Petrography of sandstones from drill cores BARB4 and BARB5, Paleoarchean Mapepe Formation, Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa: Implications for provenance and tectonic reconstructions.

Abstract:

Paleogeographic and tectonic reconstructions in the Barberton greenstone belt (BGB) are challenged by syn- and post-depositional tectonics. The Barberton Drilling Project extracted two drill cores from the sedimentary rocks of the 3.26-3.22 Ga Mapepe Formation of the Fig Tree Group. The cores were taken from the Manzimnyama Syncline (BARB4) and the Barite Valley structural belt (BARB5), which are separated by belts of faulted older Onverwacht and younger Moodies strata. Stratigraphically, there is no clear correlation of Mapape strata in these two belts. Both BARB4 and BARB5 contain 25 to 300 m thick units of lithic sandstone that may represent correlative units. A comparative provenance analysis allows testing a possible correlation and evaluating the nature of tectonic uplifts that sourced the sediments. The sandstones have experienced pervasive metasomatic alteration and most primary silicate minerals except coarse quartz have been transformed into micromosaics of microquartz, phyllosilicates, and trace impurities. The majority of framework grains are chert, impure chert, and lithic grains while monocrystalline quartz and altered feldspar are minor components. The single thick sandstone in BARB4 displays a relatively uniform framework mode with average 38.7 % total quartz, 2.4% feldspars, and 58.9 % lithics and an increasing percentage of mafic to ultramafic grains upsection. In contrast, BARB5 includes three distinct sandstones with varying framework modes. The litharenite at 0 to 95m core depth was mainly sourced from an immediately underlying dacitic tuff. The chertarenite at 320 to 390m core depth is composed of 73% carbonaceous chert grains. All grain types appear to have been derived by erosion of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the BGB as well as penecontemporaneous volcanism. Erosion did not reach deeper-seated plutonic rocks. The framework mode of the BARB4 sandstones represents a composite of common silicified BGB rocks and resembles those of other sediments in the southern domain of the BGB. In contrast, BARB5 sandstones derived locally by shallow erosion of underlying volcanic and sedimentary rocks. The distinct signatures suggest that these units are not correlative and were not derived from a common source. They may be a result of local uplifts of different parts of the greenstone sequence.