Matjie Maboya on the Etosha Pan

About this talk

With climate change being discussed more and more and an increase in focus on melting ice caps, Matjie Maboya is researching to ensure that the impact of climate change on drylands and Africa, in particular, is investigated. Matjie Maboya’s talk focuses on the Etosha pan in Namibia and the possible causes of its formation over time as the environment changed through consideration of several different hypotheses and the study of sediments and fossils found in Etosha. This talk will be useful to anyone considering subjects such as Geography, Biology, Politics and History.

You can watch this intriguing talk from Matjie Maboya by clicking here, and then scroll down to find some further resources related this topic:

Further Resources

UNESCO has created a highly informative page on the Etosha Pan in Namibia and the nature of the pan as well as how they believe the pan was formed. This resource is particularly useful if you want to get an overview on saltpans as it also compares Etosha to other significant salt pans such as the Makgadikgadi pan in Botswana which Matjie Maboya mentions, and those in Australia and the Americas. You can find that page here

To learn more about the wildlife on these saltpans, have a look at this article by McCulloch and Borello on The Importance of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in Botswana for Flamingos in Africa and how the harsh conditions on these salt pans makes it one of the most important breeding places in Africa for flamingos. Given the discussion of the egg shells found by Matjie Maboya, this article makes an interesting case for why it is even more likely that those shells did belong to a type of flamingo. You can access this article on JSTOR here

For an overview on salt pans as a whole and the key causes of their formation globally, as well as an insight into other salt pans across the world, have a look at this article by Amanda Briney, by clicking here. This would be particularly useful if you want to improve your analytical skills in being able to compare how geographical systems differ.

<strong>Matjie Maboya</strong>
Matjie Maboya

Matjie Maboya is a DPhil student in the School of Geography and Environment, whose research focuses on the Etosha National Park in Namibia through Paleoclimatology and Geochemistry. Matjie Maboya studied at both the University of Cape Town and the University of California, Berkley prior to enrolling in a DPhil at the University of Oxford, and in 2018 was one of the Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans in the Environment Category.
You can find out more about Matjie Maboya’s work by clicking here.