An international team of scientists from the USA, Angola, England, Portugal and other countries has discovered the exact location of the fault between Africa and South America. About 140 million years ago, parts of the world separated from each other during the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Geological Society Publications (GSP).
During excavations off the southern coast of Angola, the team discovered samples that provided the most complete geological information yet about the separation of continents and the formation of the South Atlantic Ocean. The fossils and stones found date back to 130 million to 71 million years ago.
Africa and South America began to separate about 140 million years ago, causing cracks to form in the earth’s crust. As the tectonic plates beneath South America and Africa moved away from each other, magma from the Earth’s mantle rose to the surface, creating new ocean crust and pushing the continents further apart. The South Atlantic Ocean eventually filled the gap between the two newly formed continents.
It turned out that in Angola, according to scientists, traces of all stages of this geological process, which lasted tens of millions of years, can be found: lava fields from volcanic eruptions, cracks in the crust, salt deposits in the zone of ocean evaporation and the remains of marine reptiles that lived here after the separation of the continents.
Previously in Canada to create Tectonic fault that could cause a tsunami in North America.