GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Charles Helm, research associate with the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience (Nelson Mandela University) and a world-renowned paleontologist, was the guest speaker at Savewild's sixth function since its launch as an educational environmental platform in February 2023.
Helm did not disappoint the large crowd that attended his presentation at the Fairy Knowe Hotel on Tuesday 18 February.
His fame stems from a discovery by two young boys of a cretaceous dinosaur trackway beside the creek below the town in which they lived - Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, Canada.
Soon after this discovery, with Helm at the helm, his team started finding numerous cretaceous dinosaur tracks in the area.
In addition to his international studies he, together with his wife and tracking partner, has surveyed 400km of the Cape South coast, from Walker Bay to Robberg. He is a palaeontologist, but his particular speciality is that of an ichnologist - focusing on fossil tracks dating back thousands of years.
Over the past 17 years he has tracked and identified fossil vertebrate track sites in South Africa that have been cemented in dunes along the South Cape coast. His findings include some of the oldest homo sapiens footprints, which were discovered in the Garden Route National Park, dating back about 153 000 years.
His findings are not of hominid track sites alone. His presentation took the audience on a photographic journey of discoveries of numerous fossil track sites that include gerbil burrow traces in Great Brak, tracks of turtles in Stilbaai, lions, and the extinct long-horned buffalo in Goukamma, elephant tracks in Dana Bay ... the list goes on.
He is also currently on the lookout for dinosaur tracks in the Southern Cape. These have already been identified in China and Australia and in the Karoo in South Africa. His question is: Are there any along the Southern Cape Coast? Watch this space!
In the meantime, visit the Savewild educational platform for more information.
If you discover tracks along the Garden Route that you think could be important fossil traces, take photos and GPS co-ordinates and let Helm know via email.
The talk drew a large crowd.
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