Chronicle EditorPathisa Nyathi, Sunday News Correspondent
SEVERAL years ago, I visited a museum in Pretoria, South Africa. There I saw, for the first time, fossilised wood. It was the stem of what looked like a dead tree. It was in reality stone. Later, I was to come across several similar stone trees at the time when I was working for the Ministry of Education in Matabeleland North.
One district that I visited as part of my duties was Nkayi, with my officers in the Non-Formal Education section, we crossed the Shangani River en route to see women’s projects through which non-formal education was being conducted.
There, lying on the ground at Sebhumane was a vast field of fallen stone trees; trees that metamorphosed into stone during the Carboniferous Period.
I had learnt in Geography that the southern part of the African continent was once upon a time a vast inland ocean with rivers pouring their waters into it.
There is now ample evidence of the existence of the erstwhile sea. There are streams even today that flow from Zimbabwe and pour their waters, not into some ocean, but some inland drainage reservoir. Nata River pours its waters into the Okavango Swamp. That water does not get to the Atlantic Ocean in the west.
The Zambezi River system bears what we sometimes refer to as the elbow of capture. It seems the Zambezi River from the north used to pour its waters into the same inland ocean. At the same time, there was another river which flowed into the Indian Ocean.
This river was extending its source westwards until it captured (stole) the waters of the river flowing into the inland lake. This geographical phenomenon is clearly borne out by the “elbow” on the Zambezi River when it turns from a north to south course and flows towards the Indian Ocean.
What we refer to as the Kalahari sands exist from west of Bulawayo and covers vast swathes of land from Umguza, Tsholotsho, Hwange National Park, Lupane and Nkayi and further north.
he water table is very low and the trees that survive in these areas have to develop deep root systems to reach the water table. Growth of the trees also takes an upward direction.
The trees are tall, constituting what the Ndebele people call amagusu amnyama (the dark forests), for example the Gwayi and Shangani Reserves to which they (imikutulwa) were resettled following evictions from the south.
Salt in the inland lake evaporated leaving behind huge blocks of rock salt, which is now commercially exploited in Botswana. The salt licks for our cattle are imported from there.
A drying sea leaves behind salt and indeed there are well known salt deposits, which found their way into Ndebele history. In their trek from the south, the section of the Ndebele led by King Mzilikazi, got to one such salt deposit-the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan. The Ndebele referred to it as eMahalihali. One Ndiweni man was even named uMahalihali. Our names do tell, document and embody our history, in this case including ancient geological phenomena.
In Lupane there is a place known as Mangangama. The name certainly bears a phenomenon those ties well with the region’s geological past.
“Ngangama” seems to suggest burning of gas, which is one of the products from the Carboniferous Period. When there is extreme heat, the place seems to light up and burn.
Not so long ago I was directed by Reverend Paul Bayethe Damasane to a spot on his farm where there was bubbling above a shallow pond of water.
It is possible the geological phenomenon is reminiscent of the existence of gases in the region where there are fields of stone trees.
Hwange is known for its vast coal reserves. On the surface, more such deposits exist on both the surface and the banks of the Sebungwe River in Binga.
When Cecil John Rhodes’ grand dream and plan was on the verge of concretisation, the rail line from Cape Town to Cairo had reached Salisbury (now Harare).
It was the discovery of coal by a German national at Hwange that diverted the rail route to Hwange and then over the Zambezi River instead of moving straight to Zambia from Salisbury.
From Geography, we learn of the related products from expansive water reservoirs when there was transformation following extended periods of deposition and subsequent metamorphosis of accumulated flora and fauna.
The products embrace petroleum, coal and gas. These are critical inputs and resources in industrial production. Coal production has been ongoing for several decades at Hwange where a thermal power station is generating electricity that is fed into the national grid.
There are currently moves to initiate extraction of gas in Lupane. The situation in Ukraine points to the critical role played by gas.
Europe is dependent for its gas requirements from Russia and yet they are supporting Ukraine, which is engaged in conflict with Russia.
The automobile industry for now is very much dependent on petroleum. Alternative energy is being researched and developed but there is still a long way to go before cars move on that alternative energy.
Without doubt, southern Africa is well endowed in these natural resources, which enhances its geopolitical importance. Angola has petroleum, Namibia too is following suit.
Now it seems Muzarabani in Zimbabwe is promising existence of vast petroleum fields. Aerial surveys by developed countries have yielded results that point to several resources that lie underground awaiting commercial extraction.
But there have been problems of outsiders formenting conflict and trouble across the globe where there are abundant natural resources, and that is what the world has to guard against.
Bongani Ndlovu