Namibia Skeleton Coast - Leg/Day 4
Landscapes
After the visit to the Himba people settlement, we continued our landrover drive through the Hartmann Valley area. An impressive landscape of rugged dessert mountains and wide sand-covered hill side and plains. The below Google maps image of the area outlines the course of the Kunene border river shared by Namibia and Angola. Clearly visible is how wind-blown sands moving North through the Kunene region get no farther than the river. The river acts as a very effective sand catchment area and barrier. Blown in sands are carried away by the Kunene river as sediment load and flows out water and sand into the Atlantic Ocean.
The area had received significant rainfall not so long ago. Moving North towards the border hill sides and valley plains were increasingly carpeted by bunches of yellowish-green low grass. Even on the higher rocky ridges we found (and photographed) some plants in bloom.
End morning we drove down again into the Kunene river valley and back to the Kunene bush camp. A memorable decent of our landrover, nose straight down with tires skiing and skidding over hundreds of metres along a sand slip face in a steep canyon. The short boat trip on the Kunene river which followed was equally memorable. Thick lush green vegetation lined both river banks. Several croccodiles on the banks and in the water reminded us that the Kunene waters can be a treacherous place. One of our group made the same Skeleton Coast tour with the Schoemans several years before. Near the Kunene camp he witnessed (..and photographed by sheer luck) the fatal kill by a Kunene croccodile of a goat snatched out of a row of goats drinking from the river. As a Northernmost climax of our Skeleton coast safari, we very briefly set foot on the Angolan bank of the river (......in a safe place!).
In the early afternoon, we were back in the air with both Cessnas heading back side-by-side to Windhoek. We made just one more stopover halfway in the Namib desert mountains for a final Schoeman-hosted sandwhich break and brief geology tour on foot to some intriguing rock formations.
Kunene River Image: Google Maps
The final stretch of the Kunene River to the Atlantic Ocean. The location of the Schoeman's Kunene bush camp is marked on the far right by the blue droplet pointer. Wind-blown desert sands moving North across the Kunene region reach as far as the river but are also effectively blocked by the river. The Angola North bank is free of sand for most of the course.
Kunene region. Hartmann valley area
A blanket of yellow-green grass dot-covers the wind-blown sand plains. Sprouted up after significant rainfall a few months earlier.
Eye-catching panorama of the Kunene River valley viewing North (into Angola).
Steep decent with the landrover back down into the Kunene River valley near the Kunene bush camp. We have come car-skidding down the long very steep sand slope in the far background.
Half-way back desert stopover. Spacious landingstrip.
Enjoying sandwhiches & drinks before a geology walk to intriguing rock formations (low outcrops in the background on the right)
Henk's 'intriguing rock formations'
Here showing what looks like a typical example of socalled 'striae'. A pattern of parallel groves on the rock faces bordering a slip (fault) plain. The striae direction being the direction of relative movement (displacement) of the two fault blocks relative to each other.
Rocking 'hard talk' ....or just pondering ?
Henk's 'intriguing rock formations' - Rock deformation patterns
Ones that make a (structural) geologist heart beat faster.
What strikes the eye (even a non-geologist one) is that the brown rock layer in the middle is clearly folded while the adjacent thin grey-blue layers to the right of it are straight (not folded). In scientific geological speak that is called ........'intra-formational folding'.
How this happens?
As original sediments the brown layers consisted of sand. The grey-blue layers consisted of some sand mixed with a lot of clay. Sediment layers probably deposited by a river.
Clay is slippery stuff as we know. Sand much less so. When these sediments (rocks by then) were burried deeper down in the earth crust under high temperatures and pressures, tectonic movements caused movements in these layers. The movements caused the grey (clayish) layers to slip-slide past each other (rather than bend). The middle brown sand layer being more brittle and thicker deformed instead by bending (folding). Clay layers and thin brown sand layers were pressed/folded into the concave fold pocket of the thick layer ( differential space compensation).
Great stuff :-)
Return flight to Windhoek
Panoramic view across an extensive mountain range with some large scale fold structures
Return flight to Windhoek
Intense red (desert) mountain colours, glowing in the late afternoon sunlight
Eye-catching large fold structures. Overflying such desert mountains,........ a geologist feast
A last mountain fold zone before the terrain topography flattens out getting closer to Windhoek