GEOLOGICAL TOURS

South Africa is a unique geological destination, presenting 3.5 billion years of earth history, found nowhere else in the world.

South Africa harbours some of the oldest rocks on the earth, source of its great mineral wealth. The incredibly rich Bushveld Complex has the largest platinum, vanadium and chromium deposits in the world.

One also finds evidence of ice ages occurring throughout history as well as the break-up of the ancient continent of Gondwana, forming the continents as we know them today.

Some of the geological highlights include :

The Vredefort structure, one of the oldest known meteorite impact sites in the world, also one of the 3 largest astroblemes on earth.
The Natal Metamorphic Belt
The Lebombo Volcanic Group, dating from Jurassic age
The Tugela Valley
The Premier Mine at Cullinan which produced the 3106 carat "Cullinan" diamond, the largest diamond ever discovered,
Kimberley and the alluvial diamond fields of Lichtenburg
The copper fields around Springbok.
The rock formations of the Cape Fold Mountain Belt.
The gold mines of the Witwatersrand. This Archaean intra-continental basin harbours gold and uranium deposits.
The Barberton gold field has been producing gold and silver since 1884. The 3.5 billion year old rocks of the Barberton Greenstone Belt are some of the oldest in the world.
The Sudwala Caves with spectacular dripstone formations and stromatlites, the fossilised blue-green algae, considered to be one of the earliest life forms on Earth.
The Bushveld Complex hosts the world's largest reserves of platinum, chromium and vanadium and consists of a variety of intrusive and extrusive rock suites.
The Phalaborwa Copper Mine, one of the world’s largest open cast copper mines, also boasting deposits of mica and emerald.
The Dwars River exposure, the Cameron section, the Merensky Reef discovery site,
The Tswaing meteorite crater is one of the best-preserved craters of the 150 known impact sites on earth.

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