Analog modelling laboratory

Our Tectonic modelling laboratory offers access for school classes and public events, where we demonstrate interesting geological processes in interactive and visually appealing devices.

If you would like to visit our laboratory, please send us an email.

Organ barrel of plate tectonics

The Barrel organ of plate tectonics device is a unique didactical apparatus illustrating the principle of plate tectonics, the formation and subduction of oceanic crust, and the development of volcanoes in volcanic arcs and hotspots.

Phreatomagmatic volcano explosion (maar- diatreme)

The Phreatomagmatic volcano model employs pressurized air to eject dark sand through the cone shaped crater with colored sand layers on top. The experiment illustrates the mechanism of volcanic eruption driven by magma and water interaction in the subsurface. Specimen and outcrop of phreatomagmatic breccia, where partly rounded white clasts with dark rims represent fragments of original magma that was rapidly cooled at the contact with water in the root zone of the maar-diatrames (phonolite body Hněvín hill, Most town, Czech republic).

Augmented Reality Sandbox

In the Augmented Reality Sandbox, we use the Microsoft Kinect 3.0 detector to analyze the topography in a created model and project it back onto the model surface. The setup and the software was developed by UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES).

Scoria cone volcano

This show-case style of experiment builds up a volcanic cone by sand grains ejected from a central pipe by a stream of air. The background landscape of a monogenetic volcanic field (e.g. on Mars) was created by a professional artist.