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Kondo Pools Formation

Kondo Pools Fm

Period: 
Carboniferous, Permian

Age Interval: 
Late Carboniferous-Early Permian (Moscovian-Asselian)


Province: 
Zimbabwe-Mozambique

Type Locality and Naming

Named after the Kondo Pools in the Lower Zambezi Valley. The formation was formally defined by P.M. Oesterlen in the 1990s during a major lithostratigraphic revision of the western Cabora Bassa Basin, establishing it as the foundational sedimentary unit for this specific rift basin.

Synonym:


Lithology and Thickness

The unit is at least 200 meters thick. Claystones and Sandstones


Lithology Pattern: 
Claystone


Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

Rests with a profound regional angular unconformity directly upon the deeply scoured Precambrian metamorphic basement rocks (Archaean gneisses and Proterozoic quartzites of the Zambezi Mobile Belt / Chewore Complex).

Upper contact

Conformably and transitionally overlain by the thick, clayey (mudstone and coal-bearing) sequence of the Mkanga Fm.

Regional extent

Extensively mapped in the western Cabora Bassa Basin and Mana Pools Basin in northern Zimbabwe, though surface outcrops are largely restricted to the northwestern basin margins along the foothills of the Chewore Escarpment. Basal unit of the Lower Karoo Gr in the Cabora Bassa and Mana Pools basins. It is the direct regional chronostratigraphic equivalent to the Dwyka Gr (glaciogenic beds) and the lowermost Ecca Gr (such as the Lower Wankie Sandstone Fm) in the Mid-Zambezi Basin. It also broadly correlates with the Siankondobo Sandstone Fm in Zambia.


GeoJSON

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Fossils


Age 

Late Carboniferous-Early Permian (Moscovian-Asselian)

Age Span: 

    Beginning stage: 
Moscovian

    Fraction up in beginning stage: 
0.5

    Beginning date (Ma): 
311.09

    Ending stage: 
Asselian

    Fraction up in the ending stage: 
0.1

    Ending date (Ma):  
298.35

Depositional setting

Glaciogenic, fluvioglacial, and post-glacial shallow lacustrine environments. The Kondo Pools Fm captures the final retreat of the Late Paleozoic (Gondwanan) ice sheets.


Depositional pattern:  


Additional Information


Compiler:  

From the O. Catuneanu et al. / Journal of African Earth Sciences 43 (2005) 211–253; Oesterlen, P.M. (1990): The geology of the Dande West area (western Cabora Bassa Basin) - a preliminary report; Oesterlen, P.M., & Millsteed, B.D. (1994): Lithostratigraphy, palaeontology, and sedimentary environments of the western Cabora Bassa Basin, lower Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe.