The Saharides: Reassessing the Nature and History of the Pan-African Events in North Africa and the Arabian Shield

Reassessment of the Neoproterozoic evolution of the North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula revealed the presence of a single orogenic belt, the Saharides, starting from the West African Craton in the west to the eastern margin of Arabian Shield in the east. This orogenic event created a large subduction-accretion complex during the Tonian-Cambrian interval as a consequence of convergence between the West African and the Congo cratons. The Saharides are represented by Precambrian inliers such as Ahaggar (or Hoggar) Mountains in Algeria, the Tibesti Massif in Chad, Jebel Uweinat in the intersection of Egypt-Libya-Sudan, the Arabian Shield in the Arabian Peninsula, the Nubian Shield in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and various massifs in Nigeria. Although the evolution of the region embracing the Saharides has been explained by multiple subduction zones and collisions of cratonic pieces involving reactivation of a ‘metacraton’, our analysis showed no continental collisions were involved until the very end of its history. The entire Sahara is shown to be underlain by a double orocline much like the Hercynian double orocline in western Europe and northwestern Africa.