Geology of the Great Karoo

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tok-tokkie

Race Dog
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I did a trip through the Great Karoo recently; I am writing the ride report now.  A while back i wrote a thread about the geology of the Great Karoo for another board which I would like to refer to.  I will re-post that thread here.

The 2009 WD Bash in Boegoeberg means a lot of you will be riding across the geology of this thread for it includes the Free State and some of the North West.


References


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An absolutely wonderful book if you are interested in the geology of South Africa. It costs R234.  Published by Struik.   All the diagrams with figure numbers like ‘Figure 7.11’ come from it.  There are lots of photos to illustrate the book, not just close ups but many of the rocks in the countryside.  It has chapters on the palaeontology .  It covers the entire country – the geology of the Highveld is really complicated and some of the very oldest stones on earth are to be found near Barbeton.  I have purposely not included any of their photos and have given a pretty note like summary.  Their writing is brilliant – easy to read, not at all dry academic and also not talking down or trivialising the topic. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

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A good book. R224.  Published by Struik. The first map is from it with the routes covered by this book shown in blue.  It thus covers the country well.  Most of the illustrations WITHOUT ‘Figure 7.12’ type headings come from this book; most of them have a frame around the diagram.  The book has geological maps for each route in sections with interesting rock sites marked on the map and discussed in the text.  Nicely written.
 
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