Rate My Professor Geoffrey Howarth

Dr Geoffrey Howarth is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Cape Town. He is an igneous petrologist and economic geologist whose research focuses on kimberlite magma genesis and emplacement, the evolution of the sub-cratonic mantle through the study of mantle xenoliths and diamonds, the origin of ore deposits in layered intrusions, and the evolution of magmatic plumbing-systems on Mars. His kimberlite and mantle-related studies draw on the University of Cape Town’s extensive ‘Mantle-room’ collection and field work in southern Africa and West Africa. Martian studies are based on the petrology of shergottite meteorites.

Geoffrey completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Rhodes University, where he received a PhD in Geology for research on Fe-Ti-V oxide formation in the Panzhihua mafic layered intrusion in SW China. He undertook a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Tennessee, followed by a second post-doctoral position at the University of Cape Town from 2015 to 2017. He subsequently served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia before returning to the University of Cape Town as a Lecturer in 2019. His recent publications include studies on the petrogenesis of Kaapvaal lamproites, nickel-manganese variability in olivine from Martian meteorites, and contrasting types of micaceous kimberlite-lamproite magmatism from the Man Craton.