Karoo National Park Escarpment in the Karoo is also formed, in many places including the Karoo National Park, by a thick dolerite sill. The vegetation consists primarily of dwarf (less than 1 m high) xerophytic shrubs with some grasses. The shrubs and grasses are deciduous, mainly in response to the irregular rainfall Karoo National Park The Karoo National Park, founded in 1979, is a wildlife reserve in the Great Karoo area of the Western Cape, South Africa near Beaufort West. This semi-desert area covers an area of . The Nuweveld portion of the Great Escarpment runs through the Park. It is therefore partly
Karoo sediments. This exposed the dolerite sills, which were more resistant to erosion than the Karoo sediments, forming one of the most characteristic features of the Karoo landscape, namely the flat topped hills, called "Karoo Koppies". The geology of the region bears no resemblance to that of the Great Karoo (see the diagram on the left, of a NS geological cross-section through the Little and Great Karoos). The valley is an integral part of the Cape Fold Mountain Belt, with the two ranges on either side composed of extremely hard, erosion-resistant, quartzitic sandstone belonging to the 450- to 510-million-year-old Table Mountain