By Blanca Parga Landa (Spanish ambassador Clintel)

Luís Pomar (Lleida, Spain, 1949) was a Professor at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) from the very beginning of the institution. He settled on the island in 1974. He taught in the departments of Biology and Earth Sciences.

His scientific research has focused on the field of carbonates, and he has stood out for his analysis of the processes that control the production and accumulation of carbonate sediments and the role of organisms and biological factors.

He was the only Balearic signatory of Clintel, and one of the first Spaniards to become a member of Clintel.

Luís Pomar’s first efforts concentrated on stratigraphic and sedimentological studies in the Balearic Islands. He also tackled the stratigraphic study of carbonate precipitates from groundwater during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Subsequently, it concentrated on studies of high-resolution facies architecture in carbonate systems and its implications for sequence stratigraphy. The main objective has been to develop predictive elements in the analysis of carbonate rocks.

He stood out for his contribution to the knowledge of the Miocene platforms of the Balearic Islands, especially Cap Blanc in Mallorca and Migjorn in Menorca, which he made into a reference point for specialists from all over the world. His research was carried out in different regions of Spain, Italy, Venezuela, the Caribbean, Arabia, etc., and he visited selected examples from different places in North America, Central America, various European countries, North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), the Arabian Peninsula (Oman, Emirates, Saudi Arabia), Pakistan, Malaysia, etc., covering a time range that goes from the Palaeozoic to the Quaternary.

In 2003-04 he was Distinguished Lecturer of the North American Program of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and lectured at fifteen universities and scientific associations in Canada and the United States.

In 2018 he was awarded the Sorby Medal, the highest distinction awarded in this discipline, by the International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS), as the culmination of a scientific and academic career with a great international impact.

He proclaimed to the four winds that ‘CO2 is life, climate change is a big lie’.

From my beginnings at Clintel Luis has been a great support for whom I have only words of thanks.

May he rest in peace.