The Pan-African belt in central Africa has benefited from the many petrographic, structural, and geochronological studies in the recent years that have improved our understanding of the belt. However, those studies have also produced various and often divergent evolutionary models for the belt, some of which do not even involve well-defined cratons. Following a review of the available data in Cameroon, we propose a model of continent–continent collision that involved the Congo craton and the north-central Cameroon active margin showing Archean to Paleoproterozoic inheritances. This model is based, among others, on (i) the prominent role of the Congo craton as demonstrated by the regional extension of external nappes on its northern edge and the concomitant exhumation of the 620 Ma granulitic rocks believed to have formed at the root of the collision zone, and (ii) the late development of a strike slip fault system in central Cameroon as the result of horizontal movement following the multistage collision. In the general framework of the Pan-Africano – Brasiliano belt, a comparison of the kinematic and age of deformation north of the Congo craton to that east of the West African craton, suggests that the overall tectonic evolution of the mobile domain between both cratons is controlled by their relative motion.

No abstract

No abstract

The Congo (CC) and the São Francisco (SFC) cratons were joined at about 2.05 Ga; northern parts of Palaeoproterozoic basement subsequently underwent extension at about 1 Ga, forming intracratonic basins. Neoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks in these basins yield detrital zircons as young as 630 Ma. The Brasiliano and Pan-African (c. 620–580 Ma) assembly of West Gondwana extensively altered this system. The Sergipano domain occurs north of the SFC, and the comparable Yaoundé domain occurs north of the CC. Crust north of the Sergipano domain comprises the Pernambuco–Alagoas (PEAL) domain. The NE–SW-striking Tcholliré–Banyo fault in Cameroon may extend southwestwards between the PEAL and Sergipano domains, defining northern limits of abundant SFC/CC basement. The Adamawa–Yadé domain in Africa does not appear to extend into Brazil. The Transverse domain of Brazil is a collage of Palaeoproterozoic crustal blocks, the 1.0 Ga Cariris Velhos orogen (CVO), late Neoproterozoic basins, and Brasiliano granites. The CVO extends ENE for more than 700 km in Brazil, but eastern continuation into Africa has not been identified. North of the Transverse domain contiguous c. 2.15 Ga gneisses comprise basement of Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará domains, which continue eastwards into western Nigeria and western Sahara.

No abstract