|
Bamboesberg
The Bamboesberg is a mountain range in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This range was named for the bamboo ''Thamnocalamus tessellatus'' growing in its ravines. The Bamboesberg is an outlier of the Stormberg Mountains and part of the range is seen parallel to and east of the road linking Hofmeyr and Tarkastad. Some of its peaks are over – Aasvoëlberg, 35 km west of Sterkstroom, rises to . The Stormbergspruit is a tributary of the Orange River. The rocks are composed of sediments of the Stormberg Series of the Karoo System. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thamnocalamus Tessellatus
''Thamnocalamus tessellatus'' is a species of bamboo belonging to the family Poaceae, and native to the high mountains of South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini, lying along the south-eastern part of South Africa. It is found in the Amatola Mountains, the Bamboesberg, which is named for it, and the Drakensberg. Its generic name means "bushy reed", while the specific name means "tiled", an allusion to the rectangular pattern of veins on the leaves. Its common names include mountain bamboo, and ''Bergbamboes'' and ''Wildebamboes'' in Afrikaans. Bamboos are divided into three categories on the basis of their flowering cycle - annual flowering, irregular flowering and gregarious flowering occurring at long intervals with synchronised flower and seed production. Most bamboos belong to this last category with intermasts ranging from 3 to 120 years. ''Thamnocalamus tessellatus'' also belongs to this third category and flowers at 45 year intervals - records from KwaZulu-Natal noting flower ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stormberg Mountains
The Stormberg is a range of mountains situated in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, are an easterly extension of the Bamboesberge and form an outlier of the greater Drakensberg mountain range. They form part of the ' Amatola and Stormberg' region which includes major towns like Grahamstown, East London and Port Alfred. Towns in the Stormberg Mountains include Sterkstroom, Jamestown, Molteno, Dordrecht, Barkly East, Rhodes and Steynsburg. South Africa's only ski resort, Tiffindell, is also situated in these mountains. Geology Geologically, the mountains form part of the Stormberg Series of the Karoo System where some of the only workable coal seams in the Cape are to be found. These coal fields are being explored for possible coal bed methane extraction. History These mountains - like all of South Africa - was originally home to the Khoisan hunter gatherers. The Nguni migrations saw the arrival of the Xhosa herders from the north and the displacement of the Khoisan. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hofmeyr
Hofmeyr is a small Karoo town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, 20 km west of the Bamboesberg mountain range. It lies 64 km north-east of Cradock at an altitude of 1,252 metres. According to the 2011 census, the population of Hofmeyr proper is about 326 persons and the neighbouring township of Luxolweni is about 3354. In former times it lay at the centre of a flourishing sheep-farming district and managed some salt pans 10 km to its west. Founded in 1873, the town was initially named Maraisburg. To avoid confusion with the Gauteng area of Maraisburg it was renamed Hofmeyr in 1911 in honour of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan), a campaigner for the equal treatment of Afrikaans and English and a prominent figure in the Eerste Taalbeweging. The Hofmeyr Skull, belonging to a 36,000 year old anatomically modern human Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Mountain Ranges Of South Africa
This is a list of mountain ranges of South Africa. Physiography The list includes chains of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by passes or valleys. Some ranges in South Africa are relatively isolated, while others are physiographically part of larger geographical ranges such as the Drakensberg. Geology Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology; for example, in the Witwatersrand there is Pilanesberg, a mountain having a different orogeny from the main range and its subranges. Geologically, many ranges are part of the Cape Fold Belt system, a wide geological system that also includes the Drakensberg. List of mountain ranges of South Africa See also * Geography of South Africa *List of mountains in South Africa *Kaapvaal craton References {{reflist * South Africa, Lists of mountain ranges Mountain ranges A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in 1994 out of the Xhosa homelands or bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province. The central and eastern part of the province is the traditional home of the indigenous Xhosa people. In 1820 this area which was known as the Xhosa Kingdom began to be settled by Europeans who originally came from England and some from Scotland and Ireland. Since South Africa's early years, many Xhosas believed in Africanism and figures such as Walter Rubusana believed that the rights of Xhosa people and Africans in general, could not be protected unless Africans mobilized and worked together. As a result, the Eastern Cape is home to many anti-apartheid leaders such as Robert Sobukwe, Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karoo System
The Karoo Supergroup is the most widespread stratigraphic unit in Africa south of the Kalahari Desert. The supergroup consists of a sequence of units, mostly of nonmarine origin, deposited between the Late Carboniferous and Early Jurassic, a period of about 120 million years. In southern Africa, rocks of the Karoo Supergroup cover almost two thirds of the present land surface, including all of Lesotho, almost the whole of Free State, and large parts of the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces of South Africa. Karoo supergroup outcrops are also found in Namibia, Eswatini, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, as well as on other continents that were part of Gondwana. The basins in which it was deposited formed during the formation and breakup of Pangea.McCarthy, T., Rubridge, B. (2005). ''The Story of Earth and Life.'' pp. 161, 187–241. Struik Publishers, Cape Town The type area of the Karoo Supergroup is the Great Karoo in South Africa, where the most exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stormberg Series
The Stormberg Group is one of the four geological groups that comprises the Karoo Supergroup in South Africa. It is the uppermost geological group representing the final phase of preserved sedimentation of the Karoo Basin. The Stormberg Group rocks are considered to range between Lower Triassic (Olenekian) to Lower Jurassic (Pliensbachian) in age. These estimates are based on means of geological dating including stratigraphic position, lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic correlations, and palynological analyses. Background Sediment deposition of the Stormberg Group took place in a terrestrial environment that was seasonally arid. The depositional environment in the lower sections of the Stormberg was similar to that of the Katberg Formation. Both places feature coarser-grained sandstones that lack fining-upward sequences, thus pointing to an alluvial fan and braided river environment. The depositional environment changes towards the centre of the Stormberg as mudstones becom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange River
The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Lesotho and between South Africa and Namibia, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Except for Upington, it does not pass through any major cities. The Orange River plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. The river was named the Orange River in honour of the Dutch ruling family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon. Other names include simply the word for river, in Khoekhoegowab orthography written as !Garib, which is rendered in Afrikaan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sterkstroom
Sterkstroom is a settlement in Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality of the Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The village is on the Hex River, at the southern foot of the Stormberg, 272 km north-west of East London. It was founded in 1875 and became a municipality in 1878. Afrikaans for ‘strong current or stream’, the name refers to the Hex River. Coal mining The former colliery village was situated partly on town's land and has contributed to the town's development. The coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ... was of low quality and, like almost all other coal mines in the North-Eastern Cape, was closed after Unification in 1910, because the Cape Colony was then able to source coal from other provinces. Nevertheless, Sterk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
