Granites

During my third year studying geology, we went on a field trip along the West Coast to investigate the Cape Granite Suite. This meant we drove up the Cape coast in mini-buses filled with camping equipment and food for a weekend. We stopped at various beaches where the different granite outcrops were visible. One such place was Tietiesbaai.

From Encounter South Africa

The men in our class found this exceptionally funny - tieties means breasts in Afrikaans. And the hills behind the beach does lend themselves to that description. The field trip itself was very interesting. We stopped at 5 different beaches to discuss the granite outcrops. Our lecturer would ask us to describe and take photographs of the granites. As we went along, a picture of the Cape Granite Suite began to form.

The Cape Granite Suite is a result of plate tectonics - two continental plates collided causing the deeper crust to melt and form magma. This magma intruded into the shallow crust and crystallized as the different granite types of the Cape Granite Suite. From our field observations and discussions, we had to report the 3 phases of this orogenic event as evidenced by the S-, I- and A-type granites.

I love this kind of geology. Here we are strolling along beaches and the rocks are telling us a story hundreds of millions of years old on such a huge scale. It makes you look at the world around you much more closely :-).