Phase I: Overview (2003 - 2007) - Where we are Now
![]() Phase I - Proposal Book |
![]() Key results in the Special Inkaba yeAfrica 2007 Issue of SA Journal of Geology (SAJG) |
When, in 2003, the German and South African Earth and Space community started a five-year program to acquire new geo-scientific data through a number of disciplines and an overall goal to investigate the consilience amongst them, it was not expected to make as much progress as has been achieved to date.
Over 100 scientists and some 30 students from both countries worked together on land and on ships to survey a cone-shaped sector of our Earth from its core to space, enclosing South Africa and the Southern Oceans at its solid surface, and tracking the history and interactions of its components for up to 200 million years into the past.
Inkaba yeAfrica Phase I was celebrated with a special volume of the South African Journal of Geology (SAJG) (combining issues 2 and 3 of volume 110) comprising 24 papers written by a total of 66 authors, including 16 students. Most of the initial results of all the projects are reported in the 502 pages of this volume.
Southern Africa and its surrounding oceans are a world-class global change laboratory
South Africa and its surrounding ocean environment is amongst the best natural laboratories in the world to pursue such a visionary project because it retains the longest best-preserved record of Earth history, including that of natural resources, geomagnetic reversals, chemical variations of the mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere, and climate changes extending back more than 3500 million years.
Southern Africa is also the focus of dramatic changes in the Earth’s present magnetic field, ocean currents, climatic swings, threats to terrestrial and marine biodiversity hot spots, and symbolises Earth’s long period of co-evolution of earth and life.
From the cradle of life to the cradle of human culture: Left: Earth’s oldest fossil evidence for life. 3500 million year-old microbial structures, as preserved in pillow lava rims of the Barberton Mountain Land, eastern South Africa. Right: World’s oldest human cultural artifacts. 75,000 year-old beads, discovered in Blombos Cave, along the south coast of South Africa (www.blomboscave.co.za)
Over the last 5 years, work and achievements throughout Phase I have established Inkaba yeAfrica as a global brand-name and a successful model for international cooperation in Earth System Science research that is now being duplicated, and implemented, by other nations.
Mindful of the policies of the South African government, the African and European Unions, Inkaba yeAfrica has developed a new way of Earth exploration and is carving out new paths of Earth Stewardship Science designed to enable scientific independence for sustainable development and capacity building in Africa.
The Inkaba yeAfrica Workshop at GFZ Potsdam, Germany - 2006
The Inkaba yeAfrica workshop at the Wild Coast KZN, South Africa - 2007
Themes - Phase 1
Earth and Ocean monitoring with global networks and models (ITRF, IGRF, geoid/gravity), deep earth processes and surface consequences, mantle-core dynamics, decay of the geomagnetic field over southern Africa with its human consequences. Margins of Africa - Continental break-up causes and consequences The causes of continental break-up with relation to lithospheric structures, mantle dynamics and magmatic processes. The consequences of break-up, with margin evolution, erosion and sedimentation budgets, heatflow and hydrocarbon resources. Changes in offshore sedimentation style and evolution of basin systems.
Living Africa - Oceans, resources and climate Surface uplift and landscape evolution with links to climate change, hydrology and soil systems and the biosphere. Energy and Resource Ocean current dynamics – upwelling, global climate and continental aridity. |
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Heart of Africa - Energy Transfer from Core to Space
Topics and Project Leaders:
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Margins of Africa - Continental Breakup: Causes and Consequences
Topics and Project Leaders:
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Living Africa - Land and Oceans, Resources and Climate Change
Topics and Project Leaders:
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