Influences on the development of the Great Escarpment of southern Africa

The topography of southern Africa has been modeled along a set of E-W profiles extending across the full width of the continent and in all cases crossing the Great Escarpment. Various combinations of lateral variation in elastic thickness, erosion and deposition rate, dynamic uplift and applied load are capable of accounting for the present day topography. Our aim is to contribute to testing the utility of models of African topography that relate Superswell development to a deep mantle Low Velocity Zone. Modeling the topography of the full width of the continent represents progress in that direction but consideration of the timing of changes, as modelers of Apatite Fission Track results have long recognized, is also very important. We used offshore seismic reflection and oil well data, as well as paleoclimatology, in an attempt to improve resolution of the timing of southern African topographic evolution.