Central African Shear Zone

[4] Volcanic activity has occurred along most of the length of the Cameroon line from 130 Ma to the present, and may be related to re-activation of the CASZ.

[3] The CASZ was formerly thought to extend eastward only to the Darfur region of western Sudan.

[3] It is now interpreted to extend into central and eastern Sudan, with a total length of 4,000 km.

[1] In the Sudan, the shear zone may have acted as a structural barrier to development of deep Cretaceous-Tertiary sedimentary basins in the north of the area.

Objections to this theory are that the Bahr el Arab and Blue Nile rifts extend northwest beyond one proposed line for the shear zone.