Description

Magaliesberg rock formation

Therina Groenewald: Magaliesberg rock formation – professional photographer.

The Magaliesberg mountain range is a microcosm of the magnificence of nature and the turbulent history of South Africa.

Its present tranquillity belies the drama of its geological formation. More than two billion years ago huge seismic forces cracked the bed of an inland sea and tilted it skyward. Molten magma pumped into fissures and burned deep kloofs in the rock. Over millions of years the jagged peaks of the tilted seabed were scoured by a continental ice sheet, then buried in swamp, smothered under desert sands and finally capped with volcanic lava. Sixty million years ago the covering began to weather away and the mountains re-emerged to become the cliffs, the gentle slopes, the secretive kloofs and the tumbling streams we know today.