Lebombo Mountains

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Southern foothills of the Lebomboberge near Mkuze in KwaZulu -Natal

The Lebomboberge (also Lubomboberge of Ubombo ( isiZulu, dt " Big Nose " ) is a 800 kilometer long, narrow mountain range in South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland in southern Africa and a section of the Great Escarpment. It is of volcanic origin and extends in north-south direction. the highest devotion is Mount Mananga with 776 meters above sea level, located near the northern border triangle South Africa / Mozambique / Swaziland.

Geography

The north end of the chain is at Punda Maria in the Limpopo Province of South Africa in the Kruger National Park, where it reaches a height of 406 meters above the sea level. From there, the mountain range runs along the South African- Mozambican border. The middle part extends along the eastern border of Swaziland and forms a natural boundary between the land and Mozambique. The Swazi Lubombo district is named after the mountain. The south end is near Empangeni in South Africa's KwaZulu -Natal. Several rivers, such as the Komati at Komatipoort, the Pongola and Lusutfu, break through the mountain range from west to east.

Geology

The Lebomboberge limit the Karoo main basin in the northeast. The mountain range is situated between the Precambrian Kaapvaal craton and also Precambrian, but younger Mozambique belt. In the south it is bounded by the Natal- Namaqua belt. It was formed about 180 million years ago, before the collapse of the eastern part of the former Gondwana. You are an inclined eastward monoclinal. The lower layer consists of basalt of the Sabie River Formation, the layer above from sequences of rhyolites, tuffs and ignimbrites of the Jozini Formation ( Lebombo Group, Karoo Supergroup ). The area is crossed by numerous dolerite dykes. On its western flank they cover basalt rocks of the Letaba Formation ( Lebombo Group, Karoo Supergroup ).

History

In a cave in the Lebombobergen they found traces of settlement from the Middle Stone Age. The Zulu king Dingane in 1840 murdered in the Lebombobergen. The plane of the Mozambican president Samora Machel, crashed on October 19, 1986 on the return flight of negotiations in Lusaka with the South African apartheid government under mysterious circumstances in the Lebombobergen from. Machel died along with 34 other inmates. January 19, 1999 was consecrated at a Mbuzini a monument designed by the Mozambican architect Joe Foraz reminiscent since then to this plane crash.