Keynote speakers

Márta Berkesi

MTA – HUN-REN FI FluidsByDepth Lendület (Momentum) Research Group, HUN-REN Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science, Sopron, Hungary

Márta Berkesi earned her degree in geology in 2007 from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. In 2011, she completed her PhD, investigating mantle and CO₂–H₂O fluids under lithospheric mantle conditions through a collaborative effort between Eötvös Loránd University and the Université de Lorraine in France. She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the CNRS in Nancy (GeoRessources Laboratoire), France, and at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Since 2021, she has been working at the HUN-REN Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science. Márta has received three postdoctoral research grants funded by the Hungarian State and currently leads the Momentum FluidsByDepth Research Group, sponsored by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Márta served as Chair of the Organizing Committee for the prestigious ECROFI (European Current Research on Fluid Inclusions) meeting in 2019, which focuses on fluid inclusion studies. She is an elected Council Member of the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG), a member of the Young Academy of Europe, and a member of the ECROFI Scientific Committee. Her research focuses on mantle fluids and degassing, subduction-related fluids, and the Raman spectroscopic investigation of fluid inclusions.

Geologic CO₂ Accumulation, Storage, and Cycling in the Lithospheric Mantle and Lower Crust: Insights from the Pannonian Basin

The subcontinental lithospheric mantle and lower continental crust represent distinct but geodynamically connected reservoirs that control the accumulation, storage, and migration of mantle-derived CO₂. During post-rift lithospheric thickening, carbon-rich fluids and low-degree melts can become incorporated into the newly formed lithospheric mantle, creating a spatially extensive and long-lived carbon reservoir. Mantle-derived CO₂ can subsequently migrate across the Moho and become stored in the lower crust, particularly within garnet, graphite, and accessory minerals, allowing carbon to remain trapped for millions of years before being released. Evidence from the Pannonian Basin therefore suggests a multistage carbon (fluid) pathway—from asthenospheric accumulation through storage in the mantle and lower crust to eventual transport into groundwater or to the surface—rather than direct mantle-to-surface degassing. Isotopic signatures and potential fluid pathways, such as nanochannels, deep faults, former volcanic conduits, and deformation zones, further demonstrate how these deep reservoirs can remain connected to present-day crustal and surface carbon systems.

Nicholas Dygert

Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, USA

Nicholas Dygert is the Lawrence and Dawn Taylor Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee. He is an experimentalist and geochemist and researches the formation and evolution of planets including the Earth and Moon, with a focus on interior processes. Nicholas holds a PhD from Brown University. He serves as an Associate Editor for Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, and in his home department, as Director of Graduate Studies and PI of the University of Tennessee NASA Space Grant Consortium.

Insights into mantle processes from trace element partitioning experiments

Chemical signals of planetary interior processes are recorded by igneous rocks and can be decoded in the context of experimental constraints on trace element partitioning behavior. This talk reviews some advances in understanding the temperature, composition, and oxygen fugacity sensitivity of rare earth element partitioning between rock forming minerals and coexisting melts, and among minerals under subsolidus conditions. Applications to natural samples reveal mechanisms of cooling beneath seafloor spreading centers, rheological properties of dynamical instabilities in Earth’s lithosphere, magmatic controls on oxygen fugacity, and provide first order constraints on the nature of lunar differentiation and the mineralogy and composition of lunar basalt sources.

Dániel Kalmár

Kövesligethy Radó Seismological Observatory, HUN-REN Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science, Budapest, Hungary

Dániel Kalmár is Head of the Kövesligethy Radó Seismological Observatory at the HUN-REN Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science in Budapest. His research focuses on seismic imaging of the crust, lithosphere, and upper mantle, with particular emphasis on receiver function analysis and the geodynamic evolution of the Pannonian Basin and the surrounding Alpine–Carpathian–Dinarides region. He received his PhD in Earth Sciences from Eötvös Loránd University in 2021, with a thesis focusing on crustal structure in the wider Pannonian Basin using P receiver functions. He has been involved in major European seismological initiatives, including AlpArray and AdriaArray, and currently leads research activities on lithospheric structure and seismic anisotropy in the Circum-Pannonian region. He is also a Hungarian delegate to the European Seismological Commission (ESC) and the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior (IASPEI).

The Lithospheric and Upper Mantle Structure of the Circum-Pannonian Region: Insights from Receiver Functions

The Circum-Pannonian region provides an exceptional natural laboratory for investigating the structure and evolution of continental lithosphere, with the Pannonian Basin surrounded by the Eastern Alps, Carpathians, and Dinarides. In this talk, new constraints on the lithosphere, with particular attention to the upper-mantle structure of the region, based on P-to-S and S-to-P receiver function analysis, will be presented. The study combines broadband seismic data from more than 860 permanent and temporary stations, spanning two decades of observations. Through rigorous quality control and advanced receiver function processing, we develop high-resolution maps of sediment thickness, crustal discontinuities, Moho depth, lithospheric thickness, and the Lithosphere–Asthenosphere Boundary (LAB). The results reveal pronounced lateral variations in crustal and lithospheric structure, ranging from the thin lithosphere beneath the Pannonian Basin to substantially thicker lithosphere beneath the surrounding orogenic belts.

Receiver functions also provide new constraints on the structure of the mantle transition zone, including the ~410 and ~660 km discontinuities. Combined with seismic tomography, these observations reveal complex mantle structures associated with past and ongoing subduction, mantle upwelling, and the long-term geodynamic evolution of the Alpine–Carpathian–Pannonian–Dinarides region.

These results provide a coherent seismic view extending from the crust to the mantle transition zone and highlight the role of lithospheric structure in controlling the present-day geodynamic evolution of the Circum-Pannonian region.