The Witteberg or Witteberge is a South African mountain range just off the south-west corner of

Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...

. The range, which rises to 2408 metres, stretches for about from Lundin's Neck in the east to Lady Grey in the west. The range lends its name to the Witteberg Series, the uppermost

fossiliferous A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved i ...

sequence of the Cape System of sedimentary rocks in South Africa. The Witteberg Series (340-375 Ma) consists of

clastic Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus,Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen Marshak, p. G-3 chunks, and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks by ...

, shoreline deposits of shales, sandstones, and quartzites, and lies below the plant-bearing and

glacial A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

beds of the Lower

Karoo System The Karoo Supergroup is the most widespread stratigraphic unit in Africa south of the Kalahari Desert. The supergroup consists of a sequence of units, mostly of nonmarine origin, deposited between the Late Carboniferous and Early Jurassic, a peri ...

. The Witteberg Series has yielded fossil fragments of ''

Lepidodendron ''Lepidodendron'' is an extinct genus of primitive lycopodian vascular plants belonging the order Lepidodendrales. It is well preserved and common in the fossil record. Like other Lepidodendrales, species of ''Lepidodendron'' grew as large-tree ...

''-like plants and large numbers of the

ichnogenus An ichnotaxon (plural ichnotaxa) is "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", i.e. the non-human equivalent of an artifact. ''Ichnotaxon'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''íchnos'') meaning "track" and English , itself derived from ...

known as '' Spirophyton''. The upper part of the series is also rich in

palaeoniscoid The Palaeonisciformes, commonly known as "palaeoniscoids" (also spelled "paleoniscoid", or alternatively "paleoniscids") are an extinct grouping of primitive ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii), spanning from the Silurian/Devonian to the Cretaceous. ...

fauna. In 1969, Brian G. Gardiner PPLS, former professor of palaeontology at King's College, described 7 new

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

from here – ''Australichthys longidorsalis'', ''Aestuarichthys fulcratus'', '' Willomorichthys striatulus'', '' Sundayichthys elegantulus'', '' Dwykia analensis'', ''Adroichthys tuberculatus'' and ''Soetendalichthys cromptoni'' (=''Aestuarichthys fulcratus''). Two new

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

were also erected, the Willomorichthyidae and the Dwykiidae. The Witteberge range in the Eastern Free State on the north-west corner of

is an unrelated mountain. 'Witteberg' (white mountain) is a common name in South Africa for any mountain lofty enough to show snowfall during winter.

References

Mountain ranges of the Eastern Cape Geology of South Africa {{EasternCape-geo-stub

See also

References