The low-temperature thermochronological record of sedimentary rocks from the central Rovuma Basin (N Mozambique) — Constraints on provenance and thermal history

Abstract

Fission track (FT) dating of detrital titanites, zircons and apatites combined with sandstone petrography from rocks of the Rovuma Basin was used to constrain the basin's provenance and its post depositional thermal history. A comparison of metamorphic basement and sedimentary titanite and zircon FT data indicates that erosion was localized along a zone which followed the margin of the Rovuma Basin and was the source for the late Jurassic to Cretaceous sandstones. Time–temperature models of apatite FT data show, that after the deposition, the sandstones were heated up to temperatures of ca. 60–110°C most likely due to a combination of intensified regional heat flux and burial heating caused by fast sedimentation in a transtensional pull-apart setting and intensified by regionally elevated heat flux. The utter western part of the basin was inverted between ca. 60 and 40Ma, concordant with the drop in the global eustatic sea level which led to a rearrangement of the source-to-sink system. Some reworked zircons were deposited in the Cenozoic strata in the eastern part of the basin.