Wendy Taylor

January 16,2024

Open the Geobulletin here. The article is on page 23

Replacement of the geoheritage plaque at Cogmans Kloof

April 16, 2023

Topic: Geosites

The original plaque pictured (above) was removed along with the plinth during the upgrade of the recent road works along the route between Motagu and Ashton.

The task to replace the plaque has been resurrected and John Rogers and I have undertaken to get this done.

GSSA Geoparks Update

Marcia van Aswegen 16 June 2025

I was invited to the offices of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) in Pretoria at the end of 2024. Mr Vongani Maringa has been passionately motivating for the Geoparks Programme within South Africa for more than a decade. The Blyde River Biosphere already has an established management authority (under the UNESCO Man and Bioshere Programme). It is proposed that this area be progressed toward a formal Global Geopark. 

Khodani Matshusa and Llewellyn Leonard (Researchers at the University of South Africa, under the Department of Environmental Sciences focusing on Geoheritage, Geoparks, and Geotourism research and development) published a comprehensive review of  global governance models that could be applied in South Africa. The review article is entitled “Proposed Governance Model for Geotourism and Geoheritage in South Africa and the Implications for Africa” and was published online in January 2023…

Update from Patricia

in Projects

Geology outing with Constantia Waldorf School Grade 6 learners

Date of excursion: 24 June 2025

On the 24th of June, I helped with an excursion to look at the geology of the Cape Peninsula. The children had been given a good foundation in class, and one of the parents put together a short worksheet that was used as guidance. We stopped at Boyes Drive, St. James Beach, Chapman’s Peak Drive, Camps Bay and the Sea Point Contact. We discussed the formation of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks, and I explained some ways of recognising them in the field. We found the signage at Chapman’s Peak Drive and the Sea Point Contact helpful. I also used the geo-site pamphlets that are available on the GSSA website as reference material for the discussion. Thanks to the school for arranging the outing, and to the GSSA for making the reference…

Update from John Rogers July 2025

I delivered my Darwin as Geologist talk to our Groote Schuur Probus Club on Monday, 14th April, 2025. 

I originally delivered it in 2010 when we first attended the club, which meets at Kelvin Grove for luncheon and talk.  The speaker should have been, in 2010, David Jack, who created The Waterfront, but he excused himself as his wife had just died. 

I later served on the Probus committee for several years and served as president twice, a sort of record for the club.  I also helped organise geological for the club, one as far east as Middelburg to the famous Rubidge farm and its excellent Dinosaur Museum.  This was recently moved to Graaff Reinet, where it has been acclaimed, and rightly so.

Welcome! This space is for updates from Group members to post activities like projects, geotalks, field trips etc. Create posts and tag with a Topic.

ONLINE TALK on 2 NOV 2023 (Thursday) - The Vredefort Catastrophe, still impacting lives today!

Dr. Matthew Huber will talk about:

Join Dr. Matthew S. Huber, Lecturer in Applied Geology at UWC, on a fact-filled exploration of the amazing Vredefort impact basin in the Free State, South Africa.

Matthew will detail how the Vredefort catastrophe is still impacting us today. Also about the relationship of the Vredefort impact to economic deposits, including the gold mines (which led to coal exploration),

the helium mining, dimension stone mining,

I intend to report on my 9th annual overnight GeoTrip for Friends of Iziko Museum to Robben Island (26-27 July) after the event.  Weather forecast may cause its fourth postponement, however.

In the meantime, all I wish to report is that I recently received a copy of Professor Richard Dingle’s 2024 memoirs The Sea Floor: Exploring its History.  Hard cover, 386 pages and published through Amazon.  Very readable, but very expensive, as one can see by Googling it on Amazon.  Fortunately, he also sent a copy for me to take to UCT Libraries as a donation, which was accepted and fetched from our Newlands home, before we departed for Pinelands on 1st July. 

We visited him and his wife, Lesley in Cambridge (UK) in 2013 and, before Covid, I revisited them in 2019, during Phil's 6-week solo E-W Camino across northern Spain.

All for now

• 2025 is ISAM's (Iziko) bicentenial year with lots of programs starting up on 18 May (International Museum Day) with a big launch on 11 June their "establishment day"

• We will be running another GIFT teacher workshop this year on 16-17 August

• Topic will be the Water Cycle

• Starting a new Saturday kids science club at Iziko in June

• VFT work is planned to start in mid-May in the Great Karoo with the Field Museum of Natural History and Iziko teams