From my Hide – Quake alert and giant scorpions!

‘JUST when you thought it was safe to back in the water…’ Remember that really great 1975 film, Jaws, and that priceless line just quoted? Well, I feel a bit like that now. Just when things were settling down quite nicely; no unexpected power outages for a while, the village verges have been mowed and there are even prospects for rain; along comes an earthquake alert.

Granted, it’s a bit obscure and somewhat dated, but an alert is an alert, so we did some panic buying – a packet of long life milk and some extra ginger biscuits. Anyway, here goes. We all know about the Great Rift Valley, that remarkable phenomenon that runs from Turkey through Israel (the Dead Sea), the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean with a branch across north east Africa and Kenya via Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi, then straight south towards us and eventually back into the sea (that western branch across Africa is our Rift Valley).

There are what seem to be various sub-fault or supplementary rift lines that branch off the main ones, but all these things occurred over vast stretches of the earth’s surface at the time of the break-up of the super continents and over similarly vast spaces in time. Because of all of this there are also sub-rifts that have nothing at all to do with the main rifts, and one of those runs around Port Shepstone, the Port Shepstone Fault.

Now, before property developers get to thinking that Sheppie is about to break away from Africa to become another stunning Indian Ocean tropical island, hold your horses. My original source suggested that South Africa could well be overdue for a major earthquake, ‘It’s not a question of if, but when, and it could even be tomorrow’, it says. Enter my pal and confidante, Paddy Norman, geologist and raconteur extraordinary. Paddy studied the original report and came up with this statement, ‘the chances of either of them (the Port Shepstone Fault and the fault that runs along the coast) moving significantly are very small indeed’. Paddy had lots more to say, but basically any major disturbance is extremely unlikely. So, it looks like we’re stuck with our long life milk and ginger biccies.

On to giant scorpions. A recent report announced that the oldest ever land creature from the ancient super continent of Gondwana had been found near Grahamstown. It was a 350-million year old fossilised scorpion. It said that it was the earliest evidence yet of such early land life on Gondwana. Enter Paddy Norman again, who said that a lack of land creatures was not surprising as much of what is now South Africa was under the sea at that time, although there is evidence around Grahamstown of lagoons and sandbanks and so on, so the scorpion is quite possible. As a bonus, though, he added that there were giant marine scorpions in the sea at the time. So, goodbye earthquake, hello giant scorpions, and thank you, Paddy. Cheers!

Sources: The Daily News and News24.com.