1980 Mukarob Finger of God Namib SWA

Trip from Cape Town in South Africa, driving though the Namib Desert to Windhoek and Swakopmund.

South West Africa now Namibia.

Originally converted from slide. Reworked 2016.

This rock formation collapsed in 1988. The Finger of God was quite a detour from our trip across the Namib desert in 1980, but it was worth it.

Located near Asab in South-West Africa, now Namibia.

'A spoiled geological monument is the so-called Mukarob or Finger of God, a weather-resistant remnant of a sandstone pinnacle that was left standing on its own as erosion slowly cut back the surrounding Weissrand Escarpment of the Karoo Supergroup in southern Namibia. The Mukarob consisted of a large head of sandstone supported by a narrow neck of soft, fragmented mudstone. The head was almost 12m high and weighed about 450t. On 8 December 1988 the Mukarob collapsed, possibly due to a destructive earthquake that had occurred the previous day in Armenia, but which was recorded strongly on the seismograph in Windhoek (Miller et al., 1990)'
Geological Atlas of Africa
By Prof. Dr. Thomas Schlüter, UNESCO Nairobi Office
Reference added in 2016