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Event
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When |
Where |
Detail |
| Sasol TEchnoX |
16-20 August 2010 |
South Africa |
LINK |
Langebaanweg 2010
Changing Landscapes and Biotas of the Cape West Coast:
Mio-Pliocene to Recent |
15-17 November 2010 |
South Africa |
LINK |
Langebaanweg 2010
15-17 November
Changing Landscapes and Biotas of the Cape West Coast:
Mio-Pliocene to Recent
Building on the success of the Langebaanweg 2006 mini-symposium and workshop, a
second meeting, which will take the form of a conference, is planned in the
second half of November 2010. This conference forms part of the African Origins
Platform/West Coast Fossil Park project. Several researchers and postgraduate
students have been working on the geology, floras and faunas of Langebaanweg
since 2006, and this meeting will provide a forum for them to present and
compare results. The focus of the Langebaanweg 2010 conference will be extended
to embrace other west coast fossil sites as an increasing amount of work has
been done in the past 5 years on fossil sites which are geographically, if not
temporally, close to Langebaanweg. These include new excavations and/or research
at well known sites such as Elandsfontein, Duinefontein and Hoedjiespunt 1, as
well as several new sites which are currently being analysed or excavated. We
will also include a session that looks at comparisons between the west coast
fossil taxa and those of eastern South Africa and East Africa.
Among the above-mentioned sites, Elandsfontein is closest in age to Langebaanweg,
and accordingly exhibits archaic groups such as sivatheres and sabre-toothed
cats, indicating the persistence of certain taxa from the Mio-Pliocene until the
time of accumulation of the Elandsfontein fossils which is thought to be fall
between 1,000 000 and 600 000 years (Klein et al. 2007). Elandsfontein is thus
vital for understanding both the origins and migration of modern southern
African taxa, and the profound environmental upheavals that led to the
extinction of many taxa found at Langebaanweg. The temporal chasm between
Langebaanweg and Elandsfontein is currently being bridged by on-going research
on the later Pliocene marine terraces of the west coast. Late Middle Pleistocene
and Late Pleistocene sites such as Duinefontein, Sea Harvest and Hoedjiespunt 1,
Swartklip and Yzerfontein provide information on evolving west coast landscapes
and biota. A component on modern west coast ecosystems will be included in the
conference.
The conference aims to bring about the sharing of research and information on
Late Cenozoic biotas and landscapes in the west coast region, and to provide a
synthesis of knowledge from many different areas of research. This linking
together of information along a continuum of climatic and environmental change
should lead to a much better understanding of the evolution and transformation
of west coast ecosystems and the climatic/oceanographic changes which molded
them. A special volume will be published of the proceedings of the conference.
Some of the proposed topics/issues the conference will address are as
follows:
• West Coast palaeoenvironments: The faunal evidence (Early Pliocene to
Pleistocene)
• West Coast palaeoenvironments: Evidence from pollen and phytoliths
• Mio-Pliocene sites linking East and South Africa (Fauna and flora)
• Sea Temperature and climate change on the West Coast in the Late Cenozoic
• The Geology of the West Coast
• Dating of the West Coast Fossil sites
• Taphonomy and site formation
• Genetic data on plant and animal evolution in the Fynbos Biome
• West coast flora and fauna (Modern)
• Historical occurrence/contemporary introduction of large mammals in the West
Coast region
The three-day conference would take place from 15-17 November 2010 and will be
held in the Waterfront in Cape Town, at the Breakwater Lodge Conference Centre.
The conference will start promptly on Monday 15th November, so we suggest you
aim to arrive the previous day (Sunday, 14 November 2010). If you know someone
whom you think would be interested in the workshop, please forward this email to
them.
Field trip: We will have a post-conference field trip which will encompass
visits to several interesting west coast palaeontological, geological and
archaeological sites, the itinerary is still to be finalized.
In order to be added to the conference email distribution list please contact
Thalassa Matthews at
tmatthews@iziko.org.za .
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