This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A new review led by professor Emese Bordy at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Department of Geological Sciences brings together more than two decades of research on the Karoo Supergroup, revealing how scientific understanding of this iconic geological archive has changed since 2000. Published as an open-access article in the South African Journal of Geology, the review is freely available to researchers, educators, students and members of the public.
It synthesizes advances in sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology and basin analysis, highlighting both major discoveries and key unanswered questions. "The deeper we dig into the Karoo, the more complex and fascinating its story becomes," Bordy said. "The Karoo is far more than vast vistas above a stack of layered rocks; it is a global outdoor laboratory for understanding how ancient seascapes and landscapes, climate systems, and living communities responded to extreme stress.
By integrating sedimentology, stratigraphy, ichnology, paleobotany, vertebrate paleontology and geochronology, this review is not the final word on the Karoo, but a progress report on an extraordinary geological archive that still has so much to teach us." The Karoo Supergroup records about 120 million years of Earth history, from the Late Carboniferous to the Early Jurassic. It preserves evidence of climatic change, volcanic and tectonic activity, ecosystem turnover and several major extinction events. The Karoo has long been recognized as one of the most important archives of past events in Gondwana, the supercontinent that once united Africa, South America, Antarctica, India, Madagascar and Australia.
Its rocks and fossils helped shape early ideas about continental drift and continue to provide insights into Earth's past. Reflecting the breadth of the Karoo record, the review is richly illustrated with original figures, alongside reproductions of earlier milestone publications and large panorama paintings by South African paleoartist Maggie Lambert-Newman. Together, they help visualize the ancient ecosystems discussed throughout the paper.
One of the review's key findings is that the Karoo's climatic history was more complex than previously thought. Earlier interpretations suggested a gradual shift toward increasingly dry conditions through Karoo times. However, research conducted over the past 25 years points to nonlinear climatic changes and environmental fluctuations, particularly in younger parts of the Karoo succession.
According to the authors, multiple lines of evidence now show that climate, tectonics and sedimentation interacted in ways that produced a far more complex geological record than earlier models suggested. The Karoo remains one of the world's most important fossil archives. Advances in research methods, including high-resolution imaging and improved evolutionary analyses, have led to new fossil discoveries and refined fossil-based correlations across Gondwana.
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