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 plain with Mississippi-like rivers depositing mud from an immense range of mountains to the south. Ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests, and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists. The first of these Karoo fossils was discovered in 1838 by Scots-born Andrew Geddes Bain at a road cutting near Fort Beaufort. He sent his specimens to the British Museum, where fellow Scotsman Robert Broom recognised the Karoo fossils' mammal-like characteristics in 1897. After the Beaufort period, Southern Africa (still part of Gondwana) became an arid sand desert with only ephemeral rivers and pans. These sands