STORIES IN STONE
It’s a Tuesday morning near Grahamstown, about 500 million years ago. There’s no N2 winding through the landscape, carved into the earth’s crust. There are no cows, donkeys, or people fighting over the names of towns and universities. No one knows it’s a Tuesday because humans don’t exist yet. But something is happening here – something big.
I’m standing on the Kaapvaal Craton, with my friend JP du Toit and retired geology lecturer Neels Gunter. It might sound like some creature from a Star Wars film, but a craton is actually a small continent.
“Our journey starts deep in the interior of Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent,” says Neels. He explains how the various cratons (including Kaapvaal, Kalahari, Congo, Zimbabwe, India and Madagascar) slowly came together and formed Gondwana. About 500 million years ago, a deep fissure formed right here, and the Agulhas Sea developed.
“This sea was connected to the open ocean because you can see fossils here with a marine origin,” says Neels.
At 73, Neels still has an inextinguishable passion for geology. He taught at the University of Fort Hare from 1972 to 2018 – and it’s clear that he misses his students. For the
