Based on their location in the atmosphere, the layers are able to have their own special characteristics. for example, most weather occurs in the troposphere. what occurs in each of the other layers?

The Earth has multiple layers in its complex atmosphere, five to be more specific. The layer closest to the surface of the Earth is the troposphere, than comes the stratosphere, the mesosphere, the thermosphere, and top layer is the exosphere.

In the troposphere we have the occurrence of the weather.

In the stratosphere we have the occurrence of the ozone layer, which protects the Earth from the ultraviolet radiation.  

The mesosphere is the layer where most of the asteroids burn up in the atmosphere, thus breaking them apart and protecting the surface of the Earth.

In the theromsphere we have the occurrence of the aurora borealis and aurora australis.

In the exosphere we have escaping molecules from the atmosphere, because they are so far away from one another, they get out into the open space.  

since there isn't any suggested answers i will give you the reason and hopefully you can figure it

south africa, or rather all of africa, has not been in the location in which it is nowadays throughout the geological past. after the super-continent pangaea started to break apart, gondwanaland, in which was africa, moved further south, and parts of it came to be very close to the south pole. because the climate in this part of the world is very cold due to the very dispersed sun rays in there, what is now south africa, started to freeze, and the conditions were right for the formation of glaciers. the glaciers existed up until the period when gondwanaland started to break apart and what is now africa started to move towards north, sp it warmed up and the glaciers melted.