Page 23 - SAPREF 50 year

The Rocky Shores, as they are known, are on one side of the dune and SAPREF is on the other side.
complicated rinsing process, to stabilise the tusk. Most of the rock was then chipped away.
It was an unusual find, and also a large tusk — probably about two metres. The whole elephant skeleton could still be in the rocks. The tusk became fossilised when surrounding sand solidified through the action of acidic rainwater filtering through the sand.
The tusk was found about halfway between the Umlaas and SAPREF canals and is now in the Science and Technology Education Centre on the Westville campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Rocky Shores
SAPREF and the Rocky Shores that exist parallel to it have a mutually beneficial relationship.
Life in the Rocky Shores area has been protected by the Reunion canal (fed by SAPREF and other industries), the Umlaas canal and the limited access to the refinery area. At the same time, the canal outflow adds nutrients which promote the growth of certain organisms. The area has thus developed into a safe haven for life forms which are not found elsewhere.
The unusual life in the area can be seen in the form of moray eels that play at your feet; iridescent sea slugs (Nudibranchs), thousands of hermit crabs, oysters and mussels, and a multitude of other creatures which seem to have stemmed from a prehistoric era. In some deeper pools, hundreds of sea urchins can be found occupying every available space on the rock face. The area boasts a rainbow carpet of seaweed, anemones, sponges and zoanthids.
Sea urchins in one of the rock pools on the Rocky Shores.
The Reunion Rocks also record environmental change spanning hundreds
of thousands of years, and the evidence is right there. For example, a significant global warming event peaked about 125 000 years ago and led to a rapid rise in sea levels. The sidewalls at the mouth of the Reunion canal expose perhaps the best-preserved evidence along our coast that the levels peaked around five metres above present sea level.
COMMEMORATING 50 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE
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