Magnetic properties of the Cunene Anorthosite Complex, Angola

Abstract

The Cunene Complex is the largest known anorthosite body and outcrops across the border between Angola and South West Africa. Palaeomagnetic results are reported from a traverse across the dark troctolitic facies of the anorthosite in Angola which yielded fifteen sites with two additional sites in gabbro bodies. Fourteen sites are stable to a.f. demagnetisation and a single site in the cumulative border zone of the anorthosite is reversed with respect to the remainder. Twelve sites combine to give a mean direction of D = 259°, I = −46° ( k = 7) with a virtual geomagnetic pole at 255°E and 3°S. The low overall precision is probably due to apparent polar movement during cooling of the Complex. Radiometric data are currently conflicting and imply that the anorthosite has an age between 1100 and 2600 m.y.; the only clear feature to emerge from age studies is a thermal overprinting at ca. 1100 m.y. The directions of magnetisation are shown to be most consistent with an age of ca. 2100 m.y. with cooling through the Curie point continuing to ca. 2000 m.y. A variety of magnetic tests demonstrate that magnetite is the principal remanence carrier in the dark troctolitic anorthosite where it occurs both as discrete grains and as fine rods in plagioclase. Lowrie-Fuller tests suggest that both these components include single domains but results from separated mineral fractions demonstrate that the bulk of the high coercivity remanence resides in magnetite rods within the feldspar.