Dr Bergh heads a team of researchers and students who have tackled research projects dealing with understanding past and modern environments. Below are the researchers, assistants and students who have been a part of the research undertaken.
Dr Eugene Bergh
Researcher
Dr Bergh has a PhD from the University of Cape Town and specialises in the reconstruction and analyses of past and modern changing environments using marine faunal, fossil, sedimentary and geochemical tools. His study areas have been deep-sea environments, the continental shelf and marginal marine environments along the coast of Namibia, South Africa and southern Mozambique. He is involved in education initiatives where he teaches several aspects of Palaeontology and Geology and its applications in modern environmental and geographic change and through geologic time. Dr Bergh has also lectured and co-supervised students at the University of Cape Town.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Mabrouk Bachari
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Mabrouk Bachari completed his PhD degree from El Manar University (Tunis) and Lorraine University (France). He has research experience in sedimentological, petrological and tectonic controls of Cretaceous deposits from Tunisia. His research focuses on palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the Cretaceous to Palaeogene successions in North Africa and South Africa.
Current Students
Mulalo Netsianda
PhD student
Mulalo Netsianda started his doctoral studies at North-West University in 2024. His project investigates the influence of climate changes on the physio-chemical, sedimentary and microfaunal characteristics of the Angola-Benguela Front on the southwestern margin of Africa.
Hancko Ostmann
M.Sc. student
Hancko Ostmann graduated with his Honours degree from North-West University in 2024 specialising in Geology. He is currently pursuing his M.Sc. studies with a project on hyperaccumulation in plants from the Namaqualand in the Northern Cape of South Africa, under the supervision of Dr Bergh and Ricart Boneschans.
Reyner la Grange
M.Sc. student
Reyner la Grange graduated with his Honours degree from North-West University in 2024 specialising in Geology. He is currently pursuing his M.Sc. studies with a project on gold mineralisation from the Witwatersrand Basin under the supervision of Dr Bergh and Ricart Boneschans.
Michael Fourie
M.Sc. Student
Michael Fourie obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) in Microbiology from North-West University in 2023, with undergraduate specialisations in Microbiology and Geology. He is currently pursuing his M.Sc. in Environmental Sciences at North-West University, where he is studying impacts of anthropogenic activities on estuaries along the South African coast under the supervision of Dr Bergh and Dr Lekota.
Malcolm Fourie
M.Sc. student
Malcolm received his Honours degree in Applied Geology at the University of the Western Cape in 2019. His research project focussed on the spatial and temporal distribution of microfossil foraminifera to establish the Maastrichtian-Paleocene (late Cretaceous to early Cenozoic) boundary and interpret depositional environments across the boundary within a specific interval of well Jc-B1 in the Durban Basin along the eastern margin of South Africa.
Malcolm is currently pursuing his M.Sc. degree in Applied Geology at the University of the Western Cape under the supervision of Dr Eugene Bergh and Professor Tapas Chatterjee where he is investigating the Pleistocene to Holocene palaeoceanographic history of the Southeast Atlantic along the western margin of South Africa, based on trace element and isotope geochemistry in foraminifera.
JJ Posthumus
Honours student
For his Honours project, JJ is documenting and investigating oceanographic change associated with the Plio-Pleistocene transition on the southern margin of South Africa.
Tinelle Grobler
Honours student
Tinelle Grobler is investigating the influence of anthropogenic activities on an estuary on the south coast of South Africa.
Mogammad Yaaseen Hendricks
Collaborator
Mogammad Yaaseen Hendricks obtained his M.Sc. in Petroleum Geology at the University of the Western Cape in 2019. He is currently pursuing his PhD in sedimentology at the University of the Western Cape. His postgraduate research focussed on identifying early Cretaceous environments on the southwestern margin of South Africa using seismic data, sedimentary petrography, geochemistry and trace fossil analysis. He has also been involved in exploratory foraminiferal research. Mogammad completed an internship in Invertebrate Palaeontology and Geology under the supervision of Dr Bergh
Past Students and Assistants
Kamogelo Monatisa
Past Honours student
Kamogelo graduated with his Honours degree from North-West University in 2024, specialising in Geology. His project under the supervision of Dr Bergh determined the depositional environment during the early Miocene of the western margin of South Africa.
Daniël Louw
Past Honours student
Daniel Louw graduated with his Honours degree from North-West University in 2024 with a specialisation in Geology. His project under the supervision of Dr Bergh investigated the depositional environment, composition and micro-textures of phosphorites from the Namibian shelf.
Pieter Louw
Past Honours student
Pieter Louw graduated with his Honours degree from North-West University in 2024. His project under the supervision of Dr Bergh investigated sedimentary characteristics and oceanographic conditions associated with the initiation and intensification of the Benguela Upwelling System along the western margin of South Africa. This work has been published (see the publications page for details).
Kimberley Reddiar
Past Honours student
Kimberley Reddiar graduated with her Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2022. Her project detailed the sedimentary composition and foraminifera from the Knysna Estuary on the South African south coast under the supervision of Dr Eugene Bergh and Professor Mike Meadows.
Louis Jonk
Past Honorary Assistant
Louis Jonk holds a M.Sc. degree from the University of Stellenbosch. He has conducted sedimentological research on fossil sites in Central Utah, United States to classify the depositional facies and reconstruct the palaeoenvironment of the area. This was coupled with radiometric dating of uranium-bearing detrital zircons to constrain the depositional age and provenance of the sediments and associated fossil material. Louis Jonk then focussed on marine environments and studied the geochemistry and morphology of foraminifera, under the supervision of Dr Eugene Bergh. These projects investigated the viability of using these methods to determine past ocean conditions around the margin of southern Africa.
Jared Tanner Walsh
Past M.Sc. Student
Jared obtained his M.Sc. in Earth Sciences from the University of Stellenbosch in 2023. His project focussed on changing marine environmental conditions in the Benguela Upwelling System during the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition, under the supervision of Dr Bergh and Prof. Fietz.
Rebecca von Koslowski
Past M.Sc. student
Rebecca received her B.Sc. degree from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany where she studied in the field of geochemistry/paleoceanography. She then pursued her M.Sc. degree at the University of Cape Town in Applied Marine Sciences where her project was based on MIS 3 to MIS 1 ocean circulation along the western South African margin based on neodymium isotopes in foraminifera.
B.Sc. thesis: “The origin of Lower Carboniferous limestone-chert couplets from the Dingle Peninsula, South West Ireland, and their reliability as seawater archives” (Supervisors: Michael Bau & Sebastian Viehmann)
M.Sc. thesis: “Glacial-interglacial variations of the water masses in the southeast Atlantic Ocean derived from foraminiferal neodymium isotope ratios” under the collaboration of Associate Professor John Compton and Dr Eugene Bergh
Gordon Harding
Past Honours student
Gordon Harding graduated with his Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2018. His project under co-supervision of Dr Bergh investigated how sedimentation was influenced by sea level change during the last glacial and interglacial cycles comparing new and existing data from two core sites along the western margin of South Africa.
George Teboho Mosito
Past Honours student
Teboho Mosito graduated with his Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2016. His project under co-supervision of Dr Bergh investigated palaeoceanographic and sedimentological changes into an area off the Olifants River in the Southern Benguela Region from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to present.
Jennifer Ehima
Past Honours student
Jennifer Ehima graduated with her Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2015. Her project under co-supervision of Dr Bergh investigated how the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) influenced the sedimentary history of an area on the southern flank of the Cape Canyon.
Melissa Oosthuizen
Past Honours student
Melissa Oosthuizen graduated with her Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2014. Her project aimed to provide a depositional history and account of formation for sediments formed on the northern Namibian continental shelf. Her project also documented biological activity and sedimentological characteristics of the cores retrieved from the area.
Leilah Gharbaharan
Past Honours student
Leilah graduated with her Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2012. Her project under co-supervision of Dr Bergh analysed sediments from cores retrieved from the central continental shelf of Namibia. She analysed the sediments and geochemistry of mineral grains to determine the depositional history of the area.
Bright Duze
Past Honours student
Bright Duze graduated with his Honours degree from the University of Cape Town in 2012. His project under co-supervision of Dr Bergh investigated the mineralogy of sediments recovered from the central Namibian continental shelf.
Dr Eugene Bergh 