Abstract
South Africa's Cape Fold Belt is a little known orogen involving sedimentary sequences of Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic age, deformed in at least two orogenic pulses with a climax in the middle of the Triassic. The relationship between pre-, syn-, and post-orogenic sedimentation and the fold belt is outlined and placed into a broad perspective. Among the principal conclusions, the following are of particular significance: i. only the northern foreland area of the fold belt is available for study on land in South Africa—the greater part of the fold belt is submerged beneath the waters of the South African continental shelf and those of the Falklands Plateau, ii. given these restrictions, the known features of the fold belt (excluding the anomalous Cedarberg foldings) are compatible with the view that it results from conventional plate tectonic processes, iii. the north-south striking Cedarberg branch of the western Cape appears to be independent of the main fold belt, iv. a conformable transition from flysch-like to molasse-like facies is clearly preserved, v. the outpouring of the extensive tholeiitic basalts of the Drakensberg volcanics may possibly be related to a late stage in the history of the fold belt rather than to the effects of the breakup of Gondwanaland, vi. the later Mesozoic sediments within the fold belt are closely comparable with the sediments of the Newark-type basin model of Potter & Pettijohn.
Published Version
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