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The tour starts at the Political Prison which is built of deep-marine siltstone from the Malmesbury Group, the 560 million year old bedrock of the island.  To the south, on the rocky eastern shoreline, tight folding of the bedrock is exposed. Walking southwards through ‘The Village’ to Alpha on the SE corner of the island, modern shingle beaches will be studied. This site provides a spectacular view of Table Mountain.  The magnificent exposures of the Tygerberg Formation in the Jan van Riebeeck Quarry and a Late Pleistocene, lime-cemented, raised beach, on top of the bedrock are explored next. Beside the SW coastline, just inland of the perimeter road, is the geologically younger, uncemented Latest Pleistocene raised beach of wave-rounded cobbles.  A picnic lunch will be beside Langbaai on the west coast, where an Early Cretaceous dolerite dyke will be examined. This magma intruded the bedrock as the supercontinent Gondwana split up, giving birth to the geologically young South Atlantic Ocean. Cross the island back to ‘The Village’, to head north to the Lime Quarry for a fine outcrop of calcrete-capped dune-rock, where Nelson Mandela performed hard labour for many years.

Field Trip Leader: John Rogers                                                         
Start/end: Cape Town, V&A Waterfront, Nelson Mandela Gateway
Departs: 08:00AM
Date: 1 day, Saturday 27th August 2016                                        
Price: R 950 per person

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