-

Refer to the website below after attempting/trying these exercises on your own. Note- the
discussion on the last chapter of this exercise is on tectonic structures and not meant for
your consumption!!!

https://opengeology.org/historicalgeology/case-studies/the-mixed-up-quartzites-of-cape-agulhas/

And then you notice something…

What pattern is apparent in this outcrop? (Ignore the orange lichens growing on it; look
deeper into the structure of the quartzite.) Hint: it’s a primary sedimentary structure with
geopetal value…

This is cross-bedding, and it’s up-side-down!

Cross-bedding and ripples are part of the same

depositional setting, forming in a flowing directional current.
Cross-bedding is formed when layers of sediment are deposited on the leeward side of a
ripple or dune that is moving grain by grain in a uni-directional current.

Notice how the cross-beds are at an angle to the main beds, and that the cross-beds are
concave-up. They are tangential to the main bed at the bottom (meaning they curve
gently to be parallel with the main bed) and they are truncated by the main bed at the
top (meaning that they stop at an abrupt angle with the bottom of the overlying bed). In
other words, cross-beds look different right-side-up than they do up-side-down. They can
thus serve as good geopetal indicators: little geologic clues in stratified rocks about
“which way was up” when the beds were deposited.

Looking at this outcrop through the eyes of a geologist, then, you see this:
A few dozen meters away, you find a right-side-up set of cross-beds, inclined steeply to be
sure, but not inverted. You can tell this because the cross-beds are concave up, and
truncated on their upper surface, and tangential on their lower surface:
 This observation piques your interest, and
you spend a pleasant half hour in the sunshine, searching around for cross-bedding in
different orientations. You’re not bored for long; soon you find a bunch of examples…

Your geological training allowed you to make the observation that sent you off on this
quest. If you hadn’t been educated to recognize cross-bedding when you saw it, you likely
would have looked at the Cape Agulhas outcrops as “just a bunch of rock.”

So now that the observation has been made, and then validated with additional exploration,
you are probably beginning to wonder why. What hypotheses pop into your mind as you
glide from outcrop to outcrop, seeing dozens of examples of inverted crossbedding.

Scroll through these additional examples you encounter:

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1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
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So there are a variety of orientations for the cross-bedding that you observe. How can
you explain this?

One solution that unfolds in your mind is that the beds in which the cross-beds are
included are themselves in multiple orientations, and in many places overturned. One
way to accomplish this is by folding the beds up rather intensely. Like this (sketch
drawn on my iPad’s “Whiteboard” app):
 Small-scale fold in quartzite beds at Cape
Agulhas.
Sure enough, once you spend a little time looking around, testing your “folded”
hypothesis, you find some confirming evidence; a few tight small scale folds.
Applying Pumpelly’s Rule (the notion that small-scale structures mimic and reflect
larger-scale regional structures), you deduce that you may be in a zone of folded
sedimentary rocks: a ‘fold and thrust belt’ associated with an ancient episode of
mountain building.
Indeed, these folds (and the flipped-around beds they deform) are part of the Cape Fold
Belt, an east-west trending mountain belt that formed along the southern coast of South
Africa when South America mashed into it during the amalgamation of the southern
supercontinent Gondwana. These quartzite strata are the same geologic unit that holds
up the mesa-like form of Table Mountain immediately south of Cape Town, but here
they are much more deformed.

Folds exposed in a mountainside above Hermanus, South Africa. These strata have been
deformed as part of the Cape Fold Belt.
Even driving the roads in this part of the world, there is strong evidence that these strata
have experienced extreme tectonic compression. Explore this Google Maps “Streetview”
scene below:

In this case, noticing the up-side-down cross-beds (a small-scale observation) led to a

regional-scale insight: These rocks have been messed up by a tectonic collision!