Bornhardt invented a number of applications for the mining industry.

The bornhardt mountain is only one of several monolithic granite and quartz mountains that rise straight from the water's edge around Rio de Janeiro.

If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss, it can also be called a bornhardt, though not all bornhardts are inselbergs.

He first coined the term "inselberg" to describe an isolated massif, while the term "bornhardt", describing a particular type of inselberg, is used in his honour.

They are named after Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864-1946), a German geologist and explorer of German East Africa, who first described the feature.

The Sugarloaf Mountain of Rio de Janeiro is a typical example of this landform and is the origin of the common bornhardt nickname "sugar loaf".

The name Sugarloaf or Sugar Loaf applies to numerous raised topographic landforms worldwide: mountains, hills, peaks, summits, buttes, ridges, rock formations, bornhardt, inselberg, etc.

Bornhardt documented the existence of coal reserves in present-day Tanzania in 1896 when he explored the Songwe Kiwira area, described the Karoo stratigraphy and surveyed several coal fields.

In 1911, German geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt at Nambango in German East Africa discovered two sauropod vertebrae, fifteen kilometers (nine miles) southeast of Tendaguru Hill.

Vaudeville von Carl Blum, arranged as a trio for flute, violin and guitar by I.H.C. Bornhardt (Braunschweig: Musikalisches Magazine auf der Höhe)