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Discussion on "Aeolian and marine deposits of the Tabakbaai Quarry area, western Cape, South Africa" (South African Journal of Geology 107, 619–632)

Council for Geoscience, P.O. Box 572, Bellville, 7535 South Africa, E-mail: doug@geobell.org.za

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Franceschini and Compton (2004) have attempted to better constrain the age of the Late Cenozoic sediments west of Saldanha, given the widely differing results published by previous workers (Dale and McMillan, 1999; Roberts and Brink, 2002). However, their broad range of possible ages as determined on samples using strontium isotope analyses – 0 to 1.4 Ma (minimum range) and 1.7 to 5.9 Ma (maximum range) – (Table 1 Franceschini and Compton, 2004) limits any meaningful improvement of the chronostratigraphy, particularly since the sedimentary succession has a maximum reported time span of only 12 million years (Roberts and Brink, 2002). According to the authors, the poor age resolution is due to the marine Sr isotope curve flattening out in the late Miocene to Pliocene (between ~ 10 and 2 Ma), as well as to technical problems with the isotope apparatus at the University of Cape Town. Did the authors not consider the possibility of sending the samples to other institutions with Sr isotope facilities, in order to achieve more precise results?

A Mio-Pliocene age between ~ 4.9 and 5.9 Ma has been determined for the bulk of the sedimentary succession based upon the overlapping ranges of Sr-derived ages (Franceschini . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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