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Fault kinematics and stress fields in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda

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Abstract

The Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda form an active rift-transfer zone in the western branch of the East African Rift System. Here we quantify local stress fields in high resolution from field observations of fault structures to shed light on the complex, polyphase tectonics expected in transfer zones. We apply the multiple inverse method, which is optimized for heterogeneous fault-slip data, to the northern and central Rwenzori Mountains. Observations from the northern Rwenzori Mountains show larger heterogeneity than data from the central Rwenzori, including unexpected compressional features; thus the local stress field indicates polyphase transpressional tectonics. We suggest that transpression here is linked to rotational and translational movements of the neighboring Victoria block relative to the Rwenzori block that includes strong overprinting relationships. Stress inversions of data from the central Rwenzori Mountains indicate two distinct local stress fields. These results suggest that the Rwenzori block consists of smaller blocks.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Grant KO 2463/4-2. D. S. Stamps is funded by the NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship program Grant #EAR1249295.

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Author notes

  1. D. Sarah Stamps

    Present address: Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California, 595 Charles Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany

    Till Sachau

  2. School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Daniel Koehn

  3. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    D. Sarah Stamps

  4. Institut für Geowissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

    Michael Lindenfeld

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  1. Till Sachau
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Correspondence to Till Sachau.

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Sachau, T., Koehn, D., Stamps, D.S. et al. Fault kinematics and stress fields in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 105, 1729–1740 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1162-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1162-6

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