Last December 8, 2015 Marco Beltrando, researcher in structural geology at the University of Torino (Italy), passed away at the age of 36 due to a mountain accident in the Canavese area (Western Alps). He was a young, enthusiastic, curious and very brilliant researcher: in his young career he already reached very important results, such as the recognition of hyper-extended margins in the collisional belt of the Western Alps and the recognition of heating-cooling cycles in rift systems. Marco was able to easily connect structural geology and tectonics with petrology, geochronology and stratigraphy; his great capacity of linking the observations at the micro-scale to those at the meso- and macro-scale allowed him to shed new light on the evolution of both extensional and collisional systems. His new and original ideas have made him one of the leaders of a new generation of Alpine geologists. In 2013 he actively participated in the organization of the X International Eclogite Conference (Courmayeur, Italy) and successfully led the pre-conference excursion to the Petit St. Bernard area.

Marco was appreciated both by both colleagues and students, as shown by the numerous invitations to international conferences and by the large number of MSc and PhD students working with him. He loved very much the mountains also from the mountaineering side; he was used to spend his free time there, hiking and climbing during the summer, and cross country skiing during the winter. 

Marco Beltrando spent some time at the Utrecht University as a student and graduated in Geology at the University of Torino in 2002. He obtained the PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra (Australia) in 2007. In the last 4 years he was a researcher at the Structural Geology Group at the University of Torino where he taught Structural Geology and Regional Geology of the Alps. Just few days ago, (December 4th, 2105), he obtained a tenure track position for Associate professor at the University of Torino. 

It is very sad that Marco’s life and brilliant career terminated so suddenly right in the place he loved most, his loved mountains.
His wife Cristina, his son Marcello, his family, his many friends and colleagues and his students will miss Marco so much.