An early cretaceous phase of accelerated erosion on the south-western margin of Africa: Evidence from apatite fission track analysis and the offshore sedimentary record

Abstract

Abstract Apatite fission track ages and confined track length distributions have been determined for rock samples from the south-western continental margin of Africa. The apatite ages fall into two groups, one having early Cretaceous ages and mean confined track lengths of ≈ 14 μm with very few short tracks, and the other having older ages with confined track length distributions containing a significant proportion of strongly annealed tracks (