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Overview and Preliminary Results of a Magnetotelluric Experiment Across the Southern Barberton Greenstone Belt
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 11th SAGA Biennial Technical Meeting and Exhibition, Sep 2009, cp-241-00135
Abstract
The Kaapvaal Craton of South Africa is the oldest well-preserved continental fragment on the planet and thus is a key area for studies of geodynamic processes of the early Earth. One major controversy concerns the importance of plate tectonic processes in Archean times and the time when this may have been first initiated. Several potential ancient suture zones have been identified at surface within the Barberton greenstone Belt, and these provide an ideal natural laboratory to test for possible subsurface remnants of mid-Archean plate tectonic processes on lithospheric scale. Within the framework of the German-South African geo-scientific research initiative Inkaba yeAfrica a high resolution magnetotelluric (MT) field experiment, ELIBABA, was carried out in April/May 2009 in the Barberton/Badplaas area, eastern Mpumalanga, RSA. An 110 km long profile and two complementary shorter 70 km long profiles with almost 100 MT sites provide a good areal coverage of the Barberton suture and its complex geology. Preliminary two-dimensional inversion models show images of the crustal electrical conductivity distribution which will be compared to existing shallow geophysical results.