The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Tuesday, March 14, 1967 — Professor Geoffrey Bond, head of the Department of Geology at the University College, said yesterday in an interview that an aquifer definitely exists in the Nyamandhlovu and Gwaai areas.

This is a source of water on which Nyamandhlovu farmers and ranchers are pinning their hopes. The Matabeleland Development Council has recommended to the Ministry of Water Development that a survey of the area should be made, to establish and trace the establishment of underground water.

An aquifer, Prof Bond said, was an underground stratum of permeable rock carrying water.

A member of his staff who is a graduate of the university, Mr AJ Beasley, had been at work for the past two months on a study of this aquifer and of aquifers in other countries, he said. In mid-May Mr Beasley will begin fieldwork in the Nyamandhlovu area.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Water Development said in Bulawayo yesterday: “We know there is an aquifer in the Nyamandhlovu area. We plan to trace its extent and how it lies.”

The ministry would begin deep drilling in the Gwaai area in about a month’s time to trace artesian water, he said.

Prof Bond said Mr Beasley would not drill boreholes. He was making a study from figures supplied by the Ministry of the yield of each borehole in the Nyamandhlovu area.By a method still to be worked out, he would measure the level to assess the height of the ground at each borehole.

Prof Bond said they did not know the distribution of the aquifers, or their recharging mechanism, or how fast water went through them underground.The saturated rock formation went deeper and deeper in the area approaching the Wankie Game Reserve.

“We do not know the shape of the floor on which it lies. The more we learn about its potential the better.”