Search results for "Rift"
showing 10 items of 526 documents
Tectonothermal Evolution of the Broadly Rifted Zone, Ethiopian Rift
2019
The Broadly Rifted Zone (BRZ) of southern Ethiopia is a long-lived and structurally complex segment of the East African Rift System. However, due to poor surface exposure of early synrift strata and a dearth of subsurface data, the evolution of the BRZ remains poorly understood. We present new apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He and augmented apatite fission track low-temperature thermochronology data from the Beto and Galana basin boundary fault systems to constrain the tectonothermal evolution of the western and eastern BRZ, respectively. Time-temperature reconstructions suggest that East African Rift System-related extension began concurrently across the BRZ in the early Miocene (20–17 Ma), at least 6 …
Kinematic and sedimentological evolution of the Manyara Rift in northern Tanzania, East Africa
2005
We describe the stratigraphical/sedimentological and structural evolution of the Manyara Rift in the Tanzania Divergence Zone, East Africa. The rift-related Manyara Beds on the shoaling side of the Manyara Rift were deposited between <1.7 and 0.4 Ma and can be separated into a lacustrine lower member and a fluvial upper member. The transition from lacustrine to fluvial sedimentation at ∼ 0.7 Ma appears to be related to a southward shift of major rift faulting. Fault geometry and the kinematics of the faults are consistent with major faulting during NE/E-directed extension. There is also evidence for other extensional directions including radial extension, which might be caused by magmati…
Tectonic and lithological constraints on the evolution of the Karoo graben of northern Malawi (East Africa)
1995
The results of a lithostratigraphic, tectonic and kinematic study of the Karoo deposits of northern Malawi are reported. The objective of the lithostratigraphic study is to correlate the deposits of the Karoo basins of northern Malawi with the well-known deposits of southern Tanzania, thus establishing a stratigraphic framework through which the timing of faulting can be constrained. The kinematic analysis of faulting constrains the opening direction for the Karoo graben in this area and provides basic data to discuss the Karoo graben development within the regional tectonic framework of south-eastern Africa. The studied adults are defined by moderately to steeply dipping cataclastic zones …
Rift nucleation, rift propagation and the creation of basement micro-plates within active rifts
2008
Abstract In this contribution we study the dynamics of rift nucleation and the interaction of propagating rift segments. We use the East African Rift System (EARS) as a case study with special emphasis on the Albertine rift system situated within the western branch of the EARS with the 5000 m high Rwenzori horst, a basement block that was captured by two rift segments. Fieldwork in the Rwenzori mountains shows that the range is not only affected by range parallel faults but that major fault sets cut across the Rwenzoris. In order to understand these complex fault patterns and the dynamics of the process that leads to the capturing of basement blocks within the extending rift system we devel…
Melt infiltration of the lower lithosphere beneath the Tanzania craton and the Albertine rift inferred from S receiver functions
2012
[1] The transition between the lithosphere and the asthenosphere is subject to numerous contemporary studies as its nature is still poorly understood. The thickest lithosphere is associated with old cratons and platforms and it has been shown that seismic investigations may fail to image the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary in these areas. Instead, several recent studies have proposed a mid-lithospheric discontinuity of unknown origin existing under several cratons. In this study we investigate the Tanzania craton in East Africa which is enclosed by the eastern and western branches of the East African Rift System. We present evidence from S receiver functions for two consecutive discontin…
Influence of pre-existing fabrics on fault kinematics and rift geometry of interacting segments: Analogue models based on the Albertine Rift (Uganda)…
2011
This study aims at showing how far pre-existing crustal weaknesses left behind by Proterozoic mobile belts, that pass around cratonic Archean shields (Tanzania Craton to the southeast and Congo Craton to the northwest), control the geometry of the Albertine Rift. Focus is laid on the development of the Lake Albert and Lake Edward/George sub-segments and between them the greatly uplifted Rwenzori Mountains, a horst block located within the rift and whose highest peak rises to >5000 m above mean sea level. In particular we study how the southward propagating Lake Albert sub-segment to the north interacts with the northward propagating Lake Edward/George sub-segment south of it, and how this i…
Rifted margin formation in the South Tyrrhenian Sea: A high resolution profile across the North Sicily passive continental margin.
2000
A new, 150 km long seismic line across the continental margin of north Sicily has been acquired and interpreted. The overall structure of the margin is controlled by extension, which caused crustal thinning and widespread normal faulting. Two main thinned zones are observed in the south in correspondence with the Cafalù basin and farther to the north at the continent-ocean transition. Zones of thinned crust coincide with zones of intense normal faulting. Extension began in late Tortonian times and caused the opening of the Cefalù basin controlled by a northward dipping listric fault. Messinian stretching affected most of the future margin and provoked a widening of the Cefalù basin and norm…
Astronomical dating of two Pliocene alkaline volcanic ash layers in the Capo Rossello area (southern Sicily, Italy): implications for the beginning o…
2009
Key-words. - Sicily Channel rift, Biostratigraphy, Astronomical calibration, Pliocene, Volcanic ash layers. Abstract. - Two volcaniclastic ash layers (AL1 and AL2) are intercalated throughout the middle Pliocene sedimentary sequences of Punta Piccola and Capo Rossello exposed along the south coast of Sicily (Italy). Astronomical calibration of the Punta Piccola section provided an age of 2.676 Ma for the deposition of the AL1 layer. The high-resolution bio-cyclostratigraphy of the Capo Rossello section, in combination with detailed correlations with previously astrono- mically calibrated coeval sequences, provided an age of 2.225 Ma for the deposition of the AL2 layer. Mineralogical, petrog…
Fault-controlled Soil CO2 Degassing and Shallow Magma Bodies: Summit and Lower East Rift of Kilauea Volcano (Hawaii), 1997
2006
Soil CO2 flux measurements were carried out along traverses across mapped faults and eruptive fissures on the summit and the lower East Rift Zone of Kilauea volcano. Anomalous levels of soil degassing were found for 44 of the tectonic structures and 47 of the eruptive fissures intercepted by the surveyed profiles. This result contrasts with what was recently observed on Mt. Etna, where most of the surveyed faults were associated with anomalous soil degassing. The difference is probably related to the differences in the state of activity at the time when soil gas measurements were made: Kilauea was erupting, whereas Mt. Etna was quiescent although in a pre-eruptive stage. Unlike Mt. Etna, fl…
Rift-controlled fluvial/tidal transitional series in the Oukai¨meden Sandstones, High Atlas of Marrakesh (Morocco)
1996
Abstract The Carnian formation of the Oukai¨meden Sandstones was deposited in the northwestern corner of the African craton along tectonic troughs grouped as a WSW-ENE rift system on the southwestern margin of the Tethys. Red sandstones represent mainly distal braided-stream deposits where very extensive sand flats with 3D dunes, 2D sand waves and high-regime horizontally laminated sandstones predominate. The similarities in orientation between current patterns and trough border faulting, the sudden large variations in the thickness of deposits and the occurrence of lateral alluvial fans along the marginal faults are all evidence of the tectonic control of sedimentation. The middle part of …