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Waterloo Farm Lagerstätte
The Waterloo Farm lagerstätte is a Famennian lagerstätte in South Africa that constitutes the only known record of a near-polar Devonian coastal ecosystem. History and discovery The Waterloo Farm Lagerstätte is an approximately 360 million year old Famennian (latest Devonian) fossil-rich locality of the Witpoort Formation (Witteberg Group, Cape Supergroup) in Makhanda (former Grahamstown) within the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Before it’s discovery very little was known of life during the Famennian (see Late Devonian extinction) in what is now southern Africa . This is largely due to the fact that fossils in the Witpoort Formation generally occur in black anaerobically deposited metashale that rapidly degrades near surface and is therefore rarely seen in natural outcrop. As is the case with many other scientific discoveries, the discovery of Waterloo Farm was accidental. Uprisings against the apartheid system in South Africa had by the mid-1980s escalated to vi ...
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Waterloo Farm In 2016
Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, a battle on 18 June 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat * Waterloo, Belgium, where the battle took place. Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Antarctica *King George Island (South Shetland Islands), known in Russian as Ватерло́о ('Vaterloo') Australia *Waterloo, New South Wales * Waterloo, Queensland *Waterloo, South Australia *Waterloo Bay, now Elliston, South Australia * Waterloo, Victoria *Waterloo, Western Australia Canada * Waterloo, Nova Scotia *Regional Municipality of Waterloo, a region in Ontario **Waterloo, Ontario, a city **Waterloo (electoral district) **Waterloo (provincial electoral district) **Waterloo County, Ontario (1853–1973) *Waterloo, Quebec Hong Kong *Waterloo Road, Hong Kong, a road in Kowloon, Hong Kong New Zealand *Waterloo, New Zealand Sierra Leone *Waterloo, Sierra Leone Suriname *Waterloo, Suriname United Kingdom * Waterloo, Dorset, England *Waterloo, Huddersfield, E ...
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SANRAL
The South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd or SANRAL is a South African parastatal responsible for the management, maintenance and development of South Africa's proclaimed National Road network which includes many (but not all) National ("N") and some Provincial and Regional ("R") route segments. History SANRAL was created by ''The South African National Roads Agency Limited and National Roads Act, 1998'' as a corporatized successor to the South African Roads Board, which was part of the Department of Transport. It was registered as a public limited company on 19 May 1998. In 2011, SANRAL became the target of popular resentmenas tolling was about to commence on many of SANRAL's freeways in Gauteng, in order to finance their soon to be completed expansions, as part of the first phase of the
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Gondwana
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages of break-up, involving the separation of Antarctica from South America (forming the Drake Passage) and Australia, occurred during the Paleogene. Gondwana was not considered a supercontinent by the earliest definition, since the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia were separated from it. To differentiate it from the Indian region of the same name (see ), it is also commonly called Gondwanaland. Gondwana was formed by the accretion of several cratons. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Palaeozoic Era, covering an area of about , about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. During the Carboniferous Period, it merged with Laurasia to form a larger supercontinent called Pangaea. Gondwana ( ...
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Waterloo During Excavation In 1985
Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, a battle on 18 June 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat * Waterloo, Belgium, where the battle took place. Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Antarctica *King George Island (South Shetland Islands), known in Russian as Ватерло́о ('Vaterloo') Australia *Waterloo, New South Wales * Waterloo, Queensland *Waterloo, South Australia *Waterloo Bay, now Elliston, South Australia * Waterloo, Victoria *Waterloo, Western Australia Canada * Waterloo, Nova Scotia *Regional Municipality of Waterloo, a region in Ontario **Waterloo, Ontario, a city **Waterloo (electoral district) **Waterloo (provincial electoral district) **Waterloo County, Ontario (1853–1973) *Waterloo, Quebec Hong Kong *Waterloo Road, Hong Kong, a road in Kowloon, Hong Kong New Zealand *Waterloo, New Zealand Sierra Leone *Waterloo, Sierra Leone Suriname *Waterloo, Suriname United Kingdom * Waterloo, Dorset, England *Waterloo, Huddersfield, E ...
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Grahamstown
Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Local Municipality, and the seat of the municipal council. It also hosts Rhodes University, the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, the South African Library for the Blind (SALB), a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and 6 South African Infantry Battalion. Furthermore, located approximately 3 km south-east of the town lies the world renowned Waterloo Farm, the only estuarine fossil site in the world from 360 million years ago with exceptional soft-tissue preservation. The town's name-change from Grahamstown to Makhanda was officially gazetted on 29 June 2018. The town was officially renamed to Makhanda in memory of Xhosa warrior and prophet Makhanda ka Nxele. History Founding Makhanda was founded as Graha ...
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Orogenesis
Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is tectonic uplift, uplifted to form one or more mountain ranges. This involves a series of geological processes collectively called orogenesis. These include both structural deformation (physics), deformation of existing continental crust and the creation of new continental crust through volcanism. Magma rising in the orogen carries less dense material upwards while leaving more dense material behind, resulting in compositional differentiation of Earth's lithosphere (crust (geology), crust and uppermost mantle (geology), mantle). A synorogenic process or event is one that occurs during an orogeny. The word "orogeny" () comes from Ancient Greek (, , + , , ). Although it was used before him, the term was employed by the American geo ...
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Cape Fold Belt
The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina, the Pensacola Mountains (East Antarctica), the Ellsworth Mountains (West Antarctica) and the Hunter-Bowen orogeny in eastern Australia. The rocks involved are generally sandstones and shales, with the shales ( Bokkeveld Group) persisting in the valley floors while the erosion resistant sandstones (belonging to the Peninsula Formation) form the parallel ranges, the Cape Fold Mountains, which reach a maximum height of 2325 m at Seweweekspoortpiek ('Seven Weeks Defile Peak' in Afrikaans). The Cape Fold Mountains form a series of parallel ranges that run along the south-western and southern coastlines of South Africa for 850 km from the Cederberg 200 km to the north of the Cape Peninsul ...
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Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era. The concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the Perm Governorate, region of Perm in Russia. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the two groups of amniotes, the synapsids and the Sauropsida, sauropsids (reptiles). The world at the time was dominated by the supercontinent Pangaea, which had formed due to the collision of Euramerica and Gondwana during the Carboniferous. Pangaea was surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior. Amniotes, which could better cope with these drier conditi ...
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Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferous'' means "coal-bearing", from the Latin '' carbō'' ("coal") and '' ferō'' ("bear, carry"), and refers to the many coal beds formed globally during that time. The first of the modern 'system' names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822, based on a study of the British rock succession. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial animal life was well established by the Carboniferous Period. Tetrapods (four limbed vertebrates), which had originated from lobe-finned fish during the preceding Devonian, became pentadactylous in and diversified during the Carboniferous, including early amphibian lin ...
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Witpoort
Witpoort is a suburb of Midrand in Gauteng, South Africa, just west of Blue Hills. It is located in Region A of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. It was the site of the Battle of Witpoort during the Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the So .... References Johannesburg Region A Suburbs of Johannesburg {{Gauteng-geo-stub ...
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Priscomyzon Riniensis
''Priscomyzon riniensis'' is an extinct lamprey that lived some 360 million years ago during the Famennian ( Late Devonian) in a marine or estuarine environment in South Africa. This small agnathan is anatomically similar to the Mazon Creek lampreys, but is some 35 million years older. Its key developments included the first known large oral disc, circumoral teeth and a branchial basket. Context Though common and diverse during the Silurian and Devonian, jawless fish are today represented only by lampreys and hagfish, both groups being quite specialized. Lampreys have seven gill pouches (whereas jawed fish have only five), no paired fins, and a rudimentary skeleton of cartilage. They also have a sucker disc of cartilage surrounded by a soft lip and a central small mouth set about with simple hooked teeth. They attach to the bodies of other vertebrates by suction, securing their grip with the hooked teeth, after which a rasped tongue scrapes a hole providing access to the h ...
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Tetrapod
Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids ( reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids ( pelycosaurs, extinct therapsids and all extant mammals). Tetrapods evolved from a clade of primitive semiaquatic animals known as the Tetrapodomorpha which, in turn, evolved from ancient lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) around 390 million years ago in the Middle Devonian period; their forms were transitional between lobe-finned fishes and true four-limbed tetrapods. Limbed vertebrates (tetrapods in the broad sense of the word) are first known from Middle Devonian trackways, and body fossils became common near the end of the Late Devonian but these were all aquatic. The first crown-tetrapods ( last common ancestors of extant tetrapods capable of terrestrial locomotion) appeared by the very early Carboniferous, 350 million years ago. The specific aquat ...
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