Geologists continue discoveries in ancient Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains

During June through August, at least four research groups have made       Barberton their base for field work, including Stanford University, Utrecht    University, University of Bergen and the regular visitors of Jena University led by Prof Christoph Heubeck. All are colleagues who share a joint research  interest in the surface conditions of the early Earth, that is, at a time when Earth was essentially a different planet:  Without oxygen in the air, no        vegetation for   animals, abundant volcanism, peppered by meteorite impacts, and even lacking continents!  However….microbial mats already grew along the  shorelines, and plankton floated in the oceans and around submarine hot springs.  Famously, the Barberton Mountains are the             pre-eminent place in the world where sedimentary rock strata (which had been deposited at the surface) escaped the eternal ‘recycling’ of reck by             deformation, heating and remelting.  Although heavily folded and deformed, turned vertical and upside, their layers can still be followed for many km’s.

“Our studies of these rocks is almost never-ending” laughs Christoph, “because the  questions we ask the rocks change with time.  Whereas a    hundred years ago, the search for gold and minerals were in the minds of  geologists, we now look for an entirely different class of information:           Indicators of the surface temperature, the chemistry of the ocean water, the composition of the atmosphere, and the conditions experienced by the earliest microbial life forms.  It is a bit like holding a book: We are no longer interested in the paper and ink, but in the story written down there.”

Prof Lapotre: “Fossilized sand dunes may tell us just how thick the              atmosphere was when life first arose on Earth.  We are hunting for them around Barberton”.  Prof Roerdink:  The ancient rocks around Barberton are an extraordinary window into Earth’s past.  They help us understand how the first forms of life evolved and how they changed our planet over billions of years.”