The 2.1 Ga West Central African Belt in Cameroon: extension and evolution

Abstract

Available isotopic and geochronological data, combined with new petrographic and structural observations in Cameroon, permit discussion of the nature and extension of the Paleoproterozoic West Central African Belt, which resulted from the Eburnean collision between the Congo and São Francisco cratons. The portion of the belt recognized in Cameroon is approximately oriented NNE-SSW and includes the Nyong series along the NW corner of the Congo craton and Paleoproterozoic remnants cropping out further north within the late Neoproterozoic Pan-African belt. The dominant rock units consist of migmatitic orthogneisses associated with amphibolites, felsic gneisses of volcanic to volcano-sedimentary origin, quartzites, and banded iron formations. Orthogneisses are mostly TTG compositions within the Nyong series and metadiorites to metagranodiorites to the north in the Pan-African belt. Paleoproterozoic evolution is characterized by the development of nappe tectonic structures, recognized in the Nyong series, and by high-grade, granulitic facies metamorphism that was associated with arrested charnockite formation. The Paleoproterozoic structures and mineral assemblages were subsequently reworked more severely in the Pan-African mobile belt than in the Nyong series, where they are locally well preserved. Broadly, the Nyong series may be ascribed to a proximal domain characterized by reworking and recycling of the adjacent Archean cratonic crust, while the occurrences farther north represent a more distal domain characterized by newly formed Paleoproterozoic (Birrimian) crust. This is consistent with the distribution of metamorphic ages, which display a polarity from the internal zones (ca. 2.1 Ga) to the external zones (ca. 2.03 Ga) and suggest origin of the metamorphic rocks in a modern-type collisional belt during the Paleoproterozoic (Eburnean).