Thermal Modelling of The Kaapvaal Lithosphere: Implications for the Bushveld Tomographic Anomaly

Thermal modelling of the crust and upper mantle below the Kaapvaal Craton shows that there are substantial variations in the equilibrium temperature structure of the crust, but these variations become smoothed out in the upper mantle. The range in temperature at depths of 100-200 km is not sufficient to cause the observed seismic tomographic anomaly below the Bushveld Complex. A more likely explanation for the anomaly is a compositional difference.