Mpumalanga Heritage to celebrate the first 140 years of historic Barberton

Everyone is invited to join Mpumalanga Heritage on a tour of places of historic significance tomorrow, Saturday July 13.

The tour starts at 09:00 in front of the Barberton Museum and is a celebration of the town’s 140th anniversary this year.

ALSO READ: New room at Barberton Museum explains early life on planet Earth

Interesting places not often seen by the public will be visited, like the location where the first outcrop of gold-bearing quartz was spotted in the valley above Rimer’s Creek.

Barberton's Makhonjwa Mountains is one of the two places in the world where the oldest, most well-preserved rocks are found. They provide highly sought-after information about the early history of our planet. Read more here:https://t.co/auoK8djV6a pic.twitter.com/kgKUkbJdRN

— Lowvelder (@Lowvelder) January 28, 2022

The town was later christened by the breaking of a bottle of gin due to the absence of champagne in the pioneering days of 1884.

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Hats and walking shoes are advisable, so is a picnic basket for lunch in a shaded garden to end the excursion.

The cost of the outing is free, though those attending will have the opportunity to join Mpumalanga Heritage at the nominal cost of R200 per household per annum, which includes 10 of these well-organised outings.

3.5 billion years ago: gas bubbles preserved in metamorphic rocks of the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa, might have been formed by microbial activity around deep-sea hydrothermal vents 🦠🌋 pic.twitter.com/oOJdHgO7BD

— History of Earth (@History_Earth_) April 2, 2022

ALSO READ: White River Primary marks milestone at its 120th

The next outing is Saturday August 10, which entails a visit to the historical Waterval Onder, and on Saturday September 14, the group will explore Dullstroom.

The Bon Accord Ni deposit – host to a number of minerals not known from anywhere else on Earth (including bonaccordite): left = hand specimen, bottom right = thin section, top right = ~5 m wide hole in Barberton where the deposit used to be before being mined out in 1800s… pic.twitter.com/nYWXcyWRZk

— Brian O’Driscoll (@BODriscollEarth) October 26, 2022

#MineralMonday 💎A handful of 3.8-billion-year-old zircon crystals found in the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of modern plate tectonics💎https://t.co/wczIFWUh2j pic.twitter.com/vO8KcysKRS

— History_of_Geology (@Geology_History) April 25, 2022