The main phase of the Kombat Cu-Pb (Ag) mineralization is interpreted as being stratabound and syntectonic. The ore deposits are located in Hüttenberg Formation carbonates, on the Northern Platform margin of the Damara Province. Mineralization occurs on the contact with the overlying Kombat Formation phyllite. The deposits form a near-linear east-west trend of pendant-shaped ore loci with a strike length of 6 km. Characteristic features are the abundance of sandstone in Damaran-age karsts, Fe-Mn oxide/silicate assemblages, intense faulting, fracturing, shearing and brecciation. A strong calcite alteration halo encompasses the deposits. The calcite alteration is of various ages, and therefore not always related to the mineralizing event. The association of stratiform Fe-Mn oxide/ silicate assemblages with the Kombat deposits has led to conflicting ideas regarding the genesis of these deposits. Field evidence, supported by analytical results, has led to the construction of a genetic model for the mineralization and Fe-Mn assemblages. A marine transgression, resulting from late-stage rift tectonism, drowned the southern parts of the Otavi Valley basin. This allowed for deepseated hydrothermal fluids from the northern graben to migrate up the rift structures, enter the Otavi Valley basin, and deposit Fe and Mn as oxide/silicate assemblages in favourable third-order structures on the platform margin. It is probable that an early phase of Cu mineralization was related to these diagenetic processes. A D1 age hiatus in deposition over the platform margin resulted in pervasive calcite alteration, and local solution collapse. With further basin drowning, the Kombat Formation transgressed over the carbonate platform margin and karsts developed in the subsurface environment at the intersection of favourable structures at Kombat. During the latter part of D1, and with the onset of D2 , northward directed thrusting exposed basement highs. With subsequent erosion, Otavi Valley sandstone was deposited into the karsts in the subsurface environment. Folding of the Otavi Valley basin formed the east-west trending Otavi Valley syncline with the development of a flexure, the Otavi Valley monocline, along the original platform margin. During late D2 the Otavi Valley syncline ruptured, forming a complex network of north-northeast trending faults and shear zones. Orogenic brines, expelled from higher temperature metamorphic areas further south, deposited the main phase of Cu mineralization within these karst structures to form the economic Kombat deposits.