We are very pleased to announce that our PhD student, Ole Skursch, will be defending his PhD today. During his studies, Ole researched the origin of granites. Granites can form in various ways, e.g. from fractional crystallization of primitive mantle-derived magmas, or through partial melting of the Earth’s crust. In the Bushveld Complex (South Africa), different granites exist, which formed over short geological time concurrently with the emplacement of a large volume of mantle-derived magma in a crustal magma chamber.

Ole's work has contributed to the understanding of the chronology, geochemistry and isotope geochemistry of the Bushveld granites. The new research contributes to the understanding of how granites can form in relation to large magma chambers filled with mantle-derived magma and to the understanding of the timescales involved.

Time: Wednesday 23 October 2019 at 16.15
Place: Building 1671, room 137, Department of Geoscience, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 2, Aarhus University
Title of PhD thesis: Granites and granophyres of the Bushveld Complex: Petrology, geochemistry and chronology
Contact information: Ole Skursch, e-mail: skursch@geo.au.dk, tel.: +45 28 60 93 60
Members of the assessment committee:
Senior Scientist Robert Trumbull, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Professor James Scoates, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Associate Professor Søren Munch Kristiansen, Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University (chair)
Main supervisor:
Professor Christian Tegner, Institut for Geoscience, Aarhus Universitet
Co-supervisor:
Professor Charles Lesher, Institut for Geoscience, Aarhus Universitet og Earth and Planetary Science Department, University of California, Davis, USA
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Science and Technology/GSST, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C.