KAROO NEWS - About 150 delegates from the Palaeontological Society rounded off their five day international conference in Graaff-Reinet with a field trip and visits to four localities in the region with great palaeontological significance.
The trip was organised by Prof Bruce Rubidge who pointed out where his grandfather, Dr Sydney Rubidge, discovered some of the most important fossils of the area.
The first stop was at Wellwood Farm where in 1934 Dr Rubidge, while on a family picnic, discovered the head of a large flesh-eating therapsid, which was described as a new species, Dinogorgon Rubidgei.
The second stop was at Doornplaats where preserved fossils are found in mud rock sequences and where in certain patches an abundance of isolated skulls can be found.
A brisk five minute walk from the Doornplaats homestead leads to well exposed rocks in the Pienaars River where numerous fossil tetrapods have been collected.
Strop three was at Nieu-Bethesda's Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre. In this popular tourist town at the foothills of the Compassberg on the banks of the Gats River, road builder, Croonie Kitching, found tetrapod fossils in 1900.
The fourth and last stop was at Lootsberg Pass where a section of the Permo-Triassic boundary is found that is associated with the largest mass extinction known in Earth's history. The mass extinction claimed at least 75% of vertebrates, invertebrates and plant genera within a 40m interval.
On the banks of Gats River in Nieu-Bethesda paleontologists look at fossil remains.
Palaeontologist Roger Smith explains the Permo-Triassic boundry.
The fossil hunters getting ready for a walk to Pienaars River.
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