Since an initial donation by a nongovernmental US organisation for
the drilling of two deep-diamond core holes in the Northern Cape,
visitors from the institute have decided to fund an expansion of
the project for the acquisition of further data for scientific
research.
The Agouron Institute donated R18-million over a period of three
years to a consortium of scientists from world-renowned institutes,
headed by Professor zenith stone crushers indiaNik Beukes of the geology department at Rand
Afrikaans University (RAU).
Colleagues from the California Institute of Technoloimpact crusher kinetic energy calculationgy, Harvard,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and the University of
California at Davis form part of the wet grinder price in indiateam assembled to expand on
the knowledge of early life’s evolution during a period some
2,6-billion years ago.
“Carbonate rocks of the Transvaal Supergroup in Griqualand
West, in the Northern Cape, provide a unique and continuous record
through this interval of earth’s history,” Professor
Jenz Gutzmer of RAU’s geology department explains.
“Well-preserved microbial structures found in these carbonate
rocks are evidence of the great diversity found in shallow oceans
in this era.” The Transvaal Supergroup was thus identified as
the most suitable target for research into the evolution of life by
the American institute.
Drilling was required for the stu-dies because the carbonate rock
is only locally well-exposed in outcrop, and then is usually deeply
weathered.
Detailed field geological mapping and geophysical surveys enabled
the selection of two appropriate drill sites, which are situated
south of Griquatown.
Each core obtained from the holes has been vertically split in
half, to share the resource between the Smithsonian Institute, in
Washington, in the US, and the Council of Geosciences, in Pretoria.