Witpoort Formation

The Witpoort Formation is a Late Devonian sandstone formation exposed near Grahamstown in South Africa's Eastern Cape, roughly three hundred and sixty million years old, containing the Waterloo Farm Lagerstatte, a fossil deposit preserving an unusually complete estuarine ecosystem from high southern latitudes, including early tetrapod-like fish and plants, from a part of the world where fossils of this age are otherwise rare. The site fills an important geographic gap in understanding Late Devonian life outside the better sampled tropics.