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September 2016
MODERN MINING
33
EXPLORATION AND
GEOSCIENCE
feature
Cup of Geosciences’
Above:
A delegate in the
poster presentation area at
the Congress.
Left:
South Africa’s Min-
eral Resources Minister
Mosebenzi Zwane delivers
the keynote address at the
opening of the 35th IGC in
Cape Town.
presentations, we are having up to 30 sessions
running in parallel.”
The 35th IGC was also accompanied by an
astonishing number of field trips – 16 pre-con-
gress and 10 post-congress trips within South
Africa with a further 15 field trips covering the
entire African continent up as far north as Mali,
Ghana and Tanzania. When
Modern Mining
talked to Viljoen in Cape Town (at which point
only the pre-congress tours had been completed),
he described the field trip programme as a for-
midable exercise. “We have over 700 delegates
participating in the various trips, all of which
have to have expert guides,” he said. “Probably
the most ambitious was our ‘Geological Summits
of Africa’, which saw participants – including
my Co-President – going down South Africa’s
deepest mine, Mponeng, and then flying on to
Tanzania to summit Mt Kilimanjaro.”
An extremely popular post-congress flag-
ship field trip was the train journey from Cape
Town to Victoria Falls. Expert guides were on
hand to introduce participants to the outstand-
ing geological, mining and cultural features
at the various stops along the way including
the Cape Fold mountains, Kimberley and dia-
monds, Johannesburg and gold, the Cradle of
Humankind, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe,
the Matobo Hills, the Chobe game reserve and,
finally, the Falls.
Discussing foreign representation at the
Congress, Viljoen said the biggest contingent
was from China (around 660 delegates) with a
strong contingent from India also being present.
“We’re happy with the number of attendees.
The total is lower than at the most recent IGCs
held in Brisbane and Oslo, which both had
in the vicinity of 6 000 delegates, but is nev-
ertheless very respectable given the current
economic climate and particularly the poor
state of the resources industry globally.”
He pointed out that the organisers had made
a conscious effort to draw in delegates from all
over Africa. “Bridging the distances between
African geoscientists has been a key goal of this
IGC,” he stated. “Among other things, we’ve
had a GeoHost programme which has been
designed and developed by the International
Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) to help
young, financially disadvantaged geoscientists
to attend the IGC.”
Accompanying the conference was an exhibi-
tion, which – according to Viljoen – exceeded
expectations. “We have more than 200 exhibitors
and we’ve been delighted with the response,” he
said. “They range from mining groups such as
Exxaro – our main sponsor – and Vale through
to companies providing geoscience services and
equipment, as well as academic and research
organisations and geological survey organisa-
tions from around the world.”
The huge number of presentations at the
Congress ranged from the practical through to
the highly academic and they were grouped
under three main core topics – Geoscience
for Society, Fundamental Geoscience and
Geoscience in the Economy.
Addressing some of the issues facing min-
erals explorers in South Africa, Viljoen told
Modern Mining
that a prime concern was the
obstacles placed in the way of finding new
deposits and developing projects. “Mining