Geological Journeys – A traveller’s guide to South Africa’s rocks and landforms

Geological Journeys – A traveller’s guide to South Africa’s rocks and landforms by Nick Norman and Gavin Whitfield

If you’ve ever driven down the N1 past Laingsburg towards Matjiesfontein, you’ll have noticed a distinctive white, crystal-like band in the rocks “standing above the surrounding countryside like a low, cream-coloured farm wall.” And if you’re anything close to curious at all, you’ll have wondered about it… and about the many other curious things you see in the rocks around you as you explore South Africa.

The boulders in Llandudno Bay, the Three Rondawels in the Blyde River Canyon (and, indeed, the whole blimmin’ Canyon) – what made them? Whey are they THERE?

Up to now I’ve always known which field guide to use for identifying the birds and the bees – but I’ve never before found anything that gets close to Geological Journeys when it comes to the rocks and the mountains.

I love it (my copy is only a month old but already it’s a little worn at the edges – as all good, well-used books ought to be). And I’ve learned that my white band is actually the Matjiesfontein Chert – and that “just beyond Matjiesfontein, there is one of the delights of the Karoo Supergroup: the tillite of the Dwyka Group, the glacial deposit that was one of the main keys to unlocking the story of continental drift… Other than the fact that it is around 300 million years old and so hard that it is favoured by engineers for road foundations, it is no different from the glacial till that covers large parts of Canada and was left by the last Ice Age…”

You can’t beat that kind of stuff for making a journey incredibly interesting… (and to find out more about tillite and the Dwyka Group – well, I’ve got my copy of The Story of Earth & Life).

Buy Geological Journeys here.