What kind of Dome experience are you looking for? Science, astronomy, Dome by river, hiking, wildlife & ecology, origins of life, human history, culture, battlefields – or the lot?

I’m finding that there are basically four kinds of visitor to the Dome, all wanting to know more – but each in their own way.

• The average visitor, from South Africa or abroad, has heard about the Dome and is curious about what it is, where it is, and what it all means. Here I try to give a general overview, starting with the geology and astronomy (the asteroid and its impact on the Earth) and then sketching the story of the Witwatersrand gold, the evolution of life on the planet, and the tale of human origins, cultures and migrations, down to the battlefields of modern times. This general introduction to the Spirit of Place serves to excite further interest, and visitors go away with their appetite whetted for more.
• School tours are definitely taking off, as World Heritage Sites are in the curriculum. Thanks to the interest of educators in geography, history and biology we get busloads of youngsters aged anything from 8 to 18, many of whom have never done a nature tour in their lives. We try to interest them in the environment and in the marvellous scientific investigations that have led to our current knowledge of the Dome. When we show videos of the destructive force of asteroids, the kids are gripped – and realise that the fate of humankind hangs on science and engineering to steer dangerous asteroids away from our planet.
• Heritage and humanity. Increasingly, academics and students are realising that both the Cradle of Humankind, the other World Heritage Site just to the north, and the Dome, tell a connected story. Human fossils and current realities merge when one examines the facts about how various peoples have criss-crossed this landscape as hunter-gatherers, herders, invaders, colonists, gold-diggers, guerillas, administrators, builders and business investors.  The architecture of the Dome reveals a vast mix of cultures. The growth of ecotourism shows that this area just south of the industrial heartland of Gauteng occupies a special place in South Africa’s wildlife and adventure offerings. The beautiful Vaal River is one of its biggest drawcards.
• Specialists and researchers of all kinds come here alone or with student groups to study the area. Geologists, botanists and zoologists, archaeologists, astronomers and many more are on their own missions. We can’t duplicate what they know about their own specialities but we can facilitate their visits because we know the ground and have the contacts.
• The Vredefort Dome is the oldest and largest asteroid impact crater on Earth, right? No! It used to be… until we learnt that there is at least one older crater nearby (much smaller) and probably a bigger one under the Antarctic icecap. But we can be sure that the Dome represents the largest visible impact site on Earth and is very, very old – 2 billion years. The whole crater (of which the Dome is merely the central core) is so big it can only be seen from space, but there are some pretty good viewsites on the mountains from which to get an idea of the scale of the thing. The crater stretches from Johannesburg to Welkom, some 300km or more.

Why not a Pilgrim's Rest?

Hats off to the Dome Conservancy – a hardworking crew of volunteers – for once again running a successful Kuns, Kos en Kultuur day. Held at the little dorp of Venterskroon (don’t blink or you’ll miss it!) the annual fete drew a considerable crowd. I’ve always thought the Old Imperial Inn where the fete was held should become the centre of a Pilgrim’s Rest type olde golde rush towne. It’s a charming building, but it’s been vandalised several times while standing empty. Let’s hope better days lie ahead for it.

Karen from Otters’ Haunt went along and commented that pensioners were selling handcrafts for R10 an item on average. The younger set of fleamarketeers averaged R40. That’s capitalism, age-related. But what I want to know is who needs the money more? One thing’s for sure. Recently there was a rather poorly attended fete in Parys, entrance fee R50 or more depending on the shine of your shoes. The wise decision of the Conservancy was to charge R10 a head and pack-em-in. That’s how to popularise. Get the crowd in and let the income look after itself as they go around spending. Anyway it’s only money but the Spirit of Place is what really counts.

From spaza to fleamarket is not so far

But I do have a question. It’s time to include black home industries and culture on a much more proactive basis. Sure, there will be problems getting people from the townships but remember, the Dome has been a melting pot in more than one sense. After the Almighty blew a hole in the ground here He decided it would be interesting to mix up the tribes of humanity.

The Dome has been crossed and recrossed by innumerable migrants from the time of the First People (Bushmen) to the arrival of the Khoi and then the first Bantu-speaking tribes from the north. Then came the Matabele invasion, the Voortrekkers, the gold rush and the Uitlanders, wars, immigrants and Gauteng commuters… all had a role and all should have a presence.

Easy to say. How do we pull them all in to the fleamarket thing?

It’s a big one – but harmless for now!

From The Guardian:

Rocks floating in space may have brought life to Earth, but they can also be killers. NASA’s current exploration of the asteroid belt is revealing that there are fewer asteroids than previously thought (they still number in the hundreds of thousands). But there are still dozens of dangerous ones that could hit us – with catastrophic consequences. Great extinctions have been caused by asteroid impacts, and unless we can work out how to deflect these loose cannons we could suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs.

One of the theories about asteroids and their cousins the comets is that during the “era of bombardment” of the planets about 4.3 billion years ago, these chunks of rock and ice brought the Earth’s water. They also may have contained the building blocks of life, the amino acids that go into DNA. This theory of “panspermia” holds that life did not begin on Earth but was brought here from space. It suggests that life may be widespread in the universe, though as yet we have no scientific confirmation of that. The search for life in space has been going on for decades without positive results – and anyway, even if we found it, it could be too far away, or too alien, for us to communicate with it!

For more on these topics:

• NASA Finds Fewer Near-Earth Asteroids Than Previously Thought
• Did Life Begin In Space? New Evidence From Comets
• SETI – the search for life in space

See the evidence of impacts, early life and asteroid traces on a visit to the Vredefort Dome! – Graeme Addison