Bosbokpoort Fm
Type Locality and Naming
Soutpansberg, Tshipise, and Tuli Basins (Limpopo Province, South Africa; extending into Zimbabwe and Botswana). Named after the farm Bosbokpoort in the Limpopo Province of northern South Africa. It was formally established to describe the distinct "red bed" sequence of mudstones and siltstones occurring below the Clarens desert sands in the isolated, fault-bounded Karoo basins of the north. Middle formation in Stormberg Gr in Tshipise Basin
Synonym:
Lithology and Thickness
A predominantly fine-grained, red-bed succession reaching thicknesses between 60 and 150 meters. It consists overwhelmingly of brick-red, purplish, and brownish-red mudstones and siltstones, intercalated with very fine-grained sandstones.
Relationships and Distribution
Lower contact
Rests upon the coarser-grained fluvial sandstones of the Klopperfontein Fm. In areas where the Klopperfontein Fm is not developed (such as parts of the Tshipise Basin), it rests directly on the purple and grey mudstones of the Solitude Fm.
Upper contact
Conformably and transitionally overlain by the fine-grained, pinkish aeolian sandstones of the Clarens Fm (specifically, the basal Red Rocks Member).
Regional extent
Restricted to the series of ENE-WSW trending, fault-bounded rift basins in northern South Africa (the Soutpansberg, Tshipise, and Tuli basins), extending across the border into southern Zimbabwe and eastern Botswana. Historically referred to as part of the "Upper Unit" of the Karoo sequence in the Tuli Basin before formal nomenclature. It chronostratigraphically and lithologically correlates directly with the Elliot Fm in the Main Karoo Basin.
GeoJSON
Fossils
Age
Depositional setting
Distal overbank floodplain and low-sinuosity, ephemeral stream environments.
Additional Information