On the roof of Southern Africa-The mighty Drakensberg Mountains In the never ending process of creating the Drakensberg,the principal tools of nature have always been fire, water and wind. The combined efforts of these elements are clearly evident and even today, this gigantic mass of rock is still in the throes of construction. How the Drakensberg came to be-100 million years ago The Drakensberg came to be due to an astonishing change in the mood of mother nature. For more than 100 million years, the face of Southern Africa had been a vast swamp with forests dripping with rain and a haunt of dinosaurs and wierd monsters. And then, just recently, 180 million years ago, the Drakensberg began its drasric change into a new world. The most majestically beautiful of all geological rock formations. Now of course, we where not there so we don' thave proof. But we reckon from the research we have done that the wind direction changed. This resulted in the rains being swept away. Swamps dried up, forests died and dinosuars became fossilized, buried in mud which later turned to shales and sand as it dried and compressed. This sand was rich in colour, oxidized by iron into shades of yellow, orange and red. Nature then played with the sand, using wind to pile it up above the level of the former swamps and creating one of the most majestically beautiful of all geological rock formations-cave sandstone about 100m thick. 25 million years later As was the norm in those volatile days, another profound change occured. Nature decided to abandon wind ( which you would never believe if you have been hiking in the drakensberg) and replace its main tool of creation wit fire. Through great fissures in the mantle of the Earth, a vast mass
On the roof of Southern Africa-The mighty Drakensberg Mountains In the never ending process of creating the Drakensberg,the principal tools of nature have always been fire, water and wind. The combined efforts of these elements are clearly evident and even today, this gigantic mass of rock is still in the throes of construction. How the