TAPP research group

Terrestrial and Planetary Petrology

University of Cape Town

Welcome ● Wamkelekile ● Welkom

Our research group focuses on the petrology and economic geology of a wide range of rock types and tectonic settings from kimberlites to continental flood basalts to magmatism on Mars and the Moon. We are primarily interested in constraining the evolution of primitive mantle-derived magmas en route to the surface from their mantle source.

TAPP group news

Check out our recent paper that made it onto the cover of the June 2023 edition of GEOLOGY. Here we used X-ray computed tomography to observe the morphology of diamonds completely contained within the host rocks - mantle eclogite xenoliths.

This beautiful cover image shows a step-faced diamond poking out the edge of one of these diamondiferous xenoliths. Credit to Nic Laidler for taking this image.

You can read the full article here -

Howarth et al. 20123 - GEOLOGY

Screenshot 2023-06-05 at 12.27.39

Diamondiferous eclogite

Step-faced diamond

Screenshot 2023-06-05 at 12.27.39

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Latest student research

Congratulations to Chad on his first first author paper, which was recently published in a special issue of the Journal of African Earth Sciences showcasing planetary geology done in Africa..

Constraints on martian depleted shergottite volcanism from the petrogenesis of olivine-phyric shergottites NWA 2046 and NWA 4925

The paper details his research constraining magmatism on Mars related to the 1.1 Ma ejection event shergottites.

You can read the full article here -

Peel et al. 2023 - J. Afri. Earth Sci.

Peel paper_edited

Peel fig

chad_edited

Anton completed his MSc in 2022

Peel paper_edited

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Recent group activities

85th Annual Meeting of The Meteoritical Society - MetSoc 2022 hosted in Glasglow, Scotland

TAPP group members Chad Peel and Tarryn Aucamp presented their research on the petrology of martain meteorites to an international community of meteorite experts.

You can read Chad's abstract here -

You can read Tarryn's abstract here -

Peel et al. - MetSoc

Aucamp et al. - MetSoc

Chad Peel

Chad is currently a PhD student