Economic geologist Julian Vearncombe this week successfully presented a Zoom webinar, titled ‘Optimising the use of structural geology in the gold industry’, which was the fourth webinar in a series of five free-to-attend webinars hosted by geoscience collective the Overberg Geoscientists Group (OGG), in collaboration with nonprofit organisation the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA).

The weekly webinar series, which has been taking place every Thursday at 10:30 on Zoom since March 3, is aimed at capitalising on the significant advances on the Barberton gold deposits, in Mpumalanga, under the leadership of Stellenbosch University's Professor Alex Kisters.

Kisters said previously that it was critically important to recognise the intimate relationships between structure, fluid movement and alteration by applying modern geological technologies and interpretations in greenstone and other gold deposits, and, thereby, unlock new economic gold horizons in old deposits.

The five-part webinar series has been facilitated by Melbourne and Stellenbsoch University's Professor Neil Phillips – all episodes of which have been open to industry, explorationists and the general public and have sought to highlight new research in Barberton and other well-known gold provinces. 

The final webinar in the series will be held at 10:30 on Thursday, March 31, where Phillips will present on ‘Applying Archean gold alteration to the Witwatersrand goldfields’.

All previous webinar episodes were recorded and made available on the GSSA YouTube channel for on-demand viewing.

On March 3, the ‘Introduction to presentation series: Fluid wall-rock alteration in greenstone gold deposits’ was presented by Phillips.

March 10 featured a presentation on ‘Structural settings and alteration of the Barberton gold deposits’ by Tect Geological Consulting geoscientist Caitlin Jones.

On March 17, Kisters presented on ‘Barberton gold deposits as examples of the interplay of structure and alteration’.

All the webinars can be accessed at this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82093178839?pwd=dWs1c2k2RkFuTS9CM2VtZ0lsUHdndz09

For additional information on the webinar series, contact John Bristow at jwbdia@gmail.com or Hennie Greeff at hennie.greeff@gmail.com.