Geology of Nigeria
Between 2.9 billion and 500 million years ago, Nigeria was affected by three major orogeny mountain-building events and related igneous intrusions.
Following the Pan-African orogeny, in the Cambrian at the time that multi-cellular life proliferated, Nigeria began to experience regional sedimentation and witnessed new igneous intrusions.
By the Cretaceous period of the late Mesozoic, massive sedimentation was underway in different basins, due to a large marine transgression.
Nigeria has tremendous oil and natural gas resources housed in its thick sedimentary basins, as well as reserves of gold, lead, zinc, tantalite, columbite, coal and tin.
The Migmatite-Gneiss Complex covers half of Nigeria's surface area and encompasses Archean gray gneisses, with tonalite and granodiorite consistencies.
The early folding and metamorphism in the Ibadan area was followed by the emplacement of aplite schist and microgranodiorite dikes during the Liberian orogeny 2.75 billion years ago.
They are overlain by Neoproterozoic pelites, including phyllite and both muscovite and biotite schists, as well as quartzites that form strike ridges in several parts of Nigeria.
Continent-continent collision and eastward subduction affected the southern Trans-Saharan mobile belt and emplaced granitoids throughout the Nigerian Province.
[1] In the Cambrian, at the beginning of the Paleozoic, volcanic debris filled molasse grabens, forming dacite and shoshonite, as the Older Granites continued to emplace.
[2] In the Mesozoic, during the Jurassic, ring complexes known as the Younger Granites intruded Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic basement rocks in the Jos Plateau, as well as in the Air region in Niger.
The arkose sandstone, limestone and shale of the 600 meter thick Odukpani Formation formed during the Cenomanian until the early Turonian, in the vicinity of modern-day Calabar.
Albian Bima sandstone lie unconformably atop Precambrian basement rock, followed by the Turonian limestone and shale sequences of the Gongila Formation.
The Maastrichtian brought a shift to an estuary environment, leading to the deposition of the Gombe Sandstones, which are intercalated with ironstone, siltstone and shales.
The water table in the Sokoto Group varies widely between 20 and 100 meters deep, unconfined near the surface and confined in lower layers of the Gwandu Formation.
The states of Anambra, Benue, Plateau and Taraba have small-scale lead and zinc mining, from deposits that also have large quantities of cadmium, arsenic and antimony.
Nigeria also has other resources useful for energy and construction, including a poorly understood lignite belt in the south, kaolin, gypsum and feldspar.
