Abstract
SEISMIC reflection profiles from the Cuvette Centrale (Central Basin) of Zaire show that a major contractional deformation affected a part of central Africa during the late Permian and early Triassic periods. At the same time, other regions of central Africa experienced extensional and strike-slip deformation and associated rift formation. The coexistence of such varied styles of tectonic activity over a large continental area resembles the Cenozoic tectonics of central Asia and northwest Europe. The intracontinental deformation seen in these latter areas is attributed to collisional processes at a distant continental margin1–3. By analogy, we argue here that deformation of central Africa in the late Palaeozoic period was a direct result of collisional processes some distance away at the southern margin of Gondwana.
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Daly, M., Lawrence, S., Kimun'a, D. et al. Late Palaeozoic deformation in central Africa: a result of distant collision?. Nature 350, 605–607 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1038/350605a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/350605a0
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