Stacks of plates

The Waterberg was born about 130 million years ago, when the original continent of Gondwana broke apart. South America and Africa were separated in the region of what is today Namibia. Although the Waterberg is far from the rupture zone, the tremendous forces at work inside the earth could be felt at the Waterberg. A rupture of the earth’s surface had occurred here before Gondwana broke apart. Geologists call it the Waterberg disturbance.

The crust of the earth northwest of the disturbance was lifted hundreds of metres and shifted over the crust in the southeast. The top plate eroded over millions of years, just like the surrounding formations in the southeast. The lower plate, protected from erosion by the upper plate, is now visible as a plateau: the Waterberg.

The reddish topset bed consists of sandstone from the so-called Etjo formation. These are petrified dunes of a desert, which covered the greater part of Namibia 190 million years ago. The sandstone rests on the Omingonde formation, a compressed underground of an even older landscape of lakes, containing conglomerate, sand- and mudstone.

When it rains at the Waterberg, the porous Etjo sandstone absorbs the water like humungous sponge. The underlying impermeable Omingonde layer slightly slopes from the northwest to the southeast. Absorbed water thus escapes at the south-eastern edge of the Waterberg in so-called layer springs. The Waterberg, i.e. water mountain, gets its name from these springs.

Further erosion has divided the current Waterberg into three parts – the “little Waterberg” south of the C 22 road to Okakarara, the Omuverume plateau on the northern opposite side and the main plateau, which is situated further northeast and separated from the Omuverume plateau by a saddle-shaped cut. On average the plateau is 1,700 metres above sea level and towers up to 200 metres over its surroundings. (Source: "Namibias faszinierende Geologie" by Nicole Grünert).