Welcome to some of the finest scenery in Africa. Enjoy magnificent mountain views, a glorious climate, amazing biodiversity and the unique Barberton Greenstone Belt - geology that tells the earliest history of Earth itself - a fossilized record of the wild frontier of time.
Our History – The Heritage Walk features an array of memorial buildings, statues, monuments and museums that date back to as early as 1884. Our Geology – Barberton has some of the oldest rocks in the world, dating back to 3,5 billion years ago. The Geotrail is a comfortable way to explore their secrets. Our Fauna & Flora – With some of the most beautiful and rare plant- and wildlife, Barberton will prove to be a feast for nature lovers.
The Mountainlands: The geotrail along the paved R40 road which winds its way across the high mountains to the Swazi border makes it possible to comfortably learn about these rocks and enjoy the scenery responsibly. Numerous colourful and well-designed information tablets at lay-bys along the road inform about landscape, nature, and the stories the rocks have to tell.
The Geotrail: The Barberton Greenstone Belt is built up of three major rock units: The Onverwacht Group, followed by Fig Tree and Moodies Group. The Onverwacht Group is at about 3,570 to 3,300 million years old. It consists mostly of dark green and black former lava flows stacked on top of each other many kilometres thick, some of the hottest lava ever to have flowed on the face of the planet. Some of them show “spinifex texture”, named after the needle-like Australian grass and caused by needle-like crystals of olivine and pyroxene which formed when the lava was quenched in contact with water. Yet between the lava flows exist seams and beds of black former deep-sea sediment which contains microscopic remnants of life that must have floated in the oceans even back then.
The Greenstone Belt: The Fig Tree Group, ca. 3,250 – 3,225 million years old, consists mainly of shales, sandstones and volcanics but also of chemical sediments like barite, banded-iron formation and chert. Some of them were mined in small surface operations. Because some of these sediments were made from molecules in the ocean water, the Fig Tree Group is famous for the information it provides about the composition and temperature of the earliest oceans. This rock unit also contains, in places, strata formed by large meteorite impacts.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better - Albert Einstein
Welcome to some of the finest scenery in Africa. Enjoy magnificent mountain views, a glorious climate, amazing biodiversity and the unique Barberton Greenstone Belt - geology that tells the earliest history of Earth itself - a fossilized record of the wild frontier of time.
Our History – The Heritage Walk features an array of memorial buildings, statues, monuments and museums that date back to as early as 1884. Our Geology – Barberton has some of the oldest rocks in the world, dating back to 3,5 billion years ago. The Geotrail is a comfortable way to explore their secrets. Our Fauna & Flora – With some of the most beautiful and rare plant- and wildlife, Barberton will prove to be a feast for nature lovers.
The Mountainlands: The geotrail along the paved R40 road which winds its way across the high mountains to the Swazi border makes it possible to comfortably learn about these rocks and enjoy the scenery responsibly. Numerous colourful and well-designed information tablets at lay-bys along the road inform about landscape, nature, and the stories the rocks have to tell.
The Geotrail: The Barberton Greenstone Belt is built up of three major rock units: The Onverwacht Group, followed by Fig Tree and Moodies Group. The Onverwacht Group is at about 3,570 to 3,300 million years old. It consists mostly of dark green and black former lava flows stacked on top of each other many kilometres thick, some of the hottest lava ever to have flowed on the face of the planet. Some of them show “spinifex texture”, named after the needle-like Australian grass and caused by needle-like crystals of olivine and pyroxene which formed when the lava was quenched in contact with water. Yet between the lava flows exist seams and beds of black former deep-sea sediment which contains microscopic remnants of life that must have floated in the oceans even back then.
The Greenstone Belt: The Fig Tree Group, ca. 3,250 – 3,225 million years old, consists mainly of shales, sandstones and volcanics but also of chemical sediments like barite, banded-iron formation and chert. Some of them were mined in small surface operations. Because some of these sediments were made from molecules in the ocean water, the Fig Tree Group is famous for the information it provides about the composition and temperature of the earliest oceans. This rock unit also contains, in places, strata formed by large meteorite impacts.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better - Albert Einstein
Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism (KLCBT) (Crossing Centre)
