Research

After having joined UCT in 1989 as lecturer in metamorphic geology, my research interests have been on low grade metamorphism in general, with regional focus on the Gariep and Saldania belts in southern Namibia/South Africa and the Witwatersrand Basin. While working at UCT full-time I was also leader of the geoscience component of the South African National Antarctic Programme and as such involved in studies on the structural evolution of medium- to high-grade terrains in Western Dronning Maud Land with comparative studies on the Namaqua-Natal metamorphic belt. Since taking up a professorship at the University of Würzburg in 2004, this work has been continued with further projects on the Shackleton Range and currently on ultrahigh-temperature metamorphism in the Southern Granulite Terrane of India.

As co-leader of the IGCP 478 on “Neoproterozoic-Early Palaeozoic Events in SW-Gondwana", initially started from UCT, I became involved in a number of projects on the interplay between tectonics, climate change and metallogenesis. The study areas range from eastern South America, central and southern Africa to China. A follow-up to that project has been the still on-going work on the reconstruction of the main lithospheric anisotropies that led to the opening of the modern South Atlantic within the framework of the German Priority Programme SAMPLE (“South Atlantic Margin Processes and Links with onshore Evolution”) in cooperation with UCT.

My main research interests have been in the field of economic geology and mineral deposit research. This has included studies on the genesis of carbonate-hosted magnesite and siderite deposits, several sediment-hosted base metal ore districts, and foremost the genesis of the Witwatersrand gold deposits and similar styles of mineralization elsewhere in the world. More recently, this has been augmented by studies on different types of uranium deposits, and on economic geological forecasts. The latter includes mineral potential mapping for certain commodities as well as forecasts on future availability of non-renewable mineral resources.

Latest Publications

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1. Pratihari, A.R., Hegde, V.S., McKenzie, N.R., Frimmel, H.E., Shukla, A.D. and Hulaji, S., 2023. Provenance of the conglomerate and siliciclastic rocks from the Gadag Greenstone Belt, Western Dharwar Craton, India: Implications for understanding Neoarchean basin margin sedimentation. Geological Journal, 58(5), pp.1911-1944.
2. Höhn, S., Frimmel, H.E. and Price, W., 2023. Response to: Discussion on “Syn-metamorphic sulfidation of the Gamsberg zinc deposit, South Africa” by Stefan Höhn, Hartwig E. Frimmel, and Westley Price. Mineralogy and Petrology, pp.1-6.
3. Ma, Y., Jiang, S.Y. and Frimmel, H.E., 2023. Apatite records metamorphic and hydrothermal fluid evolution at the large Shuangqishan orogenic gold deposit, SE China. Geological Society of America Bulletin.
4. Will, T.M., Gaucher, C., Frimmel, H.E., Ling, X.X., Shi, W., Li, X.H. and Li, Q.L., 2023. Ediacaran to Cambrian tectonomagmatic events in the Southern Dom Feliciano Belt, Uruguay: From a plate margin to an intraplate setting and the assembly of SW Gondwana. Gondwana Research, 115, pp.155-182.
5. Chakravarti, R., Frimmel, H.E., Singh, S., Barla, A., Venkatesh, A.S. and Balakrishnan, S., 2022. A geochemical and mineral chemical assessment of sediment provenance and post-depositional alteration of auriferous conglomerates in the Singhbhum Craton. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 243, p.107095.