Breccia veins and dykes associated with the Roter Kamm Crater, Namibia

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Abstract
Roter Kamm is a relatively young 2.5-km-diameter impact crater located in the southern Namib desert. The rocks of the crater rim are fractured and cut by numerous fine-grained, clast-rich veins and dykes that closely resemble pseudotachylytes in the field. Most veins closely match their host rocks in bulk composition and have formed by localized cataclasis of the host rock followed in many cases by partial re-crystallization that has partly obliterated the cataclastic texture in the finest grain size fraction. This thermal annealing is most prominent in the very narrow veinlets, in the margins of the larger veins, and in the most quartz-rich veins. The spatial distribution of the veins and the association of veins in quartz breccias with quartz showing planar elements are consistent with an impact origin. The similarities to pseudotachylyte occurrences at other impact sites, including the type locality at Vredefort, warrants the classification of these veins as pseudotachylytes, despite the absence of evidence for melting.

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