The Waterloo Farm lagerstätte is a Famennian lagerstätte in South Africa that constitutes the only known record of a near-polar Devonian coastal ecosystem.
History and discovery
The Waterloo Farm Lagerstätte is an approximately 360 million year old Famennian (latest Devonian) fossil-rich locality of the Witpoort Formation (Witteberg Group, Cape Supergroup) in Makhanda (former Grahamstown) within the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Before its discovery very little was known of life during the Famennian (see Late Devonian extinction) in what is now southern Africa. This is largely due to the fact that fossils in the Witpoort Formation generally occur in black anaerobically deposited metashale that rapidly degrades near surface and is therefore rarely seen in natural outcrop. As is the case with many other scientific discoveries, the discovery of Waterloo Farm was accidental. Uprisings against the apartheid system in South Africa had by the mid-1980s escalated to violent protests, particularly in the 'townships' (designated black residential areas). Prior to that the N2, the main road linking the industrial ports of Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) and East London, ran through then Grahamstown, including its township. By 1985, protests and stoning of cars had made it unsafe for traffic to drive through the townships. As a result the local government proposed the construction of a new road that would serve as a bypass around the townships. Due to limited options, it was decided that the bypass would be constructed through the valleyed countryside to the south of then Grahamstown. This involved excavation of extensive road cuttings through hills and spurs of the Rietberg and utilisation of the resultant rubble to build viaducts across the intervening valleys. Amongst the small farms from which land was appropriated for the road was Waterloo Farm, owned by Rhodes University Botany professor, Roy Lubke - with one cutting passing virtually through the farm yard. At a braai (barbeque) held by Roy Lubke one afternoon, a colleague Dr Mark Aken wandered off to the top of the cutting and peered down the slope. He returned to his colleagues to inform them that there were plant fossils in the disturbed black shale. Roy Lubke mentioned this to Dr Fred Gess, an entomologist, who passed the information on to his son Robert Gess. As Robert Gess had a great interest in the fossils of the Eastern Cape he immediately made his way out to the roadworks where he was struck by the uniquely well-preserved nature of the fossils. With the encouragement of his supervisor and mentor Dr Norton Hiller of the Rhodes Geology Department, he started assembling a collection of the fossils. In 1991 Fiona Taylor, an honours student of Dr Hiller, conducted a short study on the geological context of the deposit, and also published a preliminary note on the fossils, including some of those from Gess' collection. During a short combined excavation by Gess and Taylor, more material was found including remains of large armour-plated (placoderm) fish, later identified as Africa's only known species of Bothriolepis. Taylor's sedimentological work was presented in an article titled "Late Devonian shoreline changes: an analysis of Witteberg Group stratigraphy in the Grahamstown area" published in 1992 (Hiller and Taylor). In 1993, Hiller employed Robert Gess to conduct a thorough palaeontological study and his excavations continued until 1995, after the emigration of Dr Hiller. This phase of research resulted in a number of papers, which were the subject of his master's degree. By the mid-90's, the road cutting was frequently collapsing due to the dip direction of the strata being towards the road. This led to a near permanent closure of one lane for safety reasons. After there had been a failed attempt to mitigate the situation with steel barriers in the mid-nineties, the newly established South African National Road Agency Limited (SANRAL) published a call for tenders to upgrade the road. This would prove a propitious opportunity for Robert Gess as, by this time, he was struggling to secure further funding for excavations and research. In September 1999, Gess, who had taken up residence in Bathurst (45 km away from Makhanda), heard that a group of consulting engineers from Jeffares and Green (now known as JG Africa) had been awarded the tender to cut back and stabilise the cuttings. He immediately contacted the company and SANRAL to inform them of the sensitivity of the site. SANRAL made funds available for Gess to rescue some of the shale for scientific research. This was hand mined in blocks by Gess and a team under his direction before being transported on a flat-bed truck to his property in Bathurst. Gess built a shed roof over the sample to protect them from the rapid decay that characterises the shale when exposed to weather. It is from meticulous excavation of these rescued blocks that most subsequent discoveries have been and continue to be made. A similar process during further roadworks in 2007 and 2008 yielded an even larger haul of fossiliferous blocks which are stored in sheds constructed by SANRAL. The fossils are housed and researched by the Devonian Ecosystems project, (funded by the Millennium Trust and South African Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences) in the Albany Museum's Devonian lab at 87 Beaufort Street, Makhanda (formerly Rhini or Grahamstown). They have provided the material for extensive research by Dr Rob Gess and his collaborators, and an ongoing stream of significant papers.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
