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Neogene and Quaternary Vertebrate Biochronology of the Sperrgebiet

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Neogene and Quaternary Vertebrate Biochronology of the Sperrgebiet Communs geol. Surv. Namibia, 12 (2000), 411-419 Neogene and Quaternary vertebrate biochronology of the Sperrgebiet and Otavi Mountainland, Namibia Martin Pickford Chaire de Paléoanthropologie et de Préhistoire Collège de France and Laboratoire de Paléontologie, UMR 8569 du CNRS 8, rue Buffon, 75005, Paris e-mail >[email protected]< Since 1991, the Namibia Palaeontology Expedition has discovered well over 100 fossiliferous localities in Namibia which have provided useful biochronological data. The Otavi karst field has yielded fossiliferous breccias which span the period from late Mid- dle Miocene (ca 13 Ma) to Recent. At several vanadium occurrences, including Berg Aukas and Harasib 3a, it is clear that vanadium mineralisation occurred during the Miocene, whereas at others, such as Rietfontein, mineralisation was taking place as recently as the Pleistocene. The only substantial vanadium deposit that remains undated is Abenab. The diamondiferous proto-Orange terrace deposits are now known to span the period early Miocene to basal Middle Miocene (Auchas, Arrisdrift) while the meso-Orange terraces are of Late Miocene and Plio-Pleistocene age. The raised beach deposits north of Oranjemund are older than previously thought, the earliest (50 m beach) dating from the Pliocene while the youngest ones (sub-10m beaches) are of Late Pleistocene to Recent age. There are boul- ders in some of the beach deposits at Oranjemund that may well represent reworked material from the 90 metre beach, although in situ deposits of this age have not been found in Namibia. The onset of desertification in the Namib dates from the end of the Early Miocene, some 17 Ma. The sandstones have yielded enormous quantities of fossil ostrich eggshells as well as mammals in a relatively complete succession spanning most of the Miocene and Pliocene. The widespread Kamberg Calcrete which overlies the Tsondab Sandstone has yielded Pleistocene fossils and stone tools at a number of localities, but its onset could have occurred during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene, some 2.6 Ma. The newly available geochronological data has thus provided important constraints on the timing of geologi- cal events in Namibia and has resolved much of the debate that centred on the ages of the superficial rocks in the country. Introduction had been made for a cave deposit at Kombat, Otavi Mountains (Robinson, 1959) and a few pan deposits Cenozoic strata cover a substantial part of Namibia had yielded mammals that provided age estimates (Pia, including much of the coastal strip, the Namib Desert, 1930). Apart from these few biochronologically dated and a vast area in the east of the country, the Kalaha- occurrences, none of the other Cenozoic deposits of Na- ri Desert. Even in high relief areas, such as the Otavi mibia had yielded any dateable material. Mountains, there are Neogene and Quaternary sedi- Over the past decade the Namibia Palaeontology Ex- ments which accumulated in karst settings. The litera- pedition has been actively surveying many parts of the ture on these deposits is voluminous, but very little of it country for fossils and has discovered well over 100 deals with the geochronology of the strata, with the re- palaeontological localities in numerous deposits rang- sult that widely varying interpretations of the timing of ing in age from Early Miocene to Holocene. These de- events have been published. For example, the Tsondab posits can be classed into several depositional catego- Sandstone, which is one of the most extensive Cenozoic ries (Table 1, Fig. 1). deposits in the country, has estimated ages ranging from Karoo (Rust, 1996) through Cretaceous (Koch, 1961) to Karst Deposits Eocene (Ward and Corbett, 1990) and Neogene (Pick- ford et al., 1995). The Otavi Mountains and Kaokoland have long been Henno Martin and Hermann Korn were well aware of the value of fossils and stone tools for providing age estimates for the superficial deposits of Namibia (Korn and Martin, 1955; Martin, 1963, 1973a, 1973b; Martin and Wilzewski, 1972) but palaeontolgical remains and in situ artefacts proved difficult to locate with the result that by Namibia’s independence in 1990, fewer than a dozen localities had been dated with reasonable confi- dence. There were four Early Miocene mammalian sites in the Sperrgebiet (Stromer, 1926) in sediments that had accumulated in valleys incised into the Namib Uncon- formity Surface (NUS - the Namib coastal plain below the Tsondab Sandstone and other cover rocks). The Tsondab Sandstone itself had yielded a single rodent fossil at Rooilepel which indicated an Early Miocene age (Corbett, 1989) (now considered to be early Middle Miocene in age). A single Late Pleistocene age estimate 411 Pickford was not open to the surface at the time of deposition. None of the 32 biochronologically dated karst depos- its in the Otavi Mountains and Kaokoland are older than late Middle Miocene. Most of them (26) are Pleistocene or younger. The most vigorous vanadium mineralisa- tion took place in the late Middle Miocene and dwin- dled thereafter, producing prospects such as Harasib 3a, rather than economically viable deposits such as Berg Aukas. Fluvial Deposits In contrast to the karst deposits, Namibia’s fluvial sediments yielded evidence of their age from the outset of research on them. Historically the first strata to be dated were those in the northern half of the Sperrgebiet (Stromer, 1926) of Early Miocene age. These deposits all occur in palaeovalleys incised into the Namib Un- conformity Surface (Ward, 1987b) and thus provide an important geochronological constaint on the age of maturation of this surface. The main period of incision into the NUS took place during the late Oligocene, a period of low sea level, and backfilling of the palaeo- valleys resulted from the rise in sea-level that occurred during the early Miocene (Fig. 6). known to possess extensive cave systems and other In the late 1970’s, slightly younger fluvial depos- karst features (Schneiderhöhn, 1921, 1929) and the its were found in the Orange River valley at Arrisdrift sedimentary nature of some of the Otavi vanadium ores (Corvinus and Hendey, 1978; Pickford et al., 1995, has been evident for some time (Verwoerd, 1957) but 1996). Prior to this discovery, the Orange River Ter- the period of mineralisation was generally unknown, race deposits were all thought to be of Pleistocene age with estimates ranging from Palaeozoic to Cenozoic. (Fowler, 1976). Subsequently, Early Miocene fossils Schwellnus (1946) concluded that some of the vana- have been found at Auchas, revealing that the Orange dium minerals were extremely young after discover- River Valley was also backfilled at the same time as the ing crystals of descloizite on bones and teeth in breccia deposits at Rietfontein. Robinson (1956) reported that breccias at Kombat were of Pleistocene to Recent age on the basis of bovid and other material from the site. These fossils were often coloured blue or green because of the presence of copper minerals in them. However, it was not until the Namibia Palaeontology Expedition of 1991 that extensive fossil-rich deposits were found in many localities in the Otavi Mountains and Kaokoland (Senut et al., 1992). The occurrence of fossiliferous breccia of Middle Miocene age enclosed in nodules of crystalline descloizite at Berg Aukas provided the first convincing evidence that the main period of vanadium mineralisation at this mine was about 13-12 Ma (Pick- ford, 1993). This was followed by the discovery that the vanadium prospect at Harasib 3a was extremely fossilif- erous. At this locality there is evidence of two periods of mineralisation, an earlier one which was reworked to produce rounded and eroded crystals of descloisite, and a later one that was probably contemporaneous with accumulation of the fossils at about 10 Ma (Late Mi- ocene). Crystals from the latter period of mineralisation are euhedral and show no signs of rounding. Efforts to locate fossils at Abenab were not successful, possibly because this deposit was formed in a cave system that 412 Neogene and Quaternary vertebrate biochronology of the Sperrgebiet and Otavi Mountainland, Namibia smaller valleys in the northern Sperrgebiet. Coast and vast deposits in the Kalahari. There are several suites of fluvial deposits in the The debate about the age of the onset of desert condi- Orange River Valley, known as the Proto-Orange and tions in Namibia was summarised by Brain (1984) and Meso-Orange terraces (Figs. 1 and 2). There are vary- Ward and Corbett (1990). There were two main schools ing opinions about the number of depositional episodes of thought, one holding that the desert must be at least that are represented in each terrace, but it seems cer- as old as the Cretaceous, the main argument being that tain that the proto-Orange terrace is a composite one, the specialised coleopteran fauna and plants that occur with at least two sedimentary events - Auchas (Early there today required vast spans of geological time to Miocene age) and Arrisdrift (basal Middle Miocene evolve (Koch, 1961, 1962). The other was that it must age). The Meso-Orange terrace is also composite but, be considerably younger, being no older than Middle not having yielded any fossils, its age is unknown, al- Miocene, the argument being based on geomorphologi- though geomorphological relations indicate that it must cal relationships (Partridge and Maud, 1987). Ward and be younger than the Proto-Orange terrace. It is likely Corbett (1990) opted for a compromise between these to contain sediments deposited during the Mio-Pliocene two extreme viewpoints, and suggested that desert con- (terrace II) as well as in the Plio-Pleistocene (terrace ditions probably began during the Eocene. Rust (1996) III), although direct proof of the timing of events is proposed that the Tsondab Sandstones accumulated lacking. The main line of argument for suggesting this during the Karoo period, but recent palaeontological is that there appears to be a one-to-one correlation be- results reveal that this hypothesis is untenable.
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