity profile, the Institute of Geodynamics "Sabba S. Stefanescu" enters into relations with other units (research institutes, enterprises, institutions, banking bodies and other specialized institutions) private or public, in the country and abroad.(source: http://www.geodin.ro/)