Reconstruction of the Landscape Evolution of South Central Africa: A Case Study on Waterfalls of Northern Zambia and South-Eastern D.R. Congo

Northern Zambia and the south-eastern Katanga Province of D.R. Congo lie within the southwest extension of the East African Rift System, which is one of the most significant present-day examples of active tectonics. Seismotectonic research in the area has been scarce, despite the fundamental impacts of neotectonics, which controls landscape evolution southwest of the Tanganyika graben. Nevertheless, the formation of the Congo-Zambezi watershed has been constrained from the combination of geological and biological evidence at ~2 Ma (Cotterill & de Wit 2011).
A preliminary Google Earth mapping has revealed two major sets of fault systems (Mweru and Upemba). Analysis of the seismicity patterns recorded within the two fault systems during the last 35 years provides indications for fault interactions over earthquake timescales, highlighting the fact that they are currently active.
This study is part of an interdisciplinary project combining DNA sequencing of selected fish groups to define molecular clocks together with surface exposure dating of key landforms using in-situ produced cosmogenic nuclides. This technique can be applied to quantify how long rocks have been exposed at “knickpoints” since they were first formed (Burbank & Anderson 2012). For that purpose, quartz-rich samples were collected from selected waterfalls with the aim of quantifying exposure ages and erosion/retreat rates. Expecting complex exposure scenarios both radionuclides ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al and the stable noble gas ²¹Ne were combined in all samples.
Preliminary results from Northern Zambia indicate burial for at least several hundred thousand years. This specific burial may confirm the existence of a significantly deeper and larger Paleo-Lake Mweru before the modern drainage evolved (Dixey, 1944). More results are expected soon to confirm or dismiss this hypothesis. Furthermore, samples taken at different distances below the Kiubo and Luvilombo Waterfalls (D.R.C.) yield preliminary ages between ~7 and 40 ka, increasing with distance from the falls and thus reflecting waterfall retreat. Extrapolating to the original knickpoint location should enable us to estimate the age of its formation.
References
Burbank D.W. & Anderson R.S. 2012. Tectonic Geomorphology. Second Edition. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester.
Cotterill F.P.D. & de Wit M.J. 2011. South African Geographical Journal 114: 489-514.
Dixey F. 1944. South African Geographical Journal 47, 01: 9-45.