Stratigraphic correlation of the Awahab and Tafelberg Formations, Etendeka Group, Namibia, and location of an eruptive site for flood basalt volcanism
✍ Scribed by J.S. Marsh; S.C. Milner
- Book ID
- 104019956
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2007
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 369 KB
- Volume
- 48
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1464-343X
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✦ Synopsis
Detailed field and geochemical investigations in the vicinity of the type section of the Tafelberg Formation of the early Cretaceous Etendeka Group, NW Namibia, have revealed the existence of a large eruptive vent in the lower part of the regional volcanic sequence produced by Strombolian and Vulcanian eruptions. The vent is filled with the thick, differentiated, ponded Kudu-Run olivine-rich basaltic flow, which has a distinctive low Zr/Y geochemical signature as well as a Tafelberg-type tabular basalt and the Nil Desperandum latite. Field evidence indicates that the Kudu-Run basalt and the latite were erupted from fissures located within the vent. Associated with the vent is an extensive pyroclastic apron extending from the vent edge and which is interbedded with the regional stratigraphy. Blocks of Precambrain basement lithologies occur within this deposit and indicate that the vent was excavated to a depth of at least 350 m below the palaeosurface at that time. The original Tafelberg Formation type section described by Erlank et al. [