New Regional Correlations Between the Congo, Parana´ and Cape-Karoo Basins of Southwest Gondwana - Geology and Resource Potential of the Congo Basin - page 240

fluvial-aeolian sediments (like in the CB), intercalated near
the top with nearly 2 km thick Lower Cretaceous flood
basalts and dacites of the Paran´-Etendeka Large Igneous
Province (LIP) that extruded during early rifting of the South
Atlantic at ca. 132 Ma (Peate et al. 1992 ; Renne et al. 1992 ;
Gibson et al. 2006 ).

2013 ). All together, these sutured South American and south-
central African Shields formed the foundations (e.g. crystal-
line basement) of southwest continental Gondwana that there-
after supported the development of the CB, PB and CKB
(Fig. 13.4 ).
During the early Paleozoic, as Gondwana drifted across
the South Pole (e.g. Torsvik et al. 2012 ), large parts of this
supercontinent again experienced two successive episodes
of glaciation, during the Ordovician (Pakhuis glaciation),
and during the Carboniferous (Dwyka glaciation), the latest
being the most pronounced with the great Dwyka ice cap
covering the southern two-thirds of Africa (as far north as
Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia), the southern half of South
America, Madagascar, India, Antarctica and Australia (e.g.
Martin 1981 ; Veevers et al. 1994 ), and during which sub-
stantial erosion and extensive deposition of glacial
sequences occurred (Monta˜ez and Poulsen 2013 ). This
widespread Gondwanan stratigraphic record of the Carbon-
iferous glaciation was first used by du Toit ( 1927 ) to demon-
strate the concept of

13.3 Geodynamic and Climatic Evolution of
Gondwana Supercontinent Cycle

The CB, PB and Cape-Karoo Basin (CKB) evolved during
continent-wide geodynamic and global climate changes
associated with the amalgamation of Gondwana and Pangea
during the late Precambrian (ca. 500-800 Ma) and the late
Paleozoic (ca. 250-300 Ma), respectively, and during their
subsequent break-up, through the Meso-Cenozoic (ca.
0-200 Ma), to a complete supercontinental ' cycle ' .

.
In the northern hemisphere, a number of other terrains
(now known as Laurentia and Baltica) had also merged to
form Laurasia (e.g. Cocks and Torsvik; 2006 ; Domeier et al.
2012 , and references therein) that, in turn, collided with
Gondwana to form Pangea at ca. 275-325 Ma along the
Mauritanian-Variscan Belts that extends from eastern
United States (Appalachian), through the Mauritanides
in northwest Africa, to Brittany (Armorican) in western
Europe (Lefort 1989 ; Dabo et al. 2008 ; Van Staal et al.
2009 ; Kroner and Romer 2013 ; Fig. 13.4 ). Shortly thereaf-
ter, orogenesis along the southwestern margin of Gondwana
resulted in the formation of the Sierra de la Ventana-Cape
Fold Belts (ca. 245-278 Ma; Newton et al. 2006 ), which
extends from northern Argentina to southern South Africa
(de Wit and Ransome 1992 ;P ´ ngaro and Ramos 2012 , and
references therein), as part of the larger

' Continental Drift '

13.3.1 Gondwana and Pangea Amalgamation

The formation of Gondwana occurred over a period of about
300 Ma during the late Precambrian (ca. 500-800 Ma),
associated with extensive ' Himalayan-type ' orogens and a

succession of intense glaciations (e.g. ;

Hoffman 1999 ). Several Archean cratons amalgamated
along Paleo- and Meso-Proterozoic belts, fragments of a
previous (Rodinia) supercontinent (and here referred as
'

' Snowball Earth '

), merged along a regional network of late
Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian fold-and-thrust belts to
form Gondwana. These mobile belts are referred to as Pan
African and Brasiliano in Africa and South America, respec-
tively (Fig. 13.3 ).
In southern Africa, the (Archean) Azanian Craton flanked
by the 1-2 Ga Namaqua-Natal Belt comprises the Kalahari
Shield (Fig. 13.3 ), which in turn amalgamated to the north
with the Central African Shield along the Damara-Lufilian
Belts during the southern Pan African orogen (de Wit et al.
2008 ). The Central African Shield that includes the Kasai, NE
Angolan, Ntem, Mboumou and Tanzanian Cratons
surrounding the CB (see Chap. 2 ,this Topic),isflankedto
the north by the 0.5-1 Ga E-W striking Oubanguides Belt,
along which it amalgamated with the North African Shield
during the northern (Sahara) Pan African orogen. This vast
Pan African mobile belt has also been linked to the
(Brasiliano) Sergipano Belt of northeast Brazil (Toteu et al.
2006 ; de Wit et al. 2008 , and references therein). In a similar
manner, the N-S trending West Congo Belt of west-central
Africa and its counterpart, the Ribeira-Ara¸ua ´ Belts in east-
ern Brazil, linked the Central African and Sao Francisco
Shields (Pedrosa-Soares et al. 2008 ). In turn, the Sao
Francisco and the 2.0-2.5 Ga Rio de la Plata Shields, that in
part underlies the PB (Rapela et al. 2011 ), amalgamated to the

Shields '

of
du Toit ( 1937 ). It has since been postulated that this main
period of plate convergence, between 240-330 Ma, resulted
in large-scale intracontinental deformation with long wave-
length flexures across southwest Gondwana (Daly et al.
1992 ; Trouw and de Wit 1999 ; Milani and de Wit 2008 ).
This deformation was also associated with abundant volca-
nic and magmatic arcs activity along the proto-Andes (e.g.
Kleiman and Japas 2009 ), which produced widespread
ignimbrites and air-fall tuffs in the surrounding sedimentary
basins (Stollhofen et al. 2000 ;L ´ pez-Gamund ´ 2006 ; Fildani
et al. 2009 ; Rocha-Campos et al. 2011 ).

' Samfrau Orogen '

13.3.2 Synopsis of Pangea and Gondwana
Break-Up

Pangea, and subsequently Gondwana break-up started at
about 200 and 180 Ma, respectively (e.g. Reeves 1999 ;