Long before fossils were found outside Grahamstown in the mid-1980s, Rob Gess was bitten by the palaeontology bug.
“I grew up in Makhanda – the new name for Grahamstown – but I often visited my uncle’s farm in the Colesberg district of the Karoo. I found a Dicynodon skull there when I was eight years old and I’ve been hooked ever since.”
Dicynodon was a herbivorous animal that was toothless except for two prominent tusks – the name means “two dog teeth”. They thrived in the Upper Permian period around 250 million years ago, but it was fossils from an earlier period – the Late Devonian period around 360 million years ago – that catapulted Rob’s career.
“I was still in high school when the fossil site at Waterloo Farm was discovered in 1985. A new highway bypass was being cut through the hills south of Grahamstown as part of the government’s response to anti-apartheid protests. Protesters would block the road through the town and the township. When the road was diverted, fossil-bearing black shale was exposed.”
Following Rob’s earlier Karoo discovery, Dr Norton Hiller, a palaeontology professor at Rhodes University, had fostered his love of fossils. Norton led the early research on Waterloo and encouraged Rob’s exploration of the site, supervising his collection of material. Years later, after Rob had completed a science degree at Rhodes, Norton hired him to systematically excavate the site.
Waterloo had been a brackish estuary all those millions of years ago, where a river mouth opened to the sea. The remains of animals and plants settled in the dark mud where they often didn’t decay due to a lack of oxygen necessary for bacteria.
この記事は go! - South Africa の October/November 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は go! - South Africa の October/November 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
My best holiday ever
Most holidays are enjoyable, but some stand out for different reasons. Something on that trip - be it a destination or an experience - stays with you. Seven writers tell us about the getaways they'll never forget.
Choose a wild life
Africa is the home of the safari, and who unlocks this experience for tourists? An experienced, knowledgeable field guide, that's who. But how does it feel to sit behind the wheel of a Land Cruiser twice a day, answering the same questions over and over?
The day I almost became a Himba bride
Why do we travel, asks Sophia van Taak? One reason is to see how other people's lives differ from our own. But sometimes it's what we have in common that's most surprising.
BIRDS
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR BIRDERS
Benin for the Bokke
By late October 2023, adventurers Jean Cooper and De Witt Oosthuizen were somewhere in the middle of Nigeria. Their plan was to be in neighbouring Benin in time to watch the Springboks play in the final of the Rugby World Cup. But they ran into roadblock after roadblock..
There's something about White River
White River is on a hill between Mbombela and Hazyview. You're a bateleur swoop from the Kruger Park, the Panorama Route and the Sudwala Caves, but why rush through? Come see what the town has to offer.
A farm stall? Here?
The Tankwa Karoo usually looks like Mars. It's an empty landscape where you can sometimes see the outline of a springbok shimmering in a distant mirage. It's remote. The main road, the R355, cuts a lonely 250 km slice from Ceres to Calvinia. The last thing you expect to see is a farm stall...
SKRIK VAN RONDOM FARM STALL, REDELINGHUYS
The road from Piketberg to Elands Bay leads from the Swartland through the Sandveld to the reeds of Verlorenvlei.
In a holy land
English explorer William Burchell stopped recording his southern African exploration at a Tswana settlement called Litakun, in the koppies north-west of modern-day Kuruman. As we make our way there, it becomes clear: South Africa is a sacred place.
Two's company
If you could park two Fords in your dream garage, which would they be? Most of us would pick the mighty Mustang and an apex bakkie like the Raptor, but there's also an awesome new Tourneo minibus that throws a spanner in the works...
