Excavation of fossils and fossil-bearing rocks from the UW 105 Site, Rising Star, South Africa

We are proposing 5 activities in this permit application.

1) Stabilization of critical areas of potential collapse and removal of unstable material if necessary (see Figure 2).
2) Remapping at high resolution the whole of the cave system with concentrated mapping efforts in “high value” target areas where in-situ work is proposed (see Figure 3).
3) Removal and preparation of ex-situ blocks yet to be recovered from the site from areas that hold promise of important fossil material and that will increase our understanding of formation processes (see Figure 4).
4) Sampling in areas outlined in Figure 3 for geochronological and petrographic purposes to further enhance our understanding the present hypothesized dates for the site and to create larger comparative models for our ex-situ samples.
5) Develop additional onsite and offsite infrastructure and facilities for the purposes of conducting this research.
Gauteng Province, South Africa