Day 1 - Building Continents

And we’re off – a team of 18 people and 5 vehicles. This is almost like the first day of school (well, I guess it is) we have new faces and new friends to make. The trip starts with the team heading out through the Transvaal Supergroup and up to Sabie. Here, we looked at stromatolites of the Malmani Subgroup in some detail and discussed what this means to a 2.3 billion year old Earth. Also, we discussed what kind of bearing this has on the early Earth processes, especially when considering that the top of the Chuniespoort Group is Banded Iron Formation. The existence of these rocks, and many more that we’ll be seeing, for that matter, has major implications of the chemistry that defines Earth processes. Some of these include: How exactly does a oxidising or reducing environment control important process of evolution of the Earth?

After a short run over the Karoo Supergroup, we’re into Archean Granites of the Nelspruit Batholith and shortly thereafter crossing the Kaap Valley Tonalite. Later, we entered the Barberton Greenstone Belt and had some more interesting discussions. What is the link between these Archean granites and the Greenstone Belts, and how did this transform the Earth, how does this define tectonic action. In addition, what can Komatiites, tell us about an Archean Earth?

Thereafter we straddle the Swaziland border and unbelievably, the Field School arrived at our overnight destination at the reasonable time of 19h30; an incredible improvement from last year! Lets now see if we can keep this up!