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Horizon Mapping
Wildcliff Nature Preserve: Map Galleries
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South Africa Political Boundaries
South Africa occupies the southern tip of Africa with a coastline stretching 2,500km from
the desert border with Namibia on the Atlantic, southwards around the tip of Africa and then north
to subtropical Mozambique on the Indian Ocean. The narrow, low-lying coastal zone is separated from
a high inland plateau by a mountainous escarpment. Wildcliff is in the Langeberg mountain range,
near Heidelberg in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
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Wildcliff Topography
Wildcliff is a mountain wilderness reserve consisting of 955 hectares (2350 acres), deep
kloofs with afro-montane forest, rocky mountaintops and high meadows of fynbos. It is in
the Langeberg mountain range of South Africa's Western Cape. It borders on the Boosmansbos
Wilderness Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Wildcliff Statellite Image
Wildcliff lies in the Langeberg (long mountain) range, which forms part of the Cape Fold Belt stretching
from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. This range dates back about 300 million years.The Langeberg Mountain
Range runs in a generally east-west direction and is approximately
170 km long. The Langeberg's most westerly point is located 35 km west of the town of Swellendam;
the range ends some 30 km north-east of Riversdale in the east. The open plains of the Little Karoo
border the north of the mountain range, while to the south lies the Agulhas Plain and the Overberg wheatbelt.
The "hidden valley" running east-west through Wildcliff can be seen clearly in the satellite photo below.
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Regional Geology
The Cape Fold Belt is the folded sedimentary sequence of rocks in the south-western corner
of South Africa. The rocks are generally sandstones and shales, with shales forming the valleys
and the erosion resistant sandstones forming the parallel mountain ranges, reaching a maximum
height at Seweweekspoortpiek (Afrikaans: Seven Weeks Defile Peak) at 2325m.
Even though the mountains are very old by Andean and Alpine standards, they remain steep and rugged,
owing to the resistant nature of the quartzitic sandstones of the Table Mountain Group.
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Regional Vegetation
Wildcliff offers an outstanding example of the flora of the reknowned Cape Floristic Region.
South Africa has the third-highest level of biodiversity in the world, thanks in no small part to
the Cape Floral Kingdom. The Table Mountain National Park alone has more plant species within its
22,000 hectares than the whole British Isles or New Zealand. A stretch of land and sea spanning
90,000 square kilometres, or 0.05% of the earth's land area, the Cape floral kingdom contains
roughly 3% of the world's plant species. Of the 9,600 species of vascular plants found in the
Cape floral kingdom, about 70% are endemic, ie occur nowhere else on earth.
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