The ENE trending Brandberg West - Goantagab Sn-W belt is located in the Southern Kaoko Zone of the northern coastal branch of the Damara Orogen. The lithologies in this area are turbiditic and consist of three schist units separated by two marble horizons, all of which are correlated with the Swakop Group. The formations are intensely folded by at least three episodes of which the first two are coaxial and resulted in prominent, approximately N-S trending, structures. Sn and Sn-W mineralization predominantly occurs as vein and replacement type mineralization. Vein type mineralization occurs as Brandberg West, Frans Prospect, Gamigab Prospect and the Goantagab Mining Area. The vein type mineralization is accompanied by intense alteration, consisting of greisenization, sericitization, hematitization and carbonatization. Replacement-type, hematite-cassiterite mineralization, occurs in the Goantagab Mining area in the marble close to, or at the schist marble contact. Intense ferruginous alteration of the marbles in this area, is associated with veins, which terminate against, or cross cut the marble. A regional metal zonation, ranging from Sn-W mineralization with minor sulphides at Brandberg West to Sn-sulphide mineralization at Goantagab can be detected. This metal zonation is attributed to the distance of the mineral locality from the source area, with Goantagab representing a distal and Brandberg West a proximal position relative to the source area. Structural, mineralogical and geological features of the mineralization in this area suggest that processes of ore genesis may be related to anorogenic magmatism of Karoo age.

Thesis (PhD (Earth Sciences))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Fluid-present partial melting has generally been regarded a poor candidate for effecting crustal differentiation. In this study I report on anatectic metasediments from the Pan-African Damara Belt in Namibia that have undergone fluid-present biotite melting at a relatively low temperature, yet appear to have lost a significant volume of melt. In situ anatectic features have been identified on the basis of the existence of new generations of cordierite and/or garnet produced as the solid products of incongruent anatexis within or adjacent to leucosomes, that most commonly occur as lens shaped pods at a high angle to the lineation and formed during extension in a direction parallel to the long axis of the orogeny. Within these sites biotite underwent incongruent melting via the reaction Bt + Qtz + Pl + H2O = Melt + Grt + Crd. Cordierite nucleated on preexisting crystals within the bounding gneiss; garnet nucleated within the fracture sites (leucosomes) and typically occurs as individual, large (50 to 120 mm in diameter) poikiloblastic crystals. Thermobarometry applied to the anatectic assemblage yields low-temperature, granulitefacies peak conditions of 750 °C, 0.5 GPa. This temperature is approximately 100 °C lower than the accepted conditions for the onset of fluid-absent biotite melting. This, coupled to the focussing of anatexis on extensional fractures, suggests that anatexis occurred through waterpresent biotite incongruent melting. In order to better understand this process, both fluid-absent and water present partial melting experiments were conducted within the temperature interval 700 to 900 °C at 0.7 GPa. In the fluid-absent experiments, biotite incongruent melting started between 800 and 850 °C to produce melt coexisting with peritectic garnet and cordierite. In contrast, in water-saturated experiments, biotite melted via the reaction Bt + Pl + Q + H2O = Grt + Crd + Melt, between 700 and 750 °C, to produce melt, cordierite and garnet in the proportions 73:24:3.