Sedimentary evolution and stratigraphy of the ~765–740 Ma Kansuki-Mwashya platform succession in the Tenke-Fungurume Mining District, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

1. Introduction In central Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and eastern Angola), the Katanga Supergroup rocks record an up to 300 Ma complete Wilson cycle that was initiated at the >880 Ma intracontinental rifting between the Congo and Kalahari cratons, and ended at the ~573–530 Ma Lufilian orogeny. The resulting Lufilian Arc forms part of the Pan-African orogenic belts of Africa (Fig. 1; Batumike et al., 2006; Cailteux et al., 2007; Mambwe et al., 2019a). Continental break-up started with the eastward opening of the proto-Mozambique ocean, which propagated westwards into the area of the Zambezi Belt, forming the Zambian Roan Rift-Basin. Thereafter it evolved north-westwards into the area of the Lufilian Belt, forming the Congolese Roan Rift-Basin (Porada & Berhorst, 2000). Both basins widened allowing the development of Afar/Red Sea-type sedimentation in the Roan Rift-Basin, which was marked by a widespread deposition of continental (basal conglomerates, quartzites, feldspathic sandstones and shales) to marine (dominantly carbonates) rocks in the Musonoi Subgroup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (and the Mindola Subgroup, its stratigraphic equivalent in Zambia). These marine conditions continued in the Mines and Fungurume subgroups in DRC and in the Kitwe and Kirilabombwe subgroups in Zambia (Francois, 1987; Cailteux et al., 2005; Cailteux & De Putter, 2019). Figure 1. Geological map of the Central African Copperbelt (modified from Cailteux et