THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON

Early Chronostratigraphy of the Precambrian Cameroon

 Precambrian crustal evolution of Cameroon can be traced from Paleoarchean
to late-Neoproterozoic (Feybesse et al., 1998).

 The Archean evolution is recorded in the Congo Craton, while the most
abundant evidence for the Paleoproterozoic evolution is present in the West
Central African Belt (Feybesse et al., 1998).

 This long-lived crustal evolution ended with the Pan-African orogeny, which
produced the Central African Fault Belt (CAFB) extending north of the
Congo Craton into eastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Central African
Republic (CAR) and continuing eastward to Sudan and Uganda.
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
Early Chronostratigraphy of the Precambrian Cameroon
• Lasserre and Soba, (1976) delineated the chronostratigraphy as follows;

1. The Archean Ntem complex in southern Cameroon, which represents the

northern edge of the Congo Craton and extends into CAR with the Bomu
complex.

2. The mobile belt of Central Africa, which comprises rocks of various ages
remobilized during the Pan-African, including the Nyong Group (which
represents the rejuvenated NW corner of the Congo Craton), the migmatitic
basement complex, the schist belts, and various granitoids.
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
Precambrian lithostructural units in Cameroon
Precambrian rocks in Cameroon fall into three main age groups:
Archean, Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic.

• The Archean rocks, locally termed the Ntem complex (Toteu et al., 1994), are
located in the northern part of the Congo Craton.

• The Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic units constitute the north equatorial fold
belt (NEFB) of central Africa (Nzenti et al., 1988; Toteuet et al., 2004).

• The Paleoproterozoic rocks of the NEFB are locally termed the Nyong Series
(Toteu et al., 1994) and the Neoproterozoic unit in southern Cameroon, the
Yaoundé Series.
THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
• The Neoproterozoic volcano-sedimentary formations or schist belts referred to as the
Lom Series and Poli Series (Fig.1) also outcrop in the northern part of Cameroon
(Toteu et al., 2006).

• The NEFB is affected by the Central African shear zone system (CASZ; Njome and
Suh, 2005), a Pre-Mesozoic crustal strike-slip fault system, which extends from
central Africa, across the Atlantic, into NE Brazil.

• In Cameroon, the CASZ forms two branches: the Central Cameroon Shear zone
(CCSZ) to the north and the Sanaga fault (SF) to the south (Ngako et al., 2008).

• These shear zones generally follow a NE–SW trend and reactivation of these faults
has resulted in the development of trans-tensional basins filled by Cretaceous to
Recent sediments in northern Cameroon (Fig.1).
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
Phanerozoic (Post Proterozoic) Rocks
• The Phanerozoic geology of Cameroon consists of poorly defined Cambrian to
Ordovician plutonic rocks (Milési et al., 2004), Cretaceous to Quaternary
sedimentary formations, Tertiary plutonic complexes and Tertiary to Recent
volcanic complexes (Ngako, 2007).

i. Sedimentary Formations
• The sedimentary formations are spatially restricted to the coastal (Rio-del-Rey,
Douala and Kribi-Campo) and continental (Mamfe, Garoua, Koum, Vina,
Mbere and Njerem) basins, where their oldest members (basal sandstones and
conglomerates) unconformably overlie the basement complex (Mateer et al.,
1992; Brownfield and Charpentier, 2006).
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
• The coastal basins are passive margin basins formed in the Early Cretaceous (ca.
123 Ma) as a result of the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean, which began in
the Jurassic when Africa rifted from South America, and contain sedimentary
rocks of predominantly marine origin (Mateer et al., 1992).

• The continental basins, on the other hand, are syn-sedimentary troughs

genetically related to the Benue Trough in eastern Nigeria, and host sedimentary
rocks of continental origin (Mateer et al., 1992).

• These basins are important for hosting hydrocarbon reservoirs and deposits of
phosphates, sulfates, chlorides, gypsum, limestone, vivianite (Ngako, 2007), and
gemstones (Kanouo et al., 2012b).
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
The Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL)
• The CVL (Fig.1) is a linear chain of essentially alkaline intraplate volcanoes.
It trends in an ENE-WSW direction for ~1600 km from the Atlantic Ocean,
straddling the continental margin into mainland Africa (Déruelle et al., 1991).

• The CVL divides into two branches north of Mt. Oku: one of which stretches
to the Biu Plateau in north-eastern Nigeria, while the other passes through the
Adamawa Plateau (Marzoli et al., 2000; Aka et al., 2004), forming a Y-shape.

• This line forms a major geological province on the Cameroon landscape, made
up of >60 high-level continental anorogenic ring complexes, and 12 main
volcanic centers (Wandji et al., 2009) consisting of a continental and an oceanic
segment.
 THE GEOLOGY OF CAMEROON
The Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL)
• The plutonic rocks of this line, consisting of gabbro, syenite and granite
(Moreau et al., 1987) are predominantly alkaline, with some acidic volcanic
equivalents types which range from rhyolites to phonolite.

• Volcanism along this line began at 52 Ma (Moundi et al., 2007) and according
to Aka et al. (2004) Mt Cameroon is the only present active member of the
CVL with seven eruptions recorded in 1909, 1922, 1954,1959,1983,1999 and
2000.
• The ages of igneous rocks from the Cameroon line indicate that the earliest
igneous activity consisting mostly of granite and syenite intrusive ring
complexes that are probably the deeply eroded remnants of still older
volcanoes range from 66 to 30 Ma.