Secret Namibia by Lily Jouve

Author:Lily Jouve
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Secret Namibia
ISBN: 97819205451095
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2011-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

Nature Highlights

Geology

Due to its height and peculiar shape, the flat-topped Gamsberg mountain is the most striking feature of the region. The formation of the Gamsberg Granite dates back some 1 100 million years ago.

As the region became more arid and desiccated (some 180 million years ago), layers of sand accumulated here. Over aeons, these aeolian sands solidified into quartzite. It is this metamorphic rock that forms the erosion-resistant flat cap of the Gamsberg today.

At the beginning of the Tertiary Period (about 65 million years ago), when the climate was wetter, rivers flowed here, as evidenced by the numerous rounded pebbles of quartz found on the plateau.

Another, but less obvious, geological feature of this region is the Matchless Amphibolite Belt, the remnants of the crust of an ancient ocean that formed more than 700 million years ago. It appears as a layer of black rocks and marks the place where the Congo and Kalahari plates collided some 500 million years ago. The 350-kilometre feature is one of the few places in Namibia along which weak earthquakes still occur today. Remnants of the belt can be seen on both sides of the C14, about three kilometres after the Kuiseb River bridge, when travelling from the Gamsberg to Walvis Bay.

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