Congo Craton

The Congo Craton occupies a large part of central southern Africa, extending from the Kasai region of the DRC into Sudan and Angola.

Magmatic events in Congo (Kunene) and Siberia (Chieress) at 1384 Ma also corroborate the closeness of these two continents during at least 120 million years.

[5] At the time for the formation of the supercontinent Gondwana at c. 550 Ma the Congo Craton formed the already amalgamated central African landmass.

The most recent orogenic event on this bridge occurred at 2 Ga, so the connection between São Francisco and Congo must have formed during the Palaeoproterozoic.

South of this cratonic bridge the Araçuaí–West Congo orogen evolved in the Neoproterozoic in a sea basin made of oceanic crust, an embayment in the São Francisco–Congo continent.

At the end of the Neoproterozoic, Bas-Congo was only affected by the Pan-African orogeny at 566 Ma to a limited extent protected by this passive margin and by the thickness of the craton.