Naukluft Mountains

[1] The Naukluft Mountains are a nappe complex: a stack of rock units which have been transported toward the southeast on a basal thrust fault.

The first geological maps and cross-sections of the mountain range were made in the 1930s by Henno Martin and Hermann Korn.

The rocks are interbedded sediments, dominated by dolomites, quartzites and shales, deposited in a shallow marine environment in the hinterland of the Damara orogeny between 700-500 million years ago.

The same lithologies are present in the Naukluft Mountains, but the sediments are folded and faulted, so the original stratigraphy is deformed and inverted.

The mountain range has been the site of numerous studies seeking to explain the mechanical paradox of overthrusts: How large thin units of rock may be pushed long distances over gently dipping thrust faults.