The stratigraphy and history of Groenvlei, a South African coastal fen

Abstract

Borings on the fen at Groenvlei show that the earliest sediment was a diatomaceous nekron mud in a small freshwater lake. This filled in and fen peat formed over it. Subsequently, marine mud was spread over almost the whole basin, the course of the transgression being followed by diatom analysis. A change in composition of the marine diatom flora, apparently due to an unexplained change of temperature of the sea, is recorded.

The marine incursion graded into brackish lagoon stages, towards the end of which conditions were rather unfavourable to diatom growth, followed by increasingly freshwater conditions, during which calcareous muds were laid down. The eastern basin of the lake became more or less separated from the main lake by a sand bar. The calcareous lake mud was overgrown by the latest reedswamp and sedge fen.

Radiocarbon dating gave an age of 6870 years for a sample from the upper part of the submerged peat bed at Groenvlei, and a lapse of little under 5000 years before freshwater deposits again occupied the eastern basin of the lake (¹⁴C age of gyttja sample, 1905 years).

This dating of the Groenvlei transgression is compatible both with the main post-Glacial eustatic rise of sea-level in the North Temperate latitudes, and with similar transgressions on the coasts of south-eastern Australia, New Zealand, and Fuego–Patagonia. The maximum height of the sea-level is considered to have been about 1.5 m higher than at present.