South Africa’s Karoo region potentially holds shale gas that could transform the energy economy of the country. But given the uncertainties around exploration what’s the next logical step?
Local people at Tendaguru (Tanzania) excavation site in 1909 with Giraffatitan fossils.
Wikimedia Commons/Public domain
Africa has one of the world’s richest fossil records, and evidence suggests that amateurs collected really important fossils long before professionals arrived on the scene.
The author’s backpack was hiding this almost complete therapsid fossil. Was finding it all down to luck?
Julien Benoit
Good science isn’t rooted in chance. It’s based on people with expertise being in the right place at the right time, equipped with enough knowledge to know what they’re looking at.
The fossilised skull of an Odontocyclops displays its pineal foramen.
Nkansahrexford (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
Mammals’ ancestors had a third eye and the fossil record of its disappearance tells us the story of the evolution of one of our most important features: warm blood.
South Africa’s Karoo region, in the south west of the country, is thought to have significant reserves of shale gas.
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An old technique to explore the inside of fossils unfortunately ended up destroying some unique specimens. New technology has been used to reconstruct one such fossil.
A Permo-Triassic boundary site near Bethulie in South Africa’s Free State province.
Supplied
How did survivors of the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction adapt to their new, harsh environment? And why is that knowledge so important for modern species?
The orange-breasted sunbird is endemic to South Africa’s fynbos.
Marisa Estivill/Shutterstock
Given the global commitment to conserve biodiversity in the face of climate change, it is important to understand how biodiversity arises in the first place – and how it is maintained.
Pied crow numbers are growing because of powerlines and climate change. This growth is distressing to some.
Peter Ryan
New evidence shows marked similarities between two fossils – one from Brazil, the other South Africa. This confirms compelling geological findings that continents were once one giant land mass.
Spectacular landscape of the Nuweveld escarpment showing exposures of the Beaufort Group.
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Bruce Rubidge, University of the Witwatersrand and Mike Day, University of the Witwatersrand
The Karoo provides not only a historical record of biological change over a period of Earth’s history but also a means to test theories of evolutionary processes over long periods of time.
South Africa could see wells like this if the government gives the go-ahead for fracking to take place.
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Philip Lloyd, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Fracking presents a better alternative to coal mining. Finding a way to produce the gas economically is the first challenge to getting fracking underway.