Magnetotelluric Study in Northeastern Botswana (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
Within the framework of the Southern African MagnetoTelluric EXperiment (SAMTEX) a focused study was undertaken to gain superior knowledge of the lithospheric geometries and structures of the westerly extension of the Zimbabwe Craton into Botswana, with the overarching aim to increase our understanding of southern African tectonics. The area of interest is located in northeastern Botswana, where Kalahari sands cover most of the geological terranes, and little is known about lithospheric structures and thickness. Investigation of the 600-km-long ZIM line profile crossing the Zimbabwe craton, Magondi mobile belt and Ghanzi-Chobe belt showed that the Zimbabwe craton is characterized by thick (approx. 220 km) resistive lithosphere, consistent with geochemical and geothermal estimates from kimberlite samples of the Orapa and Letlhakane pipes (approx. 175 km west of the profile). The lithospheric mantle of the Ghanzi-Chobe belt is resistive but the lithosphere is only about 180 km thick.
2009
Cratonic margins have played a major role in shaping the modern Southern African tectonic landscape, and central to our knowledge is information about the lithospheric-scale structures and geometries using geophysical methods. Understanding the evolution of the younger orogenic belts around Archean cratons using electrical resistivity data is one of the primary objectives of the Southern African Magnetotelluric Experiment (SAMTEX); the largest ever land-based magnetotelluric (MT) project. MT data were acquired along four profiles crossing the enigmatic Rehoboth Terrane, the Neo-Proterozoic Ghanzi-Chobe/Damara belts (collectively termed the Damara Mobile Belt, DMB) and the southern Angola craton. The extended Groom and Bailey distortion decomposition technique was applied to the MT data and analyses show significant depth and along-profile variations in geo-electric strike and dimensionality on all transects crossing these three tectonic units (i.e. Rehoboth Terrane, Angola craton and the DMB). Geo-electric strikes are generally parallel to the north-east trending tectonic fabric, as inferred from the magnetic data, but the significant strike variations with depth are expressions of heterogeneity in lithospheric structure. Electrical resistivity models derived from the data provide the first pseudo three-dimensional tectonic structure of the Damara orogen and adjacent terranes. Regional-scale resistivity models constructed from two-dimensional inversions of the MT data indicate significant variations in lithospheric resistivity structure along and across strike from the younger orogen to the older adjacent cratons. The Damara belt lithosphere, although generally more conductive and significantly thinner than adjacent Angola craton and Rehoboth terrane, exhibits upper resistive upper crustal features tentatively interpreted to be caused by igneous intrusions emplaced during Pan-African magmatic event. Upper crustal listric faults are imaged as conductive features and are interpolated and correlated on the surface with structures mapped with magnetic data. The southern margin of the Angola craton is inferred as a very resistive feature extending to depths of approximately 100 km; as such these results constrain the geographical position of craton boundary margin and its geometry at depth.
International Journal of Earth Sciences, 2015
Regional aeromagnetic data from the south-central Zimbabwe Craton have been digitally processed and enhanced for geological and structural mapping and tectonic interpretation integrated with gravity data, to constrain previous interpretations based on tentative geologic maps, and provide new information to link these structural features to known tectonic events. The derived maps show excellent correlation between magnetic anomalies and the known geology, and extend lithological and structural mapping to the shallow/near subsurface. In particular, they reveal the presence of discrete crustal domains, and several previously unrecognised dykes, faults and ultramafic intrusions, as well as extensions to others. Five regional structural directions (ENE, NNE, NNW, NW and WNW) are identified and associated with trends of geological units and cross-cutting structures. The magnetic lineament patterns cut across the >2.7 Ga greenstone belts, which are shown by gravity data to be restricted to the uppermost 10 km of the crust. Therefore, the greenstone belts were an integral part of the lithosphere before much of the upper crustal (brittle) deformation occurred. Significantly, the observed magnetic trends have representatives craton-wide, implying that our tectonic interpretation and inferences can be applied to the rest of the craton with confidence. Geological-tectonic correlation suggests that the interpreted regional trends are mainly 2.5 Ga (Great Dyke age) and younger, and relate to tectonic events including the reactivation of the Limpopo Belt at 2.0 Ga and the major regional igneous/dyking events at 1.8-2.0 Ga (Mashonaland), 1.1 Ga (Umkondo) and 180 Ma (Karoo). Thus, their origin is here inferred to be inter-and intra-cratonic collisions and block movements involving the Zimbabwe and Kaapvaal Cratons and the Limpopo Belt, and later lithospheric heating and extension associated with the break-up of Gondwana. The movements produced structures, or reactivated older fractures, that were exploited by late Archaean and Proterozoic mafic intrusions. There was interplay between vertical and horizontal tectonics as seen in similar terrains worldwide.
Southern African Magnetotelluric Experiment (SAMTEX): Project overview and regional results
10th SAGA Biennial Technical Meeting and Exhibition, 2007
The Southern African Magnetotelluric Experiment-SAMTEX-is a multi-institutional, multinational , geophysical project being undertaken by a consortium comprising academia, industry and government. The primary objective is to determine the lithospheric geometries of the major Archean cratons and their Proterozoic bounding belts in southern Africa with a view to elucidating Archean and Proterozoic tectonic processes of formation, deformation and destruction, and comparing those processes their modern counterparts. To date, in three phases of acquisition over three years, MT data have been acquired at over 550 sites on over 900 line kilometres in a spatial area exceeding a million square kilometres, making this the largest survey of its kind ever conducted. This paper will review the data acquired and some preliminary images of subsurface structures. In particular, the relationship between lithospheric electrical parameters and diamondiferous kimberlite pipes will be highlighted.
Tectonic model of the Limpopo belt: Constraints from magnetotelluric data
Precambrian Research, 2013
Despite many years of work, a convincing evolutionary model for the Limpopo belt and its geometrical relation to the surrounding cratons is still elusive. This is partly due to the complex nature of the crust and upper mantle structure, the significance of anatectic events and multiple high-grade metamorphic overprints. We use deep probing magnetotelluric data acquired along three profiles crossing the Kaapvaal craton and the Limpopo belt to investigate the crust and upper mantle lithospheric structure between these two tectonic blocks. The 20-30 km wide composite Sunnyside-Palala-Tshipise-Shear Zone is imaged in depth for the first time as a sub-vertical conductive structure that marks a fundamental tectonic divide interpreted here to represent a collisional suture between the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons. The upper crust in the Kaapvaal craton and the South Marginal Zone comprises resistive granitoids and granite-greenstone lithologies. Integrating the magnetotelluric, seismic and metamorphic data, we propose a new tectonic model that involves the collision of the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe cratons ca. 2.6 Ga, resulting in high-grade granulite Limpopo lithologies. This evolutionary path does not require a separate terrane status for each of the Limpopo zones, as has been previously suggested.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2013
Archean cratons, and the stitching Proterozoic orogenic belts on their flanks, form an integral part of the Southern Africa tectonic landscape. Of these, virtually nothing is known of the position and thickness of the southern boundary of the composite Congo craton and the Neoproterozoic Pan-African orogenic belt due to thick sedimentary cover. We present the first lithospheric-scale geophysical study of that cryptic boundary and define its geometry at depth. Our results are derived from two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) inversion of magnetotelluric data acquired along four semiparallel profiles crossing the Kalahari craton across the Damara-Ghanzi-Chobe belts (DGC) and extending into the Congo craton. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional electrical resistivity models show significant lateral variation in the crust and upper mantle across strike from the younger DGC orogen to the older adjacent cratons. We find Damara belt lithosphere to be more conductive and significantly thinner than that of the adjacent Congo craton. The Congo craton is characterized by very thick (to depths of 250 km) and resistive (i.e., cold) lithosphere. Resistive upper crustal features are interpreted as caused by igneous intrusions emplaced during Pan-African magmatism. Graphite-bearing calcite marbles and sulfides are widespread in the Damara belt and account for the high crustal conductivity in the Central Zone. The resistivity models provide new constraints on the southern extent of the greater Congo craton and suggest that the current boundary drawn on geological maps needs revision and that the craton should be extended further south.
South African Journal of Geology, 2010
The Molopo Farms Complex is an extremely poorly exposed, major, ultramafic-mafic layered intrusion straddling the southern border of Botswana with South Africa. It lies within the southwestern part of the ~2.0 Ga large igneous province of southern and central Africa that includes the better known Bushveld Complex. Integrated interpretation of regional gravity data and new high-resolution airborne magnetic data have constrained the geometry of the Molopo Farms Complex in southern Botswana as a strongly faulted, polyphase intrusion compartmentalised by regional ductile shear zones. Previous models showing that the Complex was emplaced in at least two discrete stages are supported. Ultramafic rocks were initially emplaced as a semi-coherent lopolithic sheet up to about 4 km in thickness cutting across Transvaal Supergroup strata that had already been folded into open eastwest trending dome and basin structures with wavelengths of about 4 km. Steeply dipping, dyke-like ultramafic bodies adjacent to, and within major shears are inferred to be solidified feeders to the main lopolithic part of the MFC. It is likely that the initial ultramafic sheet was emplaced at a high crustal level (<3 km depth) into an attenuated Transvaal Supergroup sequence. This lack of a thick hanging wall sequence is thought to be significant for the emplacement of the succeeding mafic sheets. The ultramafic sheet thermally altered its wall rock and also created a complex fracture system in its hanging wall rocks. Differentiation within the ultramafic sheet produced basal harzburgites overlain by bronzites and possibly mafic sheets. Later mafic/basic sheets and dykes, again fed along shear-controlled, steeply dipping zones, spread into the fracture network created by the initial emplacement of the ultramafic lopolith to form a distinctive spider's-web pattern on high-resolution airborne magnetic maps. It is proposed that either post-emplacement regional folding or gravitational collapse of the basal ultramafic lopolith produced a major basin with a ~40 km eastwest diameter, north of the Jwaneng-Makopong Shear Zone and smaller basin to the southeast. The newly postulated, steeply dipping ultramafic/mafic feeders, as well as the ultramafic lopolith and areas with anomalous nickel values in soils are considered to be prospective for PGE-bearing magmatic nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation. Magmatic rocks dated at about 2.0 Ga are a common feature, not only of the Kaapvaal Craton, but of all the African cratonic blocks south of the Equator. Reactivated intracratonic faults and shears appear to control emplacement of individual magmatic complexes although a sub continental thermal anomaly unconfined by lithospheric plate boundaries is a likely driving force for the widespread magmatism.