0000000000459415
AUTHOR
Stephan Kröner
A ∼700 Ma Sm–Nd garnet–whole rock age from the granulite facies Central Kaoko Zone (Namibia): Evidence for a cryptic high-grade polymetamorphic history?
Continental collision of the Kalahari and the Congo craton in Africa and the Rio de la Plata Craton in South America resulted in a structurally complex Neoproterozoic belt system, the Kaoko–Dom Feliciano–Ribeira belt. It is uncertain whether these three cratons collided more or less simultaneously during one single orogenic event at ∼580–550 Ma or whether the belt owe its structural and metamorphic features to several so far poorly constrained events. The Kaoko Belt (NW Nambia), representing the belt system between the southern Congo Craton and the Rio de la Plata Craton, is an ideal object to study these complexities. Within this belt, high-grade meta-igneous and metasedimentary rocks of t…
U-Pb and Pb-Pb zircon ages for metamorphic rocks in the Kaoko Belt of Northwestern Namibia: A Palaeo- to Mesoproterozoic basement reworked during the Pan-African orogeny
The Kaoko Belt belongs to the Neoproterozoic mobile belt system of western Gondwana, whose geodynamic evolution is assumed to have resulted from collision between the Congo Craton (present Africa) and the Rio de la Plata Craton (present South America). Several magmatic intrusion periods can be distinguished in the coastal area of this belt, based on conventional U-Pb, SHRIMP and Pb-Pb evaporation analyses on zircons. The prevailing igneous rock types are of granitic to tonalitic composition. A Palaeoproterozoic terrain with U-Pb magmatic emplacement ages between ~2.03 and 1.96 Ga may be correlated with the Eburnian event (~1.8 to 2.0 Ga), which is widespread in Africa. Additionally, two dis…
Oblique collision and evolution of large-scale transcurrent shear zones in the Kaoko belt, NW Namibia
Abstract Early structures in the central part of the Kaoko orogenic belt of NW Namibia suggest that the initial stage of collision was governed by underthrusting of the medium-grade Central Kaoko zone below the high-grade Western Kaoko zone, resulting in the development of an inverted metamorphic gradient. In the Western zone, early structures were overprinted by a second phase of deformation, which is associated with localization of the transcurrent Puros shear zone along the contact between the Western and Central zones. During this second phase, extensive partial melting and intrusion of ∼550 Ma granitic bodies occurred in the high-grade Western zone. In the Central zone, the second phas…