Erosion patterns and mantle sources of topographic change across the southern African Plateau derived from the shallow and deep records of kimberlites

Flow in the sublithospheric mantle is increasingly invoked as a mechanism to explain both modern and past surface topography, but the importance of this phenomenon and its influence at different localities are debated. Southern Africa is an elevated continental shield proposed to represent dynamical...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems : G3 geophysics, geosystems : G3, 2015-09, Vol.16 (9), p.3235-3256
Main Authors: Stanley, Jessica R., Flowers, Rebecca M., Bell, David R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology
craton
Cretaceous
dynamic topography
Isotopes
kimberlites
Magma
southern African Plateau
Topography
xenoliths
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Summary:Flow in the sublithospheric mantle is increasingly invoked as a mechanism to explain both modern and past surface topography, but the importance of this phenomenon and its influence at different localities are debated. Southern Africa is an elevated continental shield proposed to represent dynamically supported topography. However, this region is also characterized by a complex lithospheric architecture variably affected by Cretaceous heating, thinning, and metasomatic alteration. We used apatite (U‐Th)/He thermochronometry on 15 Cretaceous kimberlites from an ∼600 km long transect across the Kaapvaal Craton, combined with information from xenoliths in these pipes, to determine the plateau interior erosion history. The goal was to determine the relationships with lithospheric modification patterns and thereby better isolate the sublithospheric contribution to elevation. The results document a wave of erosion from west to east across the craton from ∼120 to
ISSN:1525-2027
1525-2027
DOI:10.1002/2015GC005969