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Copperbelt Province: Difference between revisions
From Chalo Chatu, Zambia online encyclopedia
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Hand axes and cleavers dating from the early Stone Age and found in the province demonstrate the antiquity of human settlement in the area. By ad300 inhabitants of the region were farmers who smelted iron and exploited local copper deposits. British colonial rule began in the mid-1890s when the British South Africa Company signed treaties with local chiefs. The province became part of the colony of Northern Rhodesia in 1924, and part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953. Members of the mining communities of the Copperbelt took a lead role in the political struggle that brought independence to Zambia in 1964. Population 1,428,869 (1990). | Hand axes and cleavers dating from the early Stone Age and found in the province demonstrate the antiquity of human settlement in the area. By ad300 inhabitants of the region were farmers who smelted iron and exploited local copper deposits. British colonial rule began in the mid-1890s when the British South Africa Company signed treaties with local chiefs. The province became part of the colony of Northern Rhodesia in 1924, and part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953. Members of the mining communities of the Copperbelt took a lead role in the political struggle that brought independence to Zambia in 1964. Population 1,428,869 (1990). | ||
==Geology== | |||
[[File:Brochantite-Chrysocolla-k329b.jpg|thumb|[[Brochantite]] on [[Chrysocolla]], Rokana Mine, [[Kitwe]].]] | |||
The Copperbelt region of Zambia and Congo D.R. is a 500 million year old [[mountain chain]], the [[Lufilian Arc]], which formed when two large pieces of [[continental crust]], the [[Kalahari craton]] and the [[Congo craton]], collided. This collision was one of the many that happened between 700 and 500 million years ago to form the [[Gondwana]] [[supercontinent]]. | |||
This collision is thought to have remobilised [[base metal]]s, largely already present in the sediments that had accumulated in the basin between the two cratons. These [[brine]]s then concentrated the base metals either along [[stratigraphic]] boundaries, or along fractures, [[Geologic fault|faults]] or within structurally controlled 'traps' (such as the nose of a fold). The collision also produced [[crustal shortening]], during which the stratigraphic sequence was [[tectonic]]ally pushed northwards on top of the Congo Craton. | |||
The Lufilian Arc contains two [[diamictite]]s, megaconglomerates of [[glacial]] origin. One of those is correlated with the [[Cryogenian|Sturtian]] glaciation, while another correlates with the Marinoan Glaciation, both global glaciation events that had profound influence on the history of the planet. | |||
The Lufilian Arc is correlated along trend to the west with the Damara Orogen in [[Namibia]], which also hosts large mineral deposits. | |||
Copperbelt Province is rich with mineral finds and mines. The name of the province is given by the rich finds of copper ore (e.g. Chingola, Konkola, Nchanga Mines), but notable are also emerald mines along Kafubu River, which in the first 6 months of 2011 yielded 3.74 tons of high quality emeralds. | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
