Contacting Karoo about superposition of layers and fossils

To give some South African atmosphere, here is the intro to "vi i femman" - the melody is from some Afrikaander folk song (probably the time of the Great Trek):

Vi i femman - Intro (1981)
erikbe99
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNLQSBubosE

As the internet detective I am, it would be ridiculous of me not to be able sooner or later to identify the source for Janne Lucas, namely Bert Kaempfert's A Swingin' Safari. He was German, but inspired by African pop/kwela. Here it is, and much more African than what you may just have heard:

Bert Kaempfert And His Orchestra: A Swingin' Safari
Patricia Rosa Viola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6bsoyT86LE

Of course the Swedish dialogue after intro is just an extra. Now to the correspondence.

I

Me to Johann Neveling

01/06/15 à 11h50

I take it that in Burgersdorp you find some Triassic fauna ...

... have you found Permian fauna straight below it?/HGL

II

Johann Neveling to me

01/06/15 à 15h53

RE: I take it that in Burgersdorp you find some Triassic fauna ...

Hi

Yes, Triassic fossil fauna has been discovered in the Burgersdorp Formation, which outcrops extensively in the Burgersdorp district. But there are no Permian fauna directly below that. The Katberg Formation directly below the Burgersdorp is still considered to be Triassic and to get to the Permian one has to go lower still to the next formation, the Balfour Formation.

Regards

Johann

III

Me to Johann Neveling

02/06/15 à 13h03

RE: I take it that in Burgersdorp you find some Triassic fauna ...

OK, but has anyone tried to look for fossils in the Balfour formation where it is locally below Katberg and Burgersdorp?

I mean, are fossils only searched for and found where a formation outcrops so there is nothing above it, or has anyone tried to dig deeper in a place and found fossils like Triassic ones from Burgersdorp and Katberg formations and Permian ones from Balfour where it lies below them?/HGL

IV

Johann Neveling to me

02/06/15 à 15h04

RE: I take it that in Burgersdorp you find some Triassic fauna ...

Yes. The best chance to find fossils is where you have a bit of relief and erosion – in the Karoo the hills are normally good areas. There are no localities in the Karoo where both the Burgersdorp and Katberg formations are preserved above the Balfour Formation, except in northern half of the basin (where all the formations are much thinner). But there are several localities further south where exposures of the Balfour Formation is overlain by Katberg Formation rocks; and where people looked for and found fossils. These discoveries are reported in the work of (amongst others), James Kitching, Andre Keyser, Roger Smith, Gideon Groenewald, Bruce Rubidge and Jennifer Botha-Brink.

Johann

V

Me to Johann Neveling

02/06/15 à 15h38

RE: I take it that in Burgersdorp you find some Triassic fauna ...

Any of these online?

I'll have a look at any rate!

Wonderful thanks!

VI

Me to Bruce Rubidge and Jennifer Botha-Brink

02/06/15 à 16h12

You have both dug in both Katberg and Balfour formations, right?

Have you ever done this: started digging on top, with clear Katberg/Triassic fauna of fossils and dug down to Balfour levels, same hole, and got Balfour/Permian fauna?

I ask you, because you are on a list given in a reply by Johann Neveling. Here are his words:

"But there are several localities further south where exposures of the Balfour Formation is overlain by Katberg Formation rocks; and where people looked for and found fossils. These discoveries are reported in the work of (amongst others), James Kitching, Andre Keyser, Roger Smith, Gideon Groenewald, Bruce Rubidge and Jennifer Botha-Brink."

I skimmed through parts of what I could find of your workslists, as well as Kitching's, which I somehow lost. Only one work seemed to imply both sides of Permo-Triassic frontier and that was on a beast found on both sides of it.

Feel free to contact the others as well.

Hans Georg Lundahl

VII

Bruce Rubidge to me.

02/06/15 à 18h26

RE: You have both dug in both Katberg and Balfour formations, right?

Dear Hans

I really do not understand your question. To simply dig down from the Katberg into the Balfour in the hopes of finding vertebrate fossils is a senseless exercise as you have to dig through rock and it is hard work. I doubt whether anybody would do that.



Sincerely

Bruce

VIII

Me to Bruce Rubidge

03/06/15 à 09h28

RE: You have both dug in both Katberg and Balfour formations, right?

In other words, when you dig in Balfour, it is where there is no Katberg (or anything else) straight above?

And that is true for the other superposed layers too?/HGL

IX

Bruce Rubidge to me.

03/06/15 à 09h45

RE: You have both dug in both Katberg and Balfour formations, right?

Dear Hans



There are many outcrops of Katberg immediately overlying Balfour Formation so one can trace the entire stratigraphic succession. It is not necessary to dig from the Katberg to the Balfour to expose rocks.



Sincerely

Bruce

X

Me to Bruce Rubidge, cc Jennifer Botha-Brink and Johann Neveling

03/06/15 à 10h52

RE: You have both dug in both Katberg and Balfour formations, right?

That I very much thought was your idea of it.

My point is that with this idea in mind, you haven't ever doublechecked by digging down from Katberg surface into Balfour depths.

Did I get this correctly?

By the way, sorry for an impertinence, but you do take it with some sense of humour to share the name with this fellow*? Was it your father who codiscovered it with Broom**?

No, reason I ask is - to get serious - that if you never did, that is exactly what my hypothesis predicted. Namely that all land vertebrate fossils ever found and classified (as opposed to fossils still firmly hidden in the ground) are from what in a particular sense amounts to "one layer" - the one layer "near surface" where you do dig.

In other words, if all are from the Flood, the areas where you mark out "limits" between Permian and Triassic are exactly speaking limits between Permian biotopes and Triassic ones from before the Flood.

This is the interest I have in asking, and this is also where I find it interesting that one hasn't dug down from Katberg into Balfour lower in ground because it "isn't necessary".

Here is what I have hypothesised, and some discussions I have had on it:

Three Meanings of Chronological Labels

In detail:1) How do Fossils Superpose?, 2) Searching for the Cretaceous Fauna (with appendix on Karoo, Beaufort), 3) What I think I have refuted, 4) Glenn Morton caught abusing words other people were taught as very small children

In debate or otherwise on Assorted Retorts: 1) ... on How Fossils Matter , 2) ... on Steno and Lifespan and Fossil Finds, 3) Geological Column NOT Palaeontolical [Censored by CMI-Creation-Station? Or just by the Library I am in?], 4) Same Debate Uncensored, One Step Further, 5) Continuing debate with Howard F on Geology / Palaeontology, 6) Howard F tries twice again ... , 7) Is Howard F getting tired? Because up to now, he has failed.

Howard F was just contradicted*** by you, Bruce, and I think you other guys, Johann and Jennifer, should get this answer too.

Hans Georg Lundahl

* Back up to Rubidgea atrox: http://www.webcitation.org/6Z9nyDDY8

** It could of course have been grandfather or uncle or ... here is backup to Broomicephalus: http://www.webcitation.org/6Z9o8TUjK

*** Insofar as he wasn't just once again "lowering the rib" for my criteria. That is.

Update after correspondence:

For readers beyond those I wrote to, or for these if they consult the blog, there is a part 8) Resuming Debate with Howard F.