The prestigious IGC, International Geological Congress, will be hosted in Cape Town this winter.

Also referred to as the 'World Cup of Geosciences' as it is the most important activity of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Only twice before has it been held on the African continent. The Council for Geosciences, the Geological Society of South Africa as well as collaborators from academia and industry are currently preparing for this mayor event.

As a leading Earth Science Department in South Africa Stellenbosch staff and postgraduate students are active contributors to this conference by leading excursions and presenting their research results:

Prof Alex Kisters leads the pre-conference field trip (August 20-27) together with Dr. Paul Macey from the CGS on the "Geology and mineralisation of the Namaqua Metamorphic Province" which takes a north-south cross-section through the spectacularly exposed Mesoproterozoic low P, high T Namaqua mobile belt.

It will present newly developed ideas on the geological history of the belt based on recent and current mapping and research projects and highlight a variety of tectonic, magmatic and mineralisation processes specific to this belt. 

His students will present the results from their research work.

Dr Martin Klausen and his postgraduate students will be presenting their work on the

Variably deformed and metamorphosed Palaeoproterozoic mafic dykes across the Nagssugtoqidian Foreland, SE Greenland (Riaan Bothma), and a petrographic, geochemical and geochronological study of mafic sills within the Transvaal Supergroup, east of the Bushveld Igneous Complex (Thendo Netshidzivhe).

W. Welgemoed and co-authors present results about mafic rocks along the Kasai River (DRC/Angola) while Martin Klausen shows results from a ~3 Ga record of mafic dyke and sill swarms across the Kaapvaal Craton: Further structural and geochemical clues for six Large Igneous Provinces.

Aspects of economic geology are covered by Prof A. Rozendaal, Dr T.-K. Rudnick and Dr. R. Heyn:

The Gamsberg Zinc Deposit South Africa: awakening of a Mesoproterozoic supergiant, as well as two abstracts that have been handed in by Dr. Bjorn von der Heyden:

Identification of the mineral drivers of abrasiveness in the Waterberg coal reserve (N. Boonzaaier and B. P. von der Heyden)

Synchrotron light applied to ore geology (Dr. Bjorn von der Heyden)

Dr Jodie Miller's research group handed in 13 abstract covering three main areas.

Work in conjunction with Dr Paul Macey from the Council for Geoscience on regional mapping in southern Namibia in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Namibia with a focus on isotope geochemistry, geochronology and petrology of different rocks suites, including the Eendoorn granitic Suite, the Kum Kum gabbroic suite and the Richtersveld Magmatic Arc rocks. Presenting students are Moses Angombe, Jason Indongo and Hendrik Smith who are all registered for MSc.

Work in collaboration with Dr Megan Becker at Minerals Processing UCT and Dr Ian Basson from Tect Geological Consulting on geometallurgical considerations of ore systems including application of X-Ray computed tomography to characterisation of ironores, platinum ores and Ni-sulphide deposits.

Isotope hydrology and modelling work on the west coast of southern Africa using O, H, Sr, Mg, and tritium isotopes with a focus on understanding the interaction between surface water and groundwater and the transfer of salts between these reservoirs.

Prof. Gary Steven's group will be represented with the following contributions:

The metamorphic history of Paleo-, Meso- and Neo-Archean sedimentary rocks and associated basement along the eastern and northern edge of the Kaapvaal craton: Insights into the enigmatic geodynamic processes that formed and shaped the Archean Earth (Stevens, G.,Nicoli, G., Vezinet, A. and Moyen, J-F)

Carbonatitic melt inclusions in peritectic garnet from Carlos Chagas batholith: Implications for crustal melting in the Araçuaí orogen, Brazil (Melo, M.G., Stevens, G. and Lana, C.)

A probe into the deep roots of the Saldania Belt: P-T-t signatures of Malmesbury Group xenoliths in the Darling Pluton. (Cilliers, K.L., Stevens, G., Kisters, A.F.M., Taylor, J.)

Disequilibrium melting of plagioclase during the generation of S-type granite magma (Madlakana. N, Stevens.G)

U-Th-Pb isotope behaviour in zircon, monazite, apatite, allanite, xenotime, titanite and rutile: deciphering high-temperature poly-metamorphism by in situ LA-SF-ICP-MS dating of accessory minerals (Taylor, J., Gerdes, A., Zeh, A.,Marko, L.)

Find more information on the IGC here:

http://www.35igc.org/