Pilanesberg National Park
The Pilanesberg National Park (English Pilanesberg Game Reserve ) is a National Park in the North West Province in South Africa . The park is located around the 1687 meter high, extinct Pilanesberg volcano in the Bojanala Platinum district in the immediate vicinity of the Sun City entertainment complex . It is located around 150 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg and is around 55,000 hectares in size.
history
Before the area was transformed into a national park, it was part of the Tswana settlement area . The park opened in December 1979 in the area of the then formally independent Bophuthatswana . The park was founded with the so-called Operation Genesis , the largest animal relocation program in the world at the time. Over 7,000 animals were relocated from other national parks in southern Africa . Currently (as of 2005) there are around 103 species of mammals , more than 350 species of birds , 18 different amphibians and 65 species of reptiles in the park . Among other things, it is also the home of the Big Five .
geology
In the Mesoproterozoic , enormous amounts of magma penetrated the existing rocks of today's region. Since these magmas cooled only very slowly, rock units were formed that were rich in minerals , including chromium and platinum . When these rock complexes came to light, today's flat landscape was formed, which surrounds the area around the Pilanesberg and belongs to the Bushveld complex .
Later, the rocks on the surface were exposed to tectonic processes that triggered volcanic activity. The magma entered the rock complexes and created large-scale alkaline rock units. Several volcanic eruptions occurred on the Pilanesberg. Before the first eruption around 1,300 million years ago, the magmatic-tectonic processes caused the earth's surface to break up into three unusual concentric circles. This structure is called the alkaline ring complex . After the eruption, the earth's crust sagged into the cavities underneath and pushed the remaining magma into the crevices. The magma solidified and forms the many hills that still dominate the landscape today.
The Pilanesberg has a diameter of about 25 kilometers. Its structure and the rocks that can be found there are very rare. The two minerals orthoclase and nepheline are particularly common .
In the Pilanesberg alkaline complex there are contents of zirconium , niobium , tantalum and rare earth metals that are of interest to the mining industry .
traffic
In the immediate vicinity on the southeast edge of the park is the Pilanesberg International Airport ( IATA code : NTY, ICAO code : FAPN), which is used by around 40,000 passengers annually and has a 2,750-meter-long asphalt runway.
The airport was built in 1981 by the Bophuthatswana government to cater to the increasing number of tourists in the national park and Sun City .
Web links
- Pilanesberg National Park tourist website
- Tourist website for the Pilanesberg Game Reserve (English)
- Siyabona Africa: Pilanesberg National Park, North West, South Africa
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Shaw, Kathryn Goodenough et al .: Niobium-tantalum. Definitions, mineralogy and deposits . on www.bgs.ac.uk
Coordinates: 25 ° 14 ′ 53 ″ S , 27 ° 6 ′ 31 ″ E