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Prof. Marco Fiorentini , Dr. Nicolas Thebaud, CET staff and South African affiliates will lead this excursion to mineral deposits in the Bushveld region of South Africa.
This field excursion provides students with a UWA-guided tour of some of the richest mines and best geological exposures in South Africa. This exclusive biennial course, which this year runs for two weeks in November, looks at a wide range of mineral systems, including gold, PGE, iron and base metals. Limited places are available for geologists to join Associate Professor Marco Fiorentini on this once in a lifetime experience.
The field trip to this geological wonderland will cover the Gauteng, Northwest, Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces of north-east South Africa. Much of this area consists of the Highveld (veld = plateau), about 1.5 km above sea level. One of the highest parts is the Witwatersrand (Afrikaans for “white water ridge”), forming a watershed, 2 km above sea level, between the Vaal River to the south that flows into the Atlantic Ocean and the Limpopo River to the north that flows into the Indian Ocean. Spectacular undulating topography typifies the area around Johannesburg, with quartzite ridges of the gold-bearing Witwatersrand Supergroup forming the positive relief. Three-hundred kilometres towards the east lies the breathtaking escarpment, where there is up to 1 km of vertical relief resulting from erosion of the Highveld during the last 3 million years. To the southeast, the magnificent Barberton Mountainland contains some of the world’s most spectacular komatiite outcrops. In the west, the Pilanesberg Alkaline Complex offers some of the greatest exposures of alkaline rocks and associated mineralisation in the world. The entire region is underlain by the Archean Kaapvaal craton, into which the spectacular Bushveld Complex, with its incredible PGE, V and Cr resources, was emplaced around 2 billion years ago. This field excursion will visit numerous world-class ore deposits and magnificent geological exposures. Throughout the trip, it will be possible to address questions related to the large scale lithospheric controls on the unique metal enrichment of this craton. Furthermore, it will be possible to examine the commonalities among different magmatic and hydrothermal ore-forming mechanisms that generated some of the richest and most diversified orebodies in the world.
There are strictly limited places available for our geological adventure. Be quick to register and pay online as the allocation will be based on a first come first served basis.
Visit the CET web site for further information.
