Reconstructing orogens without biostratigraphy: The Saharides and continental growth during the final assembly of Gondwana-Land
A. M. Celâl Şengör, Nalan Lom, Cengiz Zabcı, Gürsel Sunal, Tayfun Öner
Abstract
new continental crust. Contrary to conventional wisdom in the areas they occupy, evolution of the Saharides involved no continental collisions until the end of their development. They formed by subduction and strike-slip stacking of arc material mostly by precollisional coastwise transport of arc fragments rifted from the Congo/Tanzania cratonic nucleus in a manner very similar to the development of the Nipponides in east Asia, parts of the North American Cordillera and the Altaids. The Sahara appears to be underlain by a double orocline similar to the Hercynian double orocline in western Europe and northwestern Africa and not by an hypothetical "Saharan Metacraton." The method we develop here may be useful to reconstruct the structure of some of the Precambrian orogenic belts before biostratigraphy became possible.