Geophysical evidence for a failed Jurassic rift and triple junction in Kenya

The Karoo basins of south-central Africa

“…North of Kenya, at the point where later in the Jurassic the northwest trending, failed rift of the Anza Trough developed (Reeves et al, 1986), the Karoo rift system deviated from the trend of the Mozambique Belt altogether and presumably continued northeastward to southern Oman. Such a continuation is indicated not only by various palaeobiological assemblages (see Wopfner et al, 1993;Wopfner, 1994Wopfner, , 1999Wopfner, , 2002 for references) but also by the relationship of the glacigene deposits of southern Oman to the Huqh-Haushi uplift (Lee, 1990).…”

Stratigraphy, sedimentology and diagenetic evolution of the Lapur Sandstone in northern Kenya: Implications for oil exploration of the Meso-Cenozoic Turkana depression

“…2). This region has been described as the most important area in eastern Africa for studying a long-lived segment of the East African Rift System and how it interacted with the Cretaceous-Paleogene southern Sudan and Anza rifts (Fairhead, 1986;Reeves et al, 1987;Greene et al, 1991;Morley et al, 1999c). The present-day Lake Turkana Basin is part of a string of major N-S oriented half-grabens that developed between Cretaceous and Eocene-Oligocene to Pliocene-Pleistocene times (Mugisha et al, 1997;Morley et al, 1999a,d;Hautot et al, 2000;Tiercelin and Lezzar, 2002;Tiercelin et al, 2004Tiercelin et al, , 2011Ducrocq et al, 2010) (Fig.…”

Pliocene volcano-tectonics and paleogeography of the Turkana Basin, Kenya and Ethiopia

“…The Anza Rift is part of a NW-SE trending rift system that extends from the Sudan in the northwest to the Lamu embayment on the Kenyan coast (Bosworth and Morley, 1994;Dindi, 1994;Morley et al, 1999c). Vestiges of this rift suggest that it originated as a failed arm extending outwards from a Jurassic triple-junction centered near the Lamu embayment (Reeves et al, 1987), but the primary phase of rifting in the continental interior occurred during Cretaceous and Paleogene (Morley et al, 1999c). Subsequent tectonic activity was dominated by thermally controlled subsidence forming a broad, shallow trough that became a locus of fluvial and lacustrine deposition, and more locally accumulations of Late Pliocene and Quaternary lava erupted from Mount Marsabit, the Huri Hills and Asie volcano.…”