#kopje

Dry Possum Creek Kopje

Kopjes of the Serengeti

Occasionally, in the middle of the flat plains of Africa’s Serengeti, sets of rocks like this stick out. This is a Kopje (pronounced Kopee) known as Simba Kopje, a piece of granitic rock that sticks out of the plains.

The plains are an area covered with nearly flat lying mudrocks and ash formed from volcanoes in the nearby African Rift Zone. These Kopjes are much older; these are pieces of the basement rocks that stick up through the overlying sediment.

To a geologist, the basement rock is the lowest rock type in a sequence. It is often granitic or close to it in composition and if you try to dig through it, you’ll just run into more granite until you reach the mantle. These rocks are metamorphosed granites formed hundreds of millions of years ago when Gondwana was being put together during the Precambrian.

Granites are hard to erode, but when they are eroded they will leave some topography. Some parts of the granite will be less fractured than others and will stick up above the surrounding terrain. If the environment changes from erosion to deposition, whatever topography sits on top of the granites will be preserved by the surrounding sediments.

These Kopjes are high points in the underlying granite. They were buried by sediments long after they were formed and are now being re-exposed. A variety of animals and plants make use of these outcrops where they stick above the plains for shelter. In fact, the name of this one, Simba Kopje, comes from the fact that it was inspiration for some of the scenes in the movie “The Lion King” where the lions are on high ground.

-JBB

Image credit: (Creative Commons): https://www.flickr.com/photos/plalbrecht/4938497781/

kof·fie·buik

From Earth Science Picture of the Day; July 1, 2018:

Archive - The Simba Kopjes of East Africa’s Serengeti Plains Photographer and Summary Author: Ray Boren

Each Sunday we present a notable item from our archives. This EPOD was originally published July 2, 2012.

Dotting parts of Tanzania’s vast Serengeti plains like rocky islands in a sea of grass, kopjes are outcrops of granite or gneiss. They provide a scenic contrast to the surrounding grasslands and habitat for many creatures and plants. As evidenced by these two lionesses (below), seen on the Simba Kopjes in Serengeti National Park, kopjes are particularly favored by lions for the high perches and as a place to hide their cubs. Kopje is a Dutch/Afrikaans word that is pronounced very like "copy" and which translates as "little head." Simba is Swahili for lion. The cores of most kopjes formed in the Precambrian, as magma intruded upward into even older metamorphic rock. As that older layer eroded away over eons, the tops of the harder granitic bubbles were exposed. Their spotted surfaces, weathered, cracked and rounded, today harbor insects, birds, lizards, hyraxes, cheetahs … and simba. Photo taken May 29, 2012.

Photo Details: Camera: NIKON D60; Focal Length: 22mm; Aperture: f/22.0; Exposure Time: 0.040 s (1/25); ISO equiv: 100.

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania Coordinates: -2.332778, 34.566667

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