Blyde River Canyon - Mpumalanga, South Africa
Posted by: 
denben
S 24° 40.382 E 030° 48.519
36J E 278254 N 7269485
The Blyde River Canyon is a significant natural feature of South Africa, located in Mpumalanga, and forming the northern part of the Drakensberg escarpment.
Waymark Code: WMJGM4
Location: Mpumalanga, South Africa
Date Posted: 11/16/2013
Views: 7
The Blyde River Canyon is the third largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon in the United States and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, and is the largest 'green canyon' due to its lush subtropical foliage, with the deepest precipitious cliffs of any canyon on the planet.
The Blyde River Canyon extends for 50km (31.07 miles) along the lip of the Drakensberg escarpment. From the canyon rim visitors can look eastwards over the layered rocks of the canyon walls and the Three Rondavels to the Lowveld plain, 1 600 metres below.
It was at this point, some 200 million years ago, that the ancient super continent, Gondwana, broke apart and Madagascar and Antarctica tore free from Africa. The broken edge of the continent was gradually tilted upwards by the weight of a vast shallow sea stretching west to beyond Pretoria.
This sea, already ancient when Gondwana was split by these earth-shaping forces, left behind layer upon layer of dolomite and sandstone laid down as sediments over millions of years.
The entire Blyde River Canyon has a number of world-renowned attractions and activities. The 'Pinnacle' is a single quartzite column rising out of the deep wooded canyon and the ‘Three Rondavels' - three huge spirals of dolomite rock rising out of the far wall of the Blyde River canyon, stained with fiery orange lichen - are spectacular. At the meeting point of the Blyde River (River of joy) and the Treur River (River of sorrow) water erosion has created one of the most phenomenal geological phenomenon in South Africa - the ‘Bourke’s Luck Potholes’.
The coordinates were taken at the entrance to the Bourke’s Luck Potholes site.
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