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Monday, July 16, 2012

Hanging out in Strip Mines in South Africa....


Dear friends, family, and followers,

I know some of you have noticed I haven't been blogging for awhile and quite of few of you have been poking me with the figurative stick in hopes I'll start up again.  Here's hoping!  I miss it too and want to get back to it.  I'm trying to find a new equilibrium with a busier job in an endlessly distracting city.  I'm going to make it a bit more personal....hopefully avoiding saccharine quicksands of self-indulgence. 

So, I'll continue with a few blog posts from South Africa, where I recently went on a geological field expedition in search of ancient shorelines from past warm climates. We first headed north (not quite to the Skeleton Coast of Namibia) to a down-on-its-luck mining town called Hondeklip.  The De Beers mining company has very effectively stripped off the surface of the land in its quest for buried diamonds.  The landscape is quite ravaged and ugly but it does make for some easily accomplished field geology.....nice exposures!

 We stayed a few nights at the Honnehok (or Kennels) Chalets in Hondeklip having home-cooked dinners at The Red Spider (no menu, just let proprietress know in the morning you're coming).  I love the use of shells on the chain fence....the sign above the shell bucket says "Leave your cares here".

 It never ceases to surprise me that even in the remotest places on Earth art has a way of inserting itself.



Shell and kelp garlands gussy up the place....


Shipwreck covered with seabirds.  Shortly after this picture was taken four of us had a debate about whether or not we saw a green flash.  My view is that if you are debating it, it probably didn't happen -- my lifelong quest continues.....


Heading down into one of the strip mines....


 Sea level!  Fossil barnacles on fossil oysters on a not so ancient beach rock.....at 30 meters elevation.