Author: Felix Mendelsohn
Born: 3 July 1922
Died: 29 August 2018
Bio: Felix Mendelsohn was a South African Mining Geologist. 


After matriculating from King Edward VII high school in Johannesburg he completed a mining course at Wits Tech and joined the City Deep Gold Mine as a learner official. His pursuit of a geological career was curtailed for a few years however when in 1942, he joined the South African air force as a spitfire pilot serving in campaigns over Italy. 
 
 After the war he enrolled at Wits graduating with a mining geology degree. Felix’s early career was spent in the then Rhodesia’s. From 1950 to 1961 he worked for Selection Trust in Northern Rhodesia on the Roan Antelope Mine on the Copperbelt where his research on the structure and metamorphism of the copper deposits earned him his PhD degree through Wits University. 
 
 He accepted a teaching post in June 1963 at Berkley, California as a visiting Professor and at Kingston University in Canada as Miller Memorial Research Professor at Queens University in 1964. The Mendelsohn’s returned to the then Southern Rhodesia in 1966. Here Selection Trust had established an exploration branch under George Woodward to search for another Copperbelt in the Lomagundi Formations. 

Application by Felix and geologists Doug McCloud, Keith Viewing, Bob Man, John Rogers, Peter Gordan, and Lawrie Minter using a new exploration procedure that was based on the geochemical analysis of stream sediments and soils, resulted in the successful identification of five mineral deposits in six years (1 gold, 1 nickel and 3 copper). The exploration activity was then shifted to the Bamangwata Concession in Botswana where the team discovered the Selibi Pikwe Nickel deposit. While on the Copperbelt Felix became well known for his contribution to the understanding of the copper deposits and for having edited a classical Monograph on The Geology of the Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt. 
 
In 1970 Felix returned to South Africa to set up practice as a Consulting Geologist in Johannesburg. He was involved in mineral project evaluation in South Africa, Africa and overseas, dealing with a wide variety of deposits. He published a number of papers and wrote over two hundred reports mainly on stratiform copper deposits and ore reserve estimations. During his time back in South Africa and with his passion for geology, 
 
Felix made a significant contribution to the affairs of the Geological Society of South Africa having served on council from 1979 to 1992. He was president of the society in 1991. He had a special interest in geoheritage and geological conservation and for many years chaired what was at the time called the Conservation Committee of the Society. He made an important contribution to geoheritage as a co- editor of a book, with Dr. Chris Potgieter, on the geosites of the greater Johannesburg area entitled “Guide Book to Sites of Geological and Mining Interest on the Central Witwatersrand”,. published by the GSSA in 1986. Descriptions of 62 sites, the location of which were plotted on a street map of Johannesburg were included. The Conservation Committee under his chairmanship embarked on a project of documenting important South African Geological Sites in general as well as the routes taken by various geological excursions over the years. He was chairman of and for many years played an important role in the running of Geological Society Trust, now the REI Fund.

Felix Mendelsohn was also for a number of years, from 1977, a member and chairman of the Johannesburg Museum Consultative Committee responsible for the magnificent collection of rocks and minerals originally owned by the Geological Society and now housed in the geological section of Museum Africa in the Newtown precinct. He also served on the Johannesburg Public Library Consultative committee from 1979 and the friends of Museum Africa committee In 1958 he received the Silver Medal from the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy for a paper on the structure of the Roan Antelope mine and in 1986 he received the Honours Award of the GSSA. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Society of Economic Geologists and the Geological Society of South Africa and served as Regional Vice President of the Society of Economic Geologists for Africa.