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    Grocott's Mail
    You are at:Home»OUR TOWN»Young fossil enthusiasts enjoy Rob Gess’s talk
    OUR TOWN

    Young fossil enthusiasts enjoy Rob Gess’s talk

    Grocott's MailBy Grocott's MailApril 4, 2023Updated:April 5, 2023No Comments2 Mins Read
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    This painting is a reconstruction of a portion Waterloo Farm’s palaeoecosystem with Hyneria udlezinye in the centre. Other Waterloo Farm creatures include the armour plated fish Bothriolepis africana (bottom centre) and clockwise from bottom left, two coelacanths (Serenichthys kowiensis), the tetrapod Tutusius mlambo, a lungfish (Isityumzi mlomomde), another tetrapod (Umzantsia amazana), at right another Tutusius being pursued by Hyneria, with the armour plated fish Groenlandaspis riniensis below and a cyrtoctenid eurypterid at bottom right. Painting by Maggie Newman based on scientific input by Rob Gess, sponsored by SANRAL.

    By Marion Whitehead

    Dr Rob Gess’ss talk on the fossils he has found in rock from the Albany district fascinated the audience at a Friends of Waters Meeting function on 1 April.

    The meeting took place at the Ploughman Pub venue at the Bathurst Agricultural Museum. Lorien and Aradan Yazbek were the youngest in the audience. They are about the same age that Gess was when he became a passionate fossil finder while still a schoolboy at St Andrew’s College.

    Steven Lang reported in February this year that Gess co-discovered, with Swedish professor Per Ahlberg, the biggest prehistoric bony fish ever described from Southern Africa. The biggest predator in its ecosystem, the Hyneria udlezinye, lived 360 million years ago in a palaeolagoon right here where Makhanda now stands.

    The fish was fossilised after its corpse sank into mud at the bottom of the lagoon, and the mud was compressed over millions of years, eventually folded into a vast mountain range in the area. Compacted up to 10kms below the mountain tops, the fossilsfinallyy emerged after time, and weather wore the mountains down, and layers of black shale were once again close to the surface.

    Dr Rob Gess spoke about the fossils of the Makhanda area on 1 April in Bathurst, enthralling palaeontology enthusiasts Lorien and Aradan Yazbek. Photo: Marion Whitehead.
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