Ecca pass

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Ecca pass
Compass direction south north
Pass height 470  m
region Eastern Cape , South Africa
Watershed Great Fish River
Valley locations Grahamstown Fort Brown
expansion Pass road
Map (Eastern Cape)
Ecca Pass (Eastern Cape)
Ecca pass
Coordinates 33 ° 12 '59 "  S , 26 ° 37' 38"  O Coordinates: 33 ° 12 '59 "  S , 26 ° 37' 38"  O

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The Ecca Pass is a mountain ascent of the regional road R67 on a west-east running elevation northeast of Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown). It is located in the province of Eastern Cape ( Eastern Cape ) of South Africa .

geography

The pass is at an altitude of about 470 meters above sea level. The road leads from the north, past Fort Brown , along the eastern slope of a narrow valley cut and in a curve reaches its highest point.

geology

The mountains at the Ecca Pass consist of layers of the Collingham Formation with calcareous clay schist , solidified volcanic ash with pelitic components and parallel laminated silt and sandstones , which are interpreted as parts of Bouma sequences .

The Ecca group within the Karoo super group is named after the Ecca Pass and because of its importance for understanding the geological conditions in the Karoo . The sediment layers that appear here were formed around 288 to 255 million years ago in an inland sea .

History and paleontology

The geological peculiarities around today's Ecca Pass were discovered during the construction of a military road by Andrew Geddes Bain . He was an engineer and was also interested in paleontology . After an unsuccessful attempt at a farm, he used his technical talent to work as a land surveyor in road construction. One of his early assignments in this field was the construction of the Queen's Road from Grahamstown to Fort Beaufort in 1837 . During the work he came across numerous fossils in the area of ​​the Ecca Pass , which aroused his great interest. Among them were petrified wood and reptile skull bones. Andrew Geddes Bain was later involved in many road construction in South Africa's landscapes and was also a committed fossil collector. Some of the exhibits from his collecting activities are now in the Fort Beaufort Museum. He is one of the most important representatives of South African paleontology in the 19th century. To honor his services, a monument was erected at the Ecca Pass on September 7, 1964. Today he is known as the father of South African paleontology.

literature

  • Octavian Catuneanu: Principles of sequence stratigraphy . Elsevier, Amsterdam et al. 2006, ISBN 0-444-51568-2 .
  • Nick Norman, Gavin Whitefield: Geological Journeys . Struik Publishers, Cape Town 2006, ISBN 1-77007-062-1 .
  • NH Trewin, DIM Macdonald, CGC Thomas: Stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Permian of the Falkland Islands. Lithostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental links with South Africa . In: Journal of the Geological Society 159, 2002, Part 1, ISSN  0016-7649 , pp. 5-19.

Web links