January 28, 2005, Findlay, Ohio – Prompted by the deadly tsunami in South Asia on December 26, 2004, Dr. Yevgeniy Kontar, adjunct professor of geology at The University of Findlay and an international expert on oceanography and hydrogeology, will present a lecture on Thursday, Feb. 3 at 4 p.m. at the University’s Martin Lecture Hall in Brewer Science. His lecture is titled “The Southeast Asia Tsunami Disaster Aftermath: Urgent Action Needed to Reduce the Effects of Natural Disasters in the Indian Ocean Region and Elsewhere.”

Kontar, along with scientists from Thailand, the Philippines, the United States, Russia and Japan, visited Southeast Asia following the tsunami disaster to study the waves’ impact on the area’s aquifers and ground water quality as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s evaluation of the natural disaster.

According to Kontar, it is vital to the lives of people in countries around the Indian Ocean that a disaster management center be established similar to what countries around the Pacific Ocean already have in place. “Information alone cannot save human lives if no management procedures, public preparedness, hazard maps, evacuation routes and shelters are prescribed prior to any natural disaster,” Kontar said. “Scientists can and should help save human lives by providing governmental institutions with accurate predictions of natural disasters with a good lead-time.”

Kontar has also worked on international scientific projects for the European Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the International Hydrological Program, and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research.

Kontar has served as a professor of earth science at Moscow State Geological University and the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the director of the Experimental Methods Laboratory at the P.P. Shirshov Institute.

He is credited with discovering warm benthic storms, or significant, long-term variations in the velocity of near-bottom ocean currents. Kontar also holds numerous patents on marine geo-ecological instrumentation from Russia, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Finland and Australia. He has published more than 300 scientific articles and six books, and has served as chief scientist on more than 15 oceanographic cruises.

At The University of Findlay, Kontar teaches classes on applied earth sciences.

For more information on the free, public, lecture, contact Rebecca Shell, public relations officer, at 419-434-4345 or shell@findlay.edu