Geological feature found in Northern Cape Province, South Africa
.[1] A small-scale steep structure characterised by the rotation of the subhorizontal foliation of the Nababeep Granite Gneiss into subvertical attitude, Klondike, O'okiep Copper District, Namaqualand, South Africa. Pencil for scale.
A steep structure is a unique structural feature found in the O'okiep Copper District (OCD), Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province, South Africa. These structures occur as narrow, east-west trending, antiformal and/or monoclinal zones of high strain characterised by the rotation of regional foliation into subvertical attitude.[2][3] These structures commonly host plug- and dyke-like mafic- to intermediate cupriferous bodies of the Koperberg Suite in their central portions.[4] Steep structures are interpreted to have formed at the same time as the granulite-facies metamorphism during the waning stages of the Namaqua Orogeny.[2][5] Steep structures are also intimately related to megabreccias, a term coined by geologists in the OCD for granite-gneiss and metasedimentarycountry rocks cemented by granitic material [6]
^Clifford, Tom N.; Barton, Erika S. (2012-12-01). "The O'okiep Copper District, Namaqualand, South Africa: a review of the geology with emphasis on the petrogenesis of the cupriferous Koperberg Suite". Mineralium Deposita. 47 (8): 837–857. Bibcode:2012MinDe..47..837C. doi:10.1007/s00126-012-0403-x. ISSN1432-1866. S2CID129735687.
