Loisaba Rocks! (Part I)

The exciting thing about Loisaba is the variation in its terrain, the nooks and crannies, rocks and cotton-grass soil, the escarpments and valleys. 

Old Elephant Rock

The guides and herders know this land like the back of their hands, and in time, visitors get to know the iconic places such as Sosian Oasis, White Rock, and Falcon Rock, where they may see the leopard, lions, elephants and impala. 

White Rock
Credit: Ambrose Letoluai

We asked Geologist, Abigail Church, to describe the initial formation of this rich landscape. In effect, it is a two part series which starts 750 million years ago. Abigail says:

"Essentially the low lying areas beneath the Laikipia escarpment are comprised of ancient metamorphic rocks which form part of the Mozambique belt. The rocks would originally have been a sequence of deep sea sediments inter-layed with lavas erupted from the ocean floor. Around 750 million years ago a massive continental collision between what is now the African continent, and another to the East, pushed up, heated, folded and metamorphosed those sediments into a sequence of high- and medium-grade metamorphic rocks. What we see now are gneisses, migmatites and granites that formed part of a mountain chain similar in height and length to the Himalayas of today, and formed by the same process. This mountain chain has been eroding over the last 500 million years and what we have left today are valleys filled in with the products of erosion, a gently sloping terrain all the way to the sea, and the occasional resistant outcrop of very hard rock. The Mathews and Ndotos are such, as are the Samburu Hills, all the way down through Ukambani, Tsavo, and on into Tanzania and Mozambique. To give you some idea of how long ago this all happened, land plants did not evolve until 450 million years ago therefore, the rocks of the Mozambique Belt pre-date life on dry land."

Stream down to the Ewaso River

Falcon Rock

Sosian Oasis - occasional home to a hippo