The Geology of Part of the Upper Luangwa Valley, North-Eastern Rhodesia

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Abstract
The Luangwa Valley is a deep, broad depression that runs in a south-westerly direction down the whole length of north-eastern Rhodesia for a distance of about 400 miles (Fig. 1). Except for a short distance near the south-western end, the floor of the valley is occupied throughout by Karroo sediments, and these continue for another 400 miles in the same direction as far as the Wankie area of Southern Rhodesia. The presence of the Karroo in the Luangwa Valley is due partly to synclinal folding and partly to marginal faulting which has brought down the sediments against the margin of the crystalline plateau. Near the southern end, the western boundary fault has a throw of 5000 feet (Molyneux 1909, p. 434), and at the upper end, near Chikonta, the main eastern fault probably has a throw of about 2500 feet. In 1907 L. A. Wallace showed that the rocks occupying the floor of the Luangwa Valley consisted of sandstones and limestones that were presumably of Karroo age. Subsequently, A. J. C. Molyneux (1909), in his account of the Karroo of Northern Rhodesia, described the sediments of the Luano Valley near the southern end of the Luangwa depression; here the beds ranged from the basal conglomerates upwards as far as the Escarpment Grits, and comprised a total thickness of about 4800 feet. They yielded fragments of fossil wood at various horizons. Fine-grained sediments of Forest Sandstone type were not seen in the Luano area nor in the Luangwa Valley (Molyneux 1909,

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