The Agulhas Karoo Geoscience Transect covers the southern margin of South Africa, from the oceanic Agulhas Plateau, across the Falkland-Ahulhas Shear Zone that dominates the sharp continent-ocean boundary, the continental shelf, and extends some 600 km inland, where it crosses the Cape Fold Belt (CFB) and the Karoo basin with its underlying, ca. 1 billion year old Kibaran (~Grenville in N America) basement. Close to the boundary between the Namaqua Natal Mobile Belt (NNMB) and the CFB, is the Beattie Magnetic Anomaly (BMA) - the world's largest onshore crustal magnetic anomaly and the Southern Cape Conductive Belt (SCCB), with their enigmatic sources buried below the Karoo.

Principal Investigators

• Karsten Gohl (AWI)
• Ute Weckmann (GFZ)
• Maarten de Wit (UCT)
• Hartwig Frimmel (UCT)

Experiments:

• Magnetotellurics (GFZ; 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Offshore and onshore active seismics (AWI, GFZ; 2005)
• Near vertical Reflection seismics (GFZ; 2005)
• structural mapping (UCT)
• thermo-mechanical modelling (GFZ)