Yesterday morning I flew back to Cape Town after a business trip. I arrived a little after 7 am and was treated to a stunning view of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head as I flew in. I’m sharing a picture I snapped of that view as this week’s geology picture. Here’s a closer look as well:
I am lucky to live in such a beautiful city! However, you can see that the city is looking somewhat brown and dry, due to the drought and water restrictions. No one is watering their gardens!
Happy New Year! I’m going to do my best to blog more regularly in 2018, starting with this first “Monday Geology Picture” post. This week I’m sharing a view of Lion’s Head (the distinctive mountain in the background of the picture), an inselberg here in Cape Town, South Africa, the city where I live. I took this picture a few weeks ago during a walk with my family along Sea Point Promenade. Cape Town is a fantastic city — you can see amazing geology even when you’re downtown!
For this week’s picture, here’s a lovely view of an inselberg and the Twelve Apostles section of Table Mountain here in Cape Town, South Africa. Note the layers of sedimentary rocks of which the mountain is made. In the foreground, you can see some rocks of the Cape Granite Suite, which is about 550 million years old.
For this week’s picture, here’s a view of a salt pan on Intaka Island, a small nature reserve in the Century City area of Cape Town. I often go to Intaka Island to paddle in a kayak on the canals surrounding the island. On Saturday morning I went for one of my usual paddles, and then in the afternoon I joined some friends for a nature walk on the island itself. During the walk, I snapped this picture of the salt pan on the island. The island nature reserve was founded to protect plants, bird, and other wildlife in the Century City area, which has been substantially developed since the late-1990s. In the background of this picture, you can see cranes where a block of apartments is being built on one of the last areas of open ground near the reserve. Table Mountain is also visible in profile in the background. Amidst all the development in busy, growing Cape Town, I’m glad that a few parcels of land, such as Intaka Island, have been set aside for conservation. I enjoy visiting Intaka a couple of times a week as an escape from the hustle and bustle, and all the concrete, of city life. I’ll have to share some more pictures of Intaka Island in a future post.
Since I live in Cape Town, South Africa, I often share pictures of beautiful Table Mountain. This week’s “Monday Geology Picture” shows another view of the mountain. I took this picture yesterday during a hike in the Tygerberg Nature Reserve. I’ll share some more pictures from the reserve in a separate post. For now, enjoy Table Mountain!
On Saturday, I unexpectedly had to hop on a ship for a month for a work trip. So, blogging may be a little bit light over the next month. I’ll try to post when I can, but I’ll be limited by the slow shipboard internet.
As the ship was leaving Cape Town on Saturday afternoon, I enjoyed some stunning views of Cape Town from the sea. The picture above shows a beautiful view of Table Mountain with the city of Cape Town in front of it.
My two American geologist friends, with whom I went ziplining amidst some sedimentary rocks a little over a week ago, left on Saturday. Before they left on their evening flight, we decided to go up Cape Town’s beautiful Table Mountain. We took the cable car up the mountain, hiked around on the top for a couple of hours, and then took the cable car back down. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day with good visibility, so we saw some stunning views from the top of the mountain. Here are two of them:
Table Mountain is comprised of the same sandstone rocks that we saw when we went ziplining in the Cape Fold Belt. However, the sandstone rocks of Table Mountain are relatively flat and unfolded, their preservation a result of the mountain’s granite core. Here’s a figure, taken from Prof. John Compton’s book The Rocks and Mountains of Cape Town, that explains the geological relationship:
Yesterday my husband and I took advantage of the sunny summer weather here in Cape Town and went for an easy walk along Constantia Nek, a contour path along Table Mountain that eventually leads to the beautiful Kirstenbosch Gardens. Along the walk, I noticed a few small landslides on Table Mountain, including the two shown in the picture above. If you’re looking for an easy and beautiful hike in the Cape Town area, I recommend Constantia Nek. There’s some interesting geology to see along the way… including, at the moment, some landslides.
Georneys 