FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Duncan Miller]

At the end of March 2020 South Africa went into an extended ‘hard lockdown’ to try to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This obliged everyone to stay at home, except to buy essential goods or receive medical attention. It provided the opportunity to tackle some long-standing projects that could be done at home with whatever was at hand.

So, I reworked a number of earlier short descriptions of aspects of the geology of the Western Cape in South Africa into a single document intended for the non-specialist reader interested in geology. Because I could not drive around to take new photographs, it had to be illustrated with what images I had, or could be provided by local friends.

The result is an 85 page document suitable for reading on a laptop computer or a tablet. It describes the local geological history of outcrops within a day’s drive around Cape Town, giving enough background to understand the origin of various rock types, landforms and interesting geographic features. Google Earth can be used to locate the places described in the text, which lacks maps.

Currently I am an Affiliated Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of the Free State, a post-retirement position. This enables me to be actively involved in science outreach, popularising ongoing geo-research.

Duncan Miller

[Duncan Miller]

This type of 'magazine’ display that we often use in this section does not allow photos to be enlarged by clicking the mouse on them. The solution to enlarge the screen is to use the keys: Ctrl + mouse wheel. By turning the wheel and holding the Ctrl (Control) key we can enlarge the image at will.

[Jordi Fabre]

On the Spanish side of FMF we create certain sections (two at this time) of the Spanish FMF to be admitted by the International Standard Serial Number. This is the reason why everything we upload in those two sections Yacimientos Minerales en FMF and Ciencias de la Tierra automatically has a common registration number at the ISSN and therefore acts like any other magazine or book published, with the same legal rights and corresponding indexing.

As its name indicates the ISSN is an international registry, so, it covers publications not only in Spanish but also in, for example, English 😏
That is why we have published this excellent work of Duncan there with a short bilingual introduction and keeping the article as prepared by Duncan in English.

From now on, any other quality and well-structured work such as Duncan's published in this Forum can be reviewed by the administrators and if we believe that it helps to improve the mineral world, we will publish it in Yacimientos Minerales en FMF or in Ciencias de la Tierra and will thereby become an "ISSN publication".

[Duncan Miller]

Dear Jordi,

I would like to thank you, and Carlos Rey and Antonio López Cabello, for the work you have put into publishing Stories in Stone on both the Spanish and English FMF message boards. It is very gratifying that this work, compiled during the COVID-19 lockdown, has seen international publication.

With my grateful thanks, compliments of the season, and best wishes for a hopefully less stressful 2021.

Duncan

[Tony L. Potucek]

Thank you, Duncan, for writing this guide concerning the geology of the Western Cape of South Africa. I wish I would have had the opportunity to read this a couple of years ago before I visited the Cape. Better late than never, eh. Thanks again!

tlp

[Duncan Miller]

There is an error on page 59 of Stories in Stone. The rock described as rhyolite, in the text and caption to the photograph, actually is a feldspar-rich syenite.


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