Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic sediment influx and morphology of the Mozambique Basin

Response of Cenozoic turbidite system to tectonic activity and sea-level change off the Zambezi Delta

“…These data were acquired in 2007 as part of the MoBaMaSis project (Castelino et al 2015;Reichert 2007) and were subsequently processed using standard procedures for frequency filtering with 10-60 Hz bandpass filter, multiple suppression and post-stack F-K migration (Fig. 3).…”

“…Shipborne swath bathymetry acquired during the expedition and a subsequent expedition (Jokat 2014), in addition to a global bathymetric grid (GEBCO) are examined to study the morphology of the ancient and modern turbidite systems at different times since Late Cretaceous. Lithostratigraphic information was incorporated from previous studies (Castelino et al 2015;De Buyl and Flores 1986;Droz and Mougenot 1987) having been compiled from the nearby offshore wells Zambezi-1 and Zambezi-3 ( Fig. 3) and other onshore wells.…”

“…The sediment discharge history of the Zambezi River is characterized by considerable variability since the Mesozoic (Castelino et al 2015;Walford et al 2005). Those authors correlated surges in sediment accumulation during Late Cretaceous (75-65 Ma), Oligocene (34-24 Ma) and Late Miocene-Pleistocene (5-1.8 Ma) times to episodes of epeirogenic uplift onshore (Partridge and Maud 1987) and increases in catchment area (Walford et al 2005).…”

“…The Zambezi River is one of the primary sources for sediment supply to the upper fan with as much as 60 Mio tonnes being drained annually into the basin (Kolla et al 1980b;Van der Lubbe et al 2014;Walford et al 2005). The thickest (up to 12 km) sedimentary sequence is located in the ZDD, with thicknesses of 6-8 km in other parts of the Central Mozambique Basin (Castelino et al 2015;Mahanjane 2012;Salazar et al 2013;Salman and Abdula 1995).…”

“…Similarly, in the Malawi Basin in Northern Mozambique, apatite fission track analysis is interpreted in terms of enhanced denudation around ~75 Ma (Daszinnies et al 2009). An increase in sediment input in the Mozambique Basin can therefore be linked to what was apparently a widespread phase of Late Cretaceous uplift in southern Africa and resulted in fan development off the Zambezi during Late Cretaceous-Eocene times (Castelino et al 2015;Walford et al 2005). Using shallow geophysical and coring-based data, several studies (Droz and Mougenot 1987;Kolla et al 1980b) describe how the present Mozambique Table 1 Dimensions of some well-studied modern-day fans (source: Curray et al 2003) and the dimensions of Mozambique Fan (1) (Kolla et al 1980b) (2) (Castelino et al 2016 (Droz and Mougenot 1987).…”