Presentations by University of Adelaide PhD students:
Rare meteorites, rehabilitating the Brukunga Mine and dating the Gosses Bluff meteorite crater 
Thursday 1st May 2025 at 7:00pm

Mawson Lecture Theatre, 
Department of Earth Sciences,
University of Adelaide

Cooper Ferguson, Zara Woolston and Jayden Squire
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide

     This showcase of student presentations has become a regular feature of our programme, giving graduate students from the Department of Earth Sciences an opportunity to tell the FGC about the exciting work that they are doing, and for the FGC to learn how these young and enthusiastic researchers are chipping away at the frontiers of earth science. The meeting will take the form of a 15-minute presentation by each of the students followed by discussion with the audience. They will love to have your feedback, and to answer your questions.

Enstatite meteorites, reduced visitors from the inner Solar System
Cooper Ferguson
Enstatite meteorites are the rarest type of meteorite known to fall to the Earth’s surface, comprising only 1% of the total meteorite falls globally. Enstatites are high reduced (that is, they have a very low content of oxygen), indicating that they formed in an environment highly lacking in water and oxygen, along with a chemical make-up that suggests solar influence. My Honours project in 2024 looked at four of these meteorites, studying the rare minerals found within them, with an exciting find of the second ever reported occurrence of a rare oxide in enstatites, and attempting to shed some light on how these rocks formed and evolved through time.

Breaking down Brukunga: the remediation of a pyrite mine 
Zara Woolston
   Acid and metalliferous drainage (AMD) is globally seen as the greatest environmental legacy from mining and mineral processing. Having an environmentally conscious closure plan from the beginning is a key aspect of succesfully remediating a mine site. Brukunga is a small community in the Adeliade Hills, Northeast from Mount Barker. This community was the work force for the pyrite mine the operated from 1955 to 1972. This site produces AMD run off that the Department of Energy and Mining remediate before it is able to enter into water ways of the Adelaide Hills, this remediation will need to happen for up to 700 years. Come and check out the talk if you want to understand how we do this and what it looks like!

Finding the age of the Gosses Bluff impact crater
Jayden Squire
Gosses Bluff is a Jurassic/Cretaceous impact structure located in Central Australia. Its age and origin have been long debated since the early 1960s. New dating techniques will provide important conclusions about the accuracy of previous geochronology and the impact’s role in global environmental change. On top of the ground-breaking geochronology, I will discuss how the melt rock chemistry can tell us about the source impactor, where it came from and if it was connected to other impacts.

Members and visitors are warmly invited to attend. No booking requirement.
University policy is to close doors at 7.00 pm, so be sure to arrive punctually! If you are unavoidably late, text the number affixed to the door with the message “locked out”.
Refreshments will be served in the tea room following the meeting.
The meeting will be zoomed. The link will be distributed to members by email a day or two before the meeting,

Tutorials are designed to provide new and experienced members with a deeper understanding of general geology topics that we frequently use and refer to, especially during field trips.

This meeting's 10-minute geology tutorial is on Cleavage.
We regularly see cleavage in some rocks but not others. Why is this? How does cleavage form? How can we use cleavageto decipher geological structures, especially those that are not fully exposed?
In this tutorial, we will explore the origins of cleavage to gain a better understanding of the geology we observe in the field.
Please be seated by 6:40 pm so we can begin this tutorial without interruption.
                     Peter Briggs



The recent tutorial given by Kym Dixon explained how to identify the more common minerals. This involves describing a mineral’s properties such as colour, hardness, streak and magnetism. 
Kym has put together the necessary testing equipment in a kit. When on excursions, it is small enough to carry in your pocket. It comes with a simple set of instructions.
If you would like a kit, contact Kym via kymdixon1@bigpond.com. $10 can be paid to the club by electronic fund transfer or bank deposit.



Background to tutorials:

The tutorial series that is being presented this year by Peter Biggs and Kym Dixon is an attempt to take a geological concept and explain it in a simplified way that will benefit the understanding of those members who have not have not undertaken any formal course in geology. Also, more informed geologists will benefit from a brush up of these concepts.

The format is that the tutorial will be in the Mawson Lecture Theatre and start at 6:40 and run for 10 minutes. This will allow time before 7:00 to set up for the formal start to the meeting. For those who would like to attend the tutorial, try to arrive before 6:40 and sit more towards the left-hand side of the theatre (as viewed from an audience perspective).

                                                         Peter Briggs