Trans Brazilian Lineament

[1] The TBL was formed when the Goiás Ocean, lying between the Amazonian craton and the Congo / Sao Francisco craton, was closed during the formation of West Gondwana around 600 million years ago.

[2] The lineament extends from the northeast coast of Brazil in a southwesterly direction through Paraguay and into Argentina, where it is dissipated in the Salado and Colorado extension basins.

[1] The Trans-Saharan Belt (TSB), running from Algeria to Benin, was created in the same period.

Given the correspondence of faults, which is widely accepted, the TBL and TSB form perhaps the longest coherent shear zone on the Earth.

[1] However, after allowing for a sinistral shear movement of about 100 km of the crust to the east of the TBL, there is an excellent fit between South America and Africa both to the south and the west of the Niger Delta.