Sadly, some of them have now been stolen 😥

Anyone seen anything similar?

#sedimentology #quaternary #silcrete

They sit in classic dryland-lake chaos: salty floods, fine sands/silts/clays, extreme wet–dry cycles, deflation and duricrusts. After brain-picking (@davidjnash.bsky.social) wondering if dewatering + self-organisation, later wind excavation, and focused silcrete cementation formed them.

silcrete bowl in evaporitic pan sediments.

A question for the #geomorphology brains of the world: what are these? In the Makgadikgadi Basin, Botswana: tidy circular bowl-shaped features (~1 m) with smooth silcrete rims. Locally called Toraagara (“stone pots/basins”). For local communities, they’re sacred bowls where ancestors come to eat.

Was really great to hang out and talk biomarkers, archaeology & interglacials. Learnt loads & ate far too much cake! Thanks lovely people of @uio.no for looking after us.

Text and a conference logo.

We look forward to our upcoming Session (number 28) at this years #SAFA conference in Faro hosted by @isotopesrule.bsky.social, @sallieburrough.bsky.social and Inèz Faul. We have a very interesting lineup that we will introduce over the next days as we count down to the conference 🦣🏺🌍Days to go:1️⃣2️⃣