 Thus the rocks found in the Mpumalanga Lowveld below the Mpumalanga portion of the Great Escarpment are more than 3000 million years old.To the south and southwest the rift valleys that formed during the break-up of Gondwana, ran, as elsewhere, more or less along the present southern African coastline.The rift valley to the south of the continent separated the Southern Cape from the Falkland Plateau, which had been thrust up into a truly massive, Himalaya-sized range of mountains about 290–330 million years ago.