Day 7 (Tuesday Sept. 12th)
Kruger Park to the Bushveld!
Our early morning departure was delayed till 8 AM because of a small bean
counting error by the park ranger, we took a fairly straight path out from
Kruger to the East (out through the Orpen gate), and thence to the small town
of Graskop. This is in the vicinity of the 'Great Escarpment' mentioned
earlier, with nearly 500 m of elevation change over just a few km. The area is
beautifully green, the site of many tree farms. We took a look at the tourist
site called 'Gods Window', which had the base of the escarpment enshrouded in
misty clouds. It really resembled the last scene in the movie, The Gods Must
Be Crazy, when the aboriginal from Botswana throws the evil Coke bottle off of
the edge of the World. Mike Gurnis led a grand discussion of the geophysical
enigma of the great escarpment, against this grand backdrop. The lunch stop
was equally spectacular, near the Macmac waterfall.
From there we drove to the edge of the Bushveld layered mafic intrusion, and
had a grand overview of the stratigraphy from the floor of the Roossenkal
valley, just as the sun was setting. Liz Johnson led a grand discussion of the
geology of this intrusive complex, one of the largest and most economically
important on Earth. Unfortunately, we were way behind schedule, as we were
hoping to visit several more important geological sites in the Bushveld that
day. This presented a bit of a dilemma, as we were hoping to make it to a
camping ground in the Loskop Dam game reserve, about an hour drive further
West, and it was clearly impossible to loop back. Well, the cell phones came
to the rescue. We called our friend Nic Beukes (at the Rand Afrikaans
University) to see if there was a closer place to stay. Nic mentioned that
Roossenkal was the site of the world's largest vanadium mine, where a magnetite
layer contained between 1.2 and 4% vanadium. Nic knew the mine manager, and
thought we might be able to stay at their hotel. Well, the hotel had been
booked solid for the next 5 years by a mining company, but the manager
mentioned that the vanadium company had a caravan park that we might be able to
use. We eventually found the mine manager (a Mr. John Price) in the
company-run club (the local pub), and at the mention of Nic Beukes they
literally opened their arms to us! They quickly opened up a grassy area for
camping on near their club swimming pool, gave us the keys to their Ablution
Facility' (the toilets & showers), called up their pub chef and had him
prepare 17 pub dinners (choice of pork chops, spare ribs, or kebobs), and
called in the rest of their managers to chat with this group of American
geologists. They even invited us to have a formal tour of their open pit
mining operation the following morning, to view the vanadium-bearing magnetite
layer in the Bushveld complex. Wow! What a reception, and with no advance
warning!
Written by JLK
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