Lithostratigraphic, structural and geochronological framework of the Namibe region, SW Angola: Insights into the late Eburnean Orogeny in the Congo Shield
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Namibe region in southwestern Angola represents the southernmost extent of the Southwestern Congo Shield; however, its tectonothermal evolution is still poorly understood. To better constrain the timing and deformation style of the outcropping rocks in this region, we integrated (i) 1:250,000-scale lithostratigraphic and structural geological mapping, (ii) SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating of metamorphic rocks, and (iii) 40 Ar/ 39 Ar muscovite cooling ages. The study area comprises the Epupa Complex of ortho- and paragneisses, overlain by the Namibe Group, which is composed of supracrustal metasediments. The sharp lithological contrast, absence of orthogneisses, and the preservation of basal marbles suggest that the protoliths of the Namibe Group were unconformably deposited on the Epupa Complex. Both units experienced polyphase ductile deformation during the Eburnean event. Two penetrative deformation phases (D1 and D2) are overprinted by two later, less pervasive phases (D3 and D4). A subhorizontal D 2 shear zone links sinistral transpression in the upper crust with lateral flow in a partially molten lower crust. Peak metamorphic conditions led to widespread anatexis. SHRIMP U–Pb zircon ages from migmatitic leucosomes, granitic–tonalitic orthogneisses, and detrital to metamorphic zircons cluster tightly between 1.82 and 1.80 Ga, while 40 Ar/ 39 Ar muscovite ages indicate cooling at ∼1.80 Ga. This implies that the thermal peak, melt segregation, granite emplacement, and cooling occurred within ≤10 Ma. The near-synchronicity of high-grade metamorphism and magmatism, together with the crustal-scale D 2 shear architecture, supports a model of hot, thickened crust undergoing vertical strain transfer during late Eburnean sinistral transpression. This study provides the first precise 1.82–1.80 Ga age bracket for the late Eburnean event in southwestern Angola, highlighting a well-preserved subhorizontal attachment zone that couples upper crustal shear with deep crustal flow.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".