Starfish in the Swartberg

Starfish found in the Swartberg

A POOL WITH brightly coloured starfish is not exactly something one would expect to find in the hardy Prince Albert area. About two years ago Pieter Olivier, son of KLEIN KAROO member Herman Olivier, was looking for sheep in a remote camp when he came across a remarkable fossil find in a narrow gorge. On a vertical rock-face, haematite-red against the greyness of the Bokkeveld shale, the shepherd was greeted by a rare scene.

When Dave Pepler heard of this find, he and the camera crew of the kykNET television programme, Groen, set off to visit the Oliviers at Vrisgewaag. With a few cheese and tomato sandwiches, coffee, sun hats, and his geological hammer and chisels in a rucksack, Dave, Pieter and the camera crew tackled to mountain path.

"Normally one finds the prints of prehistoric animals that perished of natural causes or at the hand of predators. These fossils are then distorted or incomplete. But in this case the starfish, brittle starfish and trilobites had been hit by a flash episode (possibly a flood), it was covered in mud and the moment was cast in stone forever, as in a photograph. I will never forget the moment when I saw the starfish frieze for the first time. A frozen moment in the salty waters of 350 million years ago," says Dave Pepler, ecologist at the University of Stellenbosch.

Source: World of the Klein Karoo

Article Date: 23 November 2006