Scooping the thrust sheet
A while back, Highly Allochthonous promised us some juicy field photos of South Africa. Since he has yet to produce the goods, I thought I'd whet y'all's appetite with this picture of the Drakensberg. The Drakensberg mountains are the 2 km wall formed by the eastern edge of the Karoo flood basalts. That's them to the left, and some of the underlying sandstone outcrops in the valleys below.
3 comments:
Wow. That's beautiful
Although the Drakensberg (Afrikaans for "Mountain of Dragons") is indeed a spectacular geological feature of South Africa, it may be difficult to get to for the first time visitor. I suggest some tough (fun and beautiful!) hiking in the Cape Fold Belt. While you're at it try figure out what happened...the structure is incredibly complicated and no one has yet come to a solid conclusion as to what caused the compressional tectonics! Visit SA!
Is that the fold belt that is underneath all the wineries? If so, little wonder that they haven't figured the rocks out- I quickly lost the ability to focus on anything farther from my face than my glass...
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