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The Lufilian Arc: a microplate in the Pan-African collision zone of the Congo and the Kalahari cratons

1983; Elsevier BV; Volume: 21; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0301-9268(83)90040-2

1872-7433

Raphael Unrug,

earthquake and tectonic studies

The Mwembeshi Fault Zone in Zambia separates the Lufilian Arc and the Zambezi Belt with divergent tectonic structures, and marks the suture of the colliding cratons. The Mwembeshi Fault Zone is correlated with the Okahandja Lineament of the intracontinental branch of the Damaran Orogen in Namibia. Crustal shortening across the Lufilian Arc is larger at its western extremity, where large-scale thrust sheets are present in the Kolwezi area. The crustal block underlying the Lufilian Arc is largely fault bounded. It rotated clockwise as the blocked collision zone of the Congo and the Kalahari cratons was subject to sinistral strike-slip translations in the late deformation phases of the Pan-African orogeny. It is postulated that the western margin of the Lufilian Arc is formed by a transcurrent fault zone which probably evolved from a transform fault separating the Damaran and the Lufilian-Zambezi sections during the spreading phase of the Pan-African mobile zone that traverses southern Africa.