My research has allowed me to do fieldwork in some pretty amazing places in South and southern Africa.
South Africa and Lesotho's Karoo Basin is host to the majority of these countries palaeontological wealth. Deposition and accumulation of the Karoo Supergroup began with the Dwyka Group (320-280 Ma), coincident with the end of the Gondwanan glacial period. This was followed by the dominantly marine Ecca Group, and the terrestrial sequences of the Beaufort and Stormberg groups. Finally, early Jurassic-aged volcano-sedimentary sequences (Drakensberg Group) terminate more than 100 million years of sedimentation.
South Africa and Lesotho's Karoo Basin is host to the majority of these countries palaeontological wealth. Deposition and accumulation of the Karoo Supergroup began with the Dwyka Group (320-280 Ma), coincident with the end of the Gondwanan glacial period. This was followed by the dominantly marine Ecca Group, and the terrestrial sequences of the Beaufort and Stormberg groups. Finally, early Jurassic-aged volcano-sedimentary sequences (Drakensberg Group) terminate more than 100 million years of sedimentation.
The Beaufort group is the first non-marine sequence to be deposited in the Karoo Basin, and is world-renowned for its fossils of non-mammalian synapsids - the therapsids. Therapsid fossils are abundant enough to divide the group into seven biostratigraphic assemblage zones (Eodicynodon, Tapinocephalus, Endothiodon, Cistecephalus, Daptocephalus, Lystrosaurus declivis, Cynognathus). Additionally, the upper Stormberg Group (Elliot and Clarens formations) is divided into the Scalenodontoides and Massospondylus assemblage zones, and they preserve assemblages of some of the earliest dinosaur dominated communities on Gondwana. Both the Beaufort and upper Stormberg groups document the effects of major extinction events occurring at the end of the Permian and Triassic periods respectively, making the Karoo Basin unique in understanding the evolution of mammals and dinosaurs.
In smaller syn-rift basins adjacent to the main Karoo Basin in other southern (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia) and eastern (Tanzania, Zambia) African countries, similar litho and biostratigraphic sequences have been recorded. This has taken me to the shores of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe (Mid-Zambezi Basin) in collaboration with the Department of Museums and monuments (Darlington Munyikwa), Zimbabwe Geological Survey (Tim Broderick), the Evolutionary Studies Institute (Wits University, Jonah Choiniere, Kimberley Chapelle), and the London Natural History Museum (Paul Barrett) to help provide context for late Triassic and early Jurassic fossil assemblages.
I have also recently been involved in fieldwork in Zambia's Luangwa Basin in collaboration with the Field Museum's Brandon Peecook and Ken Angielczyk, the Burke Museum and University of Washington (Christian Sidor, Megan Whitney), the National Heritage and Conservation Commission (Joseph Museba) and Chipembele Wildlife fund (Steve Tolan). Here I was able to help with contextualizing the changes to palaeocommunities in the latest Permian and Middle Triassic.