PhD candidates
PhD candidates & thesis
titles 2022:
Name: Lungele Steve Kitoga

Project Title: “The start of the Earth as we
know it: Tracing the Onset of couplings between the outer and the inner Earth”.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Understanding the nature of surficial processes such as seawater-seafloor interactions on the primitive Earth using field data, mineral assemblages and bulk-rock geochemistry of ancient cherts and silicified underlying volcanics from the Barberton Greenstone Belt;
Determining the specific stable isotope (Ce, S, Fe, Si, O) signatures of different supracrustal lithologies (e.g., silicified and sedimentary rocks) and their origin (i.e., causes of isotopic decoupling) in the Barberton Greenstone Belt;
And finally, studying stable isotope signatures of TTGs that constitute recycling products of the Barberton Greenstone Belt, with the purpose of constraining the precise lithologies that intervened in the genesis of their ultimate source. This will allow contributing to discussions about geodynamic workings in the Archean crust, and for instance understanding the nature of “subductions" or “recyclings" during the Early Archean. Therefore, this research may shed more light on whether recycling processes operated during the Archean just like today, or not.
Supervisor: Gary Stevens
Email: gs@sun.ac.za
PhD candidates & thesis titles 2021:

Carbon Solubility pump: pCO2 variability and potential for oceanic acidification below southern Africa - Margaret Ogundare

Mineralization styles, structural controls and metamorphic evolution of gold mineralization in the Karibib District, southern Central Zone of the Damara Belt, Namibia - Josia Shilunga
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BABEDI, LEBOGANG
| A Critical link between the chemical speciation and molecular-level chemistry of “invisible” Au bearing pyrite and its fundamental response to flotation reagents
| B von der Heyden |
CILLIERS, CHARL
| Sedimentology and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction of the Moreno Hill Formation, New Mexico
| R Tucker |
KANGUEEHI, KAUKURAUEE
| Southern African aerosol trace metal
concentration and dissolution kinetics characteristics | S Fietz |
MADLAKANA, NONKUSELO | An investigation of
the details of the process of crustal anatexis via the compositions and
textures of melt and mineral inclusions within peritectic garnet | G Stevens |
MORITZ, MUEHLBERG | The assembly,
metamorphic and deformation history of the Stolzburg pluton and surrounding
rocks | G Stevens |
OGUNDARE, MARGARET
| Carbon Solubility pump: pCO2 variability and potential for oceanic acidification below southern Africa
| AN Roychoudhury |
OTTO, TAHNEE
| An experimental investigation of the
petrogenesis of chromite within the Rustenberg Layered Suite of the Bushveld
Complex | G Stevens |
SHILUNGA, JOSIA
| Mineralization styles, structural controls and metamorphic evolution of gold mineralization in the Karibib District, southern Central Zone of the Damara Belt, Namibia | A Kisters |
SINGH, ASMITA | Understanding Southern Ocean-specific
phytoplankton ecophysiological response to iron availability | S Fietz |
VAN GEND, JANI
| Isotopic and elemental ratios to assess the contribution of rock salt to saline groundwater
| J Miller |
VAN HORSTEN, NATASHA | Seasonal
characterization of Fe-binding ligands and physical speciation of Fe in the
Southern Ocean (Atlantic sector) | AN Roychoudhury |
VILJOEN, JOHAN
| Drivers of interannual and seasonal variability of Southern Ocean phytoplankton distribution and adaptation
| S Fietz
|

Stephan Dunn




Jean Loock - Ryan Cloete & team