Advanced search

Select by category Cultural Natural Mixed all

Select by State Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Lithuania Luxembourg Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia (Federated States of) Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) Viet Nam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Select by Theme Additional Cultural Categories Additional Natural Categories Archaeology Cities Climate Change Conservation of Cultural Sites Conservation of Natural Sites Convention Cross-Cutting Cultural Cultural landscapes Cultural Routes Earthen Architecture Education & Training Emergency action Forests Industrial Marine & coastal Modern Heritage Museum Natural Restoration Rock art Science & technology Site Management Small Island Developing States Sustainable Tourism

Choose a Region Africa Arab States Asia and the Pacific Europe and North America Latin America and the Caribbean

Display all by Country Region Year

Start Date/End Date

dd/mm/yyyy

dd/mm/yyyy

Exports

Mail Print

Results in other formats

Word File

Tswaing Meteorite Crater

South Africa (Africa)

Date of Submission: 15/05/2004
Criteria:
Category: Natural
Submission prepared by:
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism - Republic of South Africa
Ref.: 1911

Description

Some 220000 years ago a blazing stony meteorite the size of half a football field slammed into the earth's crust. The impact formed a huge crater, 1,4 km in diameter and 220 m deep.

This crater, formerly known as the Pretoria Saltpan (or Zoutpan), is situated 40 km north to the west of Pretoria. It is one of the best-preserved terrestrial meteorite impact craters anywhere in the world.

Other important craters in Southern Africa are Roter Kamm, Kalkkop, Mororkweng, Highbury and the Vredefort Dome. The name Tswaing means Place of Salt in Setswana, one of the eleven official languaguages in South Africa. This name refers to a saline lake that covers the crater floor. As early as 120 000 years ago Stone Age people, and later ancestors of the San, inhabitated the area. About 800 years ago, black people who spoke African languages like Tswana and Sotho moved into this area. Later people lived in the proximity of the crater, tending their cattle, growing crops and collecting salt from the crater floor. The lake's salt and soda attracted white hunters and settlers, who demarcated the area into a farm and named it Zoutpan, and from 1912 to 1950 an industry producing soda ash and salt was based at the crater.

Between 1958 and 1992 the then national Department of Agriculture used the farm to develop a successful rotational grazing system for the sourish-mixed Bushveld as well as to develop a successful cattle crossbreed for this type of environment.

The former National Cultural History Museum took over the farm Zoutpan from the Department of Agriculture in 1993 to develop it into an eco-tourism destination for environmental education, recreation and research. This became the Tswaing Crater Museum. In September 2001 the name was changed to 1 swaing Meteorite Crater. Today, Tswaing is a 2000-hectare conservation area with the focus on the conservation of the natural heritage, in particular the crater and the river with its wetland system. Major attractions, besides the crater, are an extensive wetland system; herds of kudu, eland, impala, red hartebeest and Zebra; many other animal species; the large variety of plant species, representing different plant communities typical of the Sourish-Mixed Bushveld, and the 240¬odd species of birds found at this site. From the various layers of the sediment which accumulated in the crater over thousands of years, the most detailed history of climatic change in the southern hemisphere can be read. From the start, Tswaing invited community participation in its planning and development. Local communities have already been benefiting from the museum project through job creation, skills training, environmental education, income-generating projects and tourism. It must be remembered that most of Tswaing's neighboring communities have been established since the 1960s as a result of the forced removals of the apartheid era. These are mostly poor and disadvantaged communities with an estimated unemployment rate of 40%.