Table mountain sandstone

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Handpiece from table mountain sandstone
Cape of Good Hope, easily recognizable stratification of the sandstone
On Table Mountain above Cape Town

As Table Mountain Sandstone ( English Table Mountain Sandstone ) is in a sedimentary sequence of different quartzitic sandstones in South Africa called. It extends from Nieuwoudtville over the Table Mountain region near Cape Town to the tip of the Cape Peninsula and into the region of the more distant Port Elizabeth . Within the lithostratigraphic context of South Africa, it belongs to the Table Mountain group , which according to its age belongs to the Middle Paleozoic and is part of the Cape Supergroup .

description

The table mountain sandstone has a thickness of about 550 meters in the area of ​​the table mountain. The lowest layer, about 50 meters thick, consists of reddish sandstone deposits and clay slates from the Graafwater Formation and lies on an older granite bed ( Cape Granite ). About 500 meters of light gray sandstone from the Peninsula Formation lie in horizontal deposits . The sandstone contains conglomerate and diamictitic debris.
At other outcrops the sandstone emerges with a brown and beige color.

Its origin lies in the sections between Ordovician and Devonian , between 475 and 400 million years ago. The sandstone complexes are an important part of the coastal mountainous landscape in the Western Cape and in the western section of the Eastern Cape (partial areas in the Cape fold belt at George and Oudtshoorn ).

use

Compared to other South African sandstones, it was only used to a limited extent as stone. The most important mining sites were at Ceres , Muizenberg , Kloof Nek, Fish Hoek . There were only insignificant mining sites in the Cape Town area. The sandstones most frequently used here for the architecture of this city come from former quarries in the city area from older layers ( Malmesbury Group , approx. 550 million years old).

Application examples in Cape Town are for example:

  • First National Bank (facade)
  • Metropolitan Methodist Church (light beige ashlar facade)
  • St. George Cathedral (facade)

literature

  • DI Cole: The Building Stones of Cape Town . Council of Geoscience, 2002, ISBN 1-919908-19-6 .
  • Nick Norman, Gavin Whitfield: Geological Journeys . Struik Publishers, Cape Town 2006, ISBN 1-77007-062-1 .

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