Structure and evolution of the Congo Basin: long-lived record of tectonic and climatic events during the last Billion years
Discipline
Earth and related Environmental sciences
Subject
Geodynamics and mineral resources
Audience
Scientific
Date
2021Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
The Congo Basin is a remarkable intracontinental sag basin developed in the middle of the African continent since the late Mesoproterozoic. A recent investigation combing all the available data from various geological and geophysical exploration campaigns allowed producing a new view of his sedimentary and tectonic evolution since its onset as a failed rift system at about 1.06 GA (Delvaux et al., 2021). We propose a revised seismostratigraphic model based on a detailed interpretation of about 1600 km of seismic profiles, borehole and outcrop data. We produced depth maps for the prominent reflectors and thickness maps for the seismostratigraphic units that highlight the three-dimensional evolution of the CB trough time. It recorded the deposition history of up to one billion years of sediments above a metamorphic basement. It registered several global glacial events in a geodynamic setting evolving from the end of the Rodina amalgamation to the Gondwana assembly and breakup while drifting over the South Pole and terminating at the Equator. Its early history parallels the evolution of the Mesoproterozoic-Neoproterozoic Kibaride belts of Central Africa. Surrounded by Pan-African orogenic belts in the late Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, it was affected by far-field deformations and associated vertical movements that left a prominent tectonic unconformity coeval with well-expressed Pan-African unconformities elsewhere in Gondwana. During the late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic, sedimentation occurred in the context of the Gondwanide orogeny along the southern margin of Gondwana. It induced locally intense tectonic reactivation and general vertical movements, leading to the development of a second basin-scale unconformity at the base of the Jurassic). References Delvaux, D., Maddaloni, F., Tesauro, M., Braitenberg, C., 2021. The Congo Basin: Stratigraphy and subsurface structure defined by regional seismic reflection, refraction and well data. Global and Planetary Change 198, 103407. doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2020.103407.
Citation
Delvaux, D.; Maddaloni, F.; Tesauro, M.; Braitenberg, C. (2021). Structure and evolution of the Congo Basin: long-lived record of tectonic and climatic events during the last Billion years. , 7th International Geologica Belgica meeting Geosciences Made in Belgium , 15-17 September 2021, AfricaMuseum, Tervuren, Belgium, Abstract book, p. 160,Identifiers
Type
Conference
Peer-Review
No
Language
eng