Modelling the extreme uplift in the Rwenzori Mountains: Insights from exogenic and endogenic numerical approaches

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Georg Kaufmann; Professor Dr. Harro Schmeling
• Subject Area: Geophysics and Geodesy
• Term: from 2006 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 18857975

This project looks at the possible geodynamic driver for extreme uplift in the Rwenzori mountains, and adjacent rift flanks, reaching an altitude of about 5000 m a.s.l. within an extensional setting. Such extreme values cannot be explained at present, with any existing rift modelling scenario, which cuts off at about 2 km rift shoulder uplift. In the first three years of the project we will first address three different hypotheses for extreme uplift: 1) Uplift through significant volume of a vertical channel like melt intrusion, 2) Buoyancy through delamination of an old suture zone, 3) 3- D Modelling of transtension, with vorticity of the craton and secondary compression due to flip of rift shoulders.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 703: Rift Dynamics, Uplift and Climate Change in Equatorial Africa: Interdisciplinary Research Linking Asthenospere, Lithosphere, Biosphere and Atmosphere