Karoo Ice Age Karoo Ice Age The Karoo Ice Age, more commonly referred to as the Late Paleozoic Ice Age, from 360–260 million years ago (Mya) was the second major ice age of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is named after the tillite (Dwyka Group) found in the Karoo Basin of South Africa, where evidence for this ice age was first clearly identified in the 19th century. The tectonic assembly of the continents of Euramerica (later with the Uralian orogeny, into Laurasia) and Gondwana into Pangaea, in the Hercynian-Alleghany Orogeny, made a major continental land mass within the Antarctic region, and the closure of
Karoo into the increasingly arid Bushmanland towards the north-west. To the north and north-east, it fades into the savannah and grasslands of Griqualand West and the Highveld. The boundary to the east grades into the grasslands of the Eastern Midlands. The Great Karoo is itself divided by the Great Escarpment into the Upper Karoo (generally above 1200–1500 m) and the Lower Karoo on the plains below at 700–800 m. A great many local names, each denoting different subregions of the Great Karoo, exist, some more widely, or more generally, known than others. In the Lower Karoo, going from west to east,