Age-old Mpumalanga

The solid bedrock of Mpumalanga tells a rich story of immense antiquity; a story that projects so far back into the past that it is almost impossible to comprehend.

It involves a time scale stretching to infinity, and takes us back to when the earth was a mere 20 per cent of its present age.

Africa’s oldest known rocks come from Mpumalanga and adjacent Swaziland, exposed in the rugged Barberton mountain chains that run all the way from Elukwatini and Tjakastad to Komatipoort, straddling the Swaziland border.

Because the world’s oldest fossils have been found here the area is a Mecca for scientists interested in how the young earth worked 3 500 000 millennia ago, and in searching for new clues to the origin of life.

In a real sense, Mpumalanga represents the cradle of life.

The earth is about 4 550 million years old, but no terrestrial rocks that old have ever been found: the oldest known rocks are from Canada where, in a small area near the Arctic Circle, the Acasta gneisses have been dated to just more than 4 000 million years in age.

Click here to read the whole story written by Prof Maarten de Wit: A History Of Deep Time