Cliff walk, Cape of Good Hope

An appropriate place, on a beautiful evening, to end the expedition....

Jackass Penguins, Boulders Beach, South Africa

awww....so cute...they are monogamous and can live for 25 years or more.

The African Penguin, or Jackass Penguin as it is known as because it brays like a donkey, lives an endangered life on the southern coastline of Africa.  This colony lives in Simon's Town on the Cape of Good Hope and appear unperturbed by people (as one might surmise given that they are often seen walking down the sidewalk).  The whales were just off-shore (kelp in foreground).

Fairy Circles. Who ya gonna call?

Midsummer Eve (1908) by pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Robert Hughes

A scientist!  A mystery is afoot, quite literally.  You may have read about it in the New York Times Science section recently – Namibian “Fairy Circles,” From Start to Finish.  Biologist Walter Tschinkel of Florida State University recently wrote a fascinating paper about the “life cycle” of strange spots that appear and eventually disappear on the surface of the Namibian desert.  He offers no explanation for the formation of these fairy circles but does debunk a few prior hypotheses including hydrocarbon seeps, termite colonies, or self-organized landscape features.

Namibian fairy circle (photo by Walter Tschinkel)

Namibian fairy circles photographed from the air by Michael Fay.

Tschinkel's paper did not consider the possibility that these circles could be caused by fungi, the cause of fairy rings seen elsewhere in the world (pic below)….maybe you’ve been lucky enough to see one?  A really nice history of fairy rings, and how they can kill local vegetation, can be found on Wikipedia.

Fairy ring on a suburban lawn

However, the mystery deepens with the “heuweltjies”, or “little hills”, of South Africa, located just south of Namibia.  We would drive for hours in South Africa through the polka-dotted landscape of the heuweltjies but, unlike further to the north, they are not flat but are mounds.  The accepted wisdom is that these are fossil termite mounds but I am skeptical, especially after reading Tschinkel’s study.  However, I also can’t imagine how fungi could build such large mounds.  I sampled sediment in and outside of the heuweltjies but when I realized I couldn't bring soil samples back to the U.S. I left the bags with a Cape Town graduate student, Eugene, in hopes that he'd be inspired to investigate further.  Mystery beckons, scientific glory awaits!

Heuweltjies north of Cape Town

More heuweltjies (look in middle distance)

Hanging out in Strip Mines in South Africa....

Dear friends, family, and followers,

I know some of you have noticed I haven't been blogging for awhile and quite of few of you have been poking me with the figurative stick in hopes I'll start up again.  Here's hoping!  I miss it too and want to get back to it.  I'm trying to find a new equilibrium with a busier job in an endlessly distracting city.  I'm going to make it a bit more personal....hopefully avoiding saccharine quicksands of self-indulgence. 

So, I'll continue with a few blog posts from South Africa, where I recently went on a geological field expedition in search of ancient shorelines from past warm climates. We first headed north (not quite to the Skeleton Coast of Namibia) to a down-on-its-luck mining town called Hondeklip.  The De Beers mining company has very effectively stripped off the surface of the land in its quest for buried diamonds.  The landscape is quite ravaged and ugly but it does make for some easily accomplished field geology.....nice exposures!

 We stayed a few nights at the Honnehok (or Kennels) Chalets in Hondeklip having home-cooked dinners at The Red Spider (no menu, just let proprietress know in the morning you're coming).  I love the use of shells on the chain fence....the sign above the shell bucket says "Leave your cares here".

 It never ceases to surprise me that even in the remotest places on Earth art has a way of inserting itself.

Shell and kelp garlands gussy up the place....

Shipwreck covered with seabirds.  Shortly after this picture was taken four of us had a debate about whether or not we saw a green flash.  My view is that if you are debating it, it probably didn't happen -- my lifelong quest continues.....

Heading down into one of the strip mines....

 Sea level!  Fossil barnacles on fossil oysters on a not so ancient beach rock.....at 30 meters elevation.