The Separation of South America and Africa: A Journey Through Continental Drift

Nov 21, 2025 0

The separation of South America and Africa is a captivating story rooted in early observations and evolving scientific understanding. As early as 1620, Francis Bacon noted the similarity between the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa. This observation predates plate tectonics.

In 1858, Antonio Snider illustrated on maps how Africa and South America might have once been joined and subsequently broken apart. This early insight laid the foundation for the development of the theory of continental drift.

Wegener's Hypothesis: The Supercontinent Pangaea

In the early 1900s, Alfred Wegener proposed that continents could fit together to form a giant supercontinent called Pangaea. The northern half of Pangaea is called Laurasia and the southern half called Gondwanaland. Wegener's hypothesis, known as continental drift, described one of the earliest ways geologists thought continents moved over time.

The theory of continental drift is most associated with the scientist Alfred Wegener. In the early 20th century, Wegener published a paper explaining his theory that the continental landmasses were “drifting” across the Earth, sometimes plowing through oceans and into each other. He called this movement continental drift.

Pangea and Continental Drift 2 Animation

Prof. Dr. Alfred Wegener, ca. 1912

Evidence for Pangaea

Wegener, trained as an astronomer, used biology, botany, and geology describe Pangaea and continental drift. The following evidence supported Wegener's proposal of continental drift:

Shape of Continents: The geometric fit. First, the shape of some continents match, particularly South America and Africa. The east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa seem to fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and Wegener discovered their rock layers “fit” just as clearly.
Fossil Evidence: Wegener noted that plant fossils of late Paleozoic age found on several different continents were quite similar, suggesting that they evolved together on a single large land mass. For example, fossils of the ancient reptile mesosaurus are only found in southern Africa and South America. Mesosaurus, a freshwater reptile only one meter (3.3 feet) long, could not have swum the Atlantic Ocean. The presence of mesosaurus suggests a single habitat with many lakes and rivers.
Geological Match: Broad belts of rocks in Africa and South America are the same. These broad belts are match when the end of the continents are joined. South America and Africa were not the only continents with similar geology. Wegener discovered that the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, for instance, were geologically related to the Caledonian Mountains of Scotland.
Glacial Evidence: Wegener was also aware that a continental ice sheet covered parts of South America, southern Africa, India, and southern Australia about 300 million years ago. Glacial striations on rocks show that glaciers moved from Africa toward the Atlantic Ocean and from the Atlantic Ocean onto South America. Such glaciation is most likely if the Atlantic Ocean was missing and the continents joined.
Climate Evidence: If the continents were cold enough so that ice covered the southern continents, why is no evidence found for ice in the northern continents? Simple! the present northern continents were at the equator at 300 million years ago as indicated by deposits of coral reefs and deserts. Wegener also studied plant fossils from the frigid Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. These plants were not the hardy specimens adapted to survive in the Arctic climate. These fossils were of tropical plants, which are adapted to a much warmer, more humid environment. The presence of these fossils suggests Svalbard once had a tropical climate.

Gondwana landmass

From Pangaea to Modern Continents

Pangaea existed about 240 million years ago. By about 200 million years ago, this supercontinent began breaking up. Over millions of years, Pangaea separated into pieces that moved away from one another. These pieces slowly assumed their positions as the continent we recognize today.

About 140 million years ago, Africa and South America started to break apart, as rifts valleys started to form along weak points that already existed such as seen today in eastern Africa. Tectonic shifts caused magma from the mantle of the Earth to move to the surface and generate a new oceanic crust. Those continents moved away from each another and the Atlantic Ocean was formed at the expense of the Panthalassa Ocean which shrank in size, leaving the Pacific Ocean as a remnant of its previous large size.

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Today, scientists think that several supercontinents like Pangaea have formed and broken up over the course of the Earth’s lifespan. These include Pannotia, which formed about 600 million years ago, and Rodinia, which existed more than a billion years ago.

Tectonic Activity: The Driving Force

Scientists did not initially accept Wegener’s theory of continental drift. One of the elements lacking in the theory was the mechanism for how it works-why did the continents drift and what patterns did they follow? Wegener suggested that perhaps the rotation of the Earth caused the continents to shift towards and apart from each other. (It doesn't.)

Today, we know that the continents rest on massive slabs of rock called tectonic plates. The plates are always moving and interacting in a process called plate tectonics. The continents are still moving today. Some of the most dynamic sites of tectonic activity are seafloor spreading zones and giant rift valleys.

In the process of seafloor spreading, molten rock rises from within the Earth and adds new seafloor (oceanic crust) to the edges of the old. Seafloor spreading is most dynamic along giant underwater mountain ranges known as mid-ocean ridges. As the seafloor grows wider, the continents on opposite sides of the ridge move away from each other. The North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, for example, are separated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The two continents are moving away from each other at the rate of about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) per year.

Rift valleys are sites where a continental landmass is ripping itself apart. Africa, for example, will eventually split along the Great Rift Valley system. What is now a single continent will emerge as two-one on the African plate and the other on the smaller Somali plate. The new Somali continent will be mostly oceanic, with the Horn of Africa and Madagascar its largest landmasses.

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The processes of seafloor spreading, rift valley formation, and subduction (where heavier tectonic plates sink beneath lighter ones) were not well-established until the 1960s. It is easy to look at a map of the world and see the obvious similarities between the western coast of Africa and the eastern coast of South America, and how well they fit together.

Gondwana: The Southern Supercontinent

The reason for this is that South America and Africa are fragments of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana that was itself once part of a larger landmass known as Pangea (or Pangaea). Gondwana was a vast landmass that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, which started to break apart at the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic periods around 200 million years ago.

Africa and South America were connected, along with other landmasses such as Antarctica, Australia, and the Indian subcontinent. The northern hemisphere continents formed a similar supercontinent known as Laurasia. For a time, these two huge landmasses were joined together to form Pangea and were surrounded by the vast, global Panthalassa Ocean.

Gondwana ([1] gond-WAHN-ə;[2] Sanskrit: [goːɳɖɐʋɐnɐ]) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. Gondwana was formed by the accretion of several cratons (large stable blocks of the Earth's crust), beginning c. 800 to 650 Ma with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Madagascar with East Africa, and culminating in c. 600 to 530 Ma with the overlapping Brasiliano and Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively.[3] Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Paleozoic Era, covering an area of some 100,000,000 km2 (39,000,000 sq mi),[4] about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. It fused with Laurasia during the Carboniferous to form Pangaea.

Gondwana began to separate from northern Pangea (Laurasia) during the Triassic, and started to fragment during the Early Jurassic (around 180 million years ago). The final stages of break-up saw the fragmentation of the Antarctic land bridge (involving the separation of Antarctica from South America and Australia, forming the Drake and Tasmanian Passages), which occurred during the Paleogene (from around 66 to 23 million years ago (Ma)).

The continent of Gondwana was named by the Austrian scientist Eduard Suess after the Indian region of the same name, which is derived from Sanskrit गोण्डवन goṇḍavana ('forest of the Gonds').[7] The name had been previously used in a geological context, first by H. B. Eastern Gondwana.

Assembly of Gondwana

The assembly of Gondwana was a protracted process during the Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic, which remains incompletely understood because of the lack of paleo-magnetic data. Several orogenies, collectively known as the Pan-African orogeny, caused the continental fragments of a much older supercontinent, Rodinia, to amalgamate. One of those orogenic belts, the Mozambique Belt, formed 800 to 650 Ma and was originally interpreted as the suture between East (India, Madagascar, Antarctica, Australia) and West Gondwana (Africa and South America).

The last stages of Gondwanan assembly overlapped with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean between Laurentia and western Gondwana.[13] During this interval, the Cambrian explosion occurred. The Mozambique Ocean separated the Congo-Tanzania-Bangweulu Block of central Africa from Neoproterozoic India (India, the Antongil Block in far eastern Madagascar, the Seychelles, and the Napier and Rayner Complexes in East Antarctica).

The continents of Australia and East Antarctica were still separated from India, eastern Africa, and Kalahari by c. 600 Ma, when most of western Gondwana had already been amalgamated. By c. 550 Ma, India had reached its Gondwanan position, which initiated the Kuunga orogeny (also known as the Pinjarra orogeny). Meanwhile, on the other side of the newly forming Africa, Kalahari collided with Congo and Rio de la Plata which closed the Adamastor Ocean.

As the rest of Gondwana formed, a complex series of orogenic events assembled the eastern parts of Gondwana (eastern Africa, Arabian-Nubian Shield, Seychelles, Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, East Antarctica, Australia) c. 750 to 530 Ma. First, the Arabian-Nubian Shield collided with eastern Africa (in the Kenya-Tanzania region) in the East African Orogeny c.750 to 620 Ma. Then Australia and East Antarctica were merged with the remaining Gondwana c.

The later Malagasy orogeny at about 550-515 Mya affected Madagascar, eastern East Africa and southern India. The 18,000 km-long (11,000 mi) Terra Australis Orogen developed along Gondwana's western, southern, and eastern margins.[19] Proto-Gondwanan Cambrian arc belts from this margin have been found in eastern Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and Antarctica.

Terranes Accreted to Eurasia

Many terranes were accreted to Eurasia during Gondwana's existence, but the Cambrian or Precambrian origin of many of these terranes remains uncertain. For example, some Paleozoic terranes and microcontinents that now make up Central Asia, often called the "Kazakh" and "Mongolian terranes", were progressively amalgamated into the continent Kazakhstania in the late Silurian.

In the Early Paleozoic, the Armorican terrane, which today form large parts of France, was part of Peri-Gondwana; the Rheic Ocean closed in front of it and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean opened behind it. South-east Asia was made of Gondwanan and Cathaysian continental fragments that were assembled during the Mid-Paleozoic and Cenozoic.

This process can be divided into three phases of rifting along Gondwana's northern margin: first, in the Devonian, North and South China, together with Tarim and Quidam (north-western China) rifted, opening the Paleo-Tethys behind them. These terranes accreted to Asia during Late Devonian and Permian. Second, in the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian, Cimmerian terranes opened Meso-Tethys Ocean; Sibumasu and Qiangtang were added to south-east Asia during Late Permian and Early Jurassic.

Gondwana's long, northern margin remained a mostly passive margin throughout the Paleozoic. The Early Permian opening of the Neo-Tethys Ocean along this margin produced a long series of terranes, many of which were and still are being deformed in the Himalayan orogeny. These terranes are, from Turkey to north-eastern India: the Taurides in southern Turkey; the Lesser Caucasus Terrane in Georgia; the Sanand, Alborz, and Lut terranes in Iran; the Mangysglak Terrane in the Caspian Sea; the Afghan Terrane; the Karakorum Terrane in northern Pakistan; and the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes in Tibet.

During the Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic phase of the Terra Australis Orogen, a series of terranes were rafted from the proto-Andean margin when the Iapetus Ocean opened, to be added back to Gondwana during the closure of that ocean.[25] During the Paleozoic, some blocks which helped to form parts of the Southern Cone of South America, include a piece transferred from Laurentia when the west edge of Gondwana scraped against southeast Laurentia in the Ordovician.[26] This is the Cuyania or Precordillera terrane of the Famatinian orogeny in northwest Argentina which may have continued the line of the Appalachians southwards.[27] Chilenia terrane accreted later against Cuyania.[28] The collision of the Patagonian terrane with the southwestern Gondwanan occurred in the late Paleozoic.

Gondwana as Part of Pangaea

Gondwana formed part of Pangaea for c. Gondwana and Laurasia formed the Pangaea supercontinent during the Carboniferous. In the western end of Pangaea, the collision between Gondwana and Laurasia closed the Rheic and Paleo-Tethys oceans. The obliquity of this closure resulted in the docking of some northern terranes in the Marathon, Ouachita, Alleghanian, and Variscan orogenies, respectively.

Southern terranes, such as Chortis and Oaxaca, on the other hand, remained largely unaffected by the collision along the southern shores of Laurentia. Some Peri-Gondwanan terranes, such as Yucatán and Florida, were buffered from collisions by major promontories. Other terranes, such as Carolina and Meguma, were directly involved in the collision. The final collision resulted in the Variscan-Appalachian Mountains, stretching from present-day Mexico to southern Europe.

Meanwhile, Baltica collided with Siberia and Kazakhstania which resulted in the Uralian orogeny and Laurasia. In the eastern end, collisions occurred slightly later. The North China, South China, and Indochina blocks rifted from Gondwana during the middle Paleozoic and opened the Proto-Tethys Ocean. North China docked with Mongolia and Siberia during the Carboniferous-Permian, followed by South China.

The Cimmerian blocks then rifted from Gondwana to form the Paleo-Tethys and Neo-Tethys oceans in the Late Carboniferous, and docked with Asia during the Triassic and Jurassic. The formation of Pangaea and its mountains had a tremendous impact on global climate and sea levels, which resulted in glaciations and continent-wide sedimentation.

In North America, the base of the Absaroka sequence coincides with the Alleghanian and Ouachita orogenies and are indicative of a large-scale change in the mode of deposition far away from the Pangaean orogenies.

The Breakup of Gondwana

The breakup of Pangaea began with the Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP) between South America, Africa, North America, and Europe. CAMP covered more than seven million square kilometres over a few million years, reached its peak at c. Antarctica, the centre of the supercontinent, shared boundaries with all other Gondwana continents and the fragmentation of Gondwana propagated clockwise around it.

The break-up was the result of the eruption of the Karoo-Ferrar igneous province, one of the Earth's most extensive large igneous provinces (LIP) c. 200 to 170 Ma, but the oldest magnetic anomalies between South America, Africa, and Antarctica are found in what is now the southern Weddell Sea where initial break-up occurred during the Jurassic c.

The oldest western Indian ocean floor formed between Madagascar and Africa c. 150 Ma (left) and between India and Madagascar c. Gondwana began to break up in the early Jurassic following the extensive and fast emplacement of the Karoo-Ferrar flood basalts c. 184 Ma. The Madagascar block and the Mascarene Plateau, stretching from the Seychelles to Réunion, were broken off India, causing Madagascar and Insular India to be separate landmasses: elements of this break-up nearly coincide with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

The India-Madagascar-Seychelles separations appear to coincide with the eruption of the Deccan basalts, whose eruption site may survive as the Réunion hotspot. The oldest eastern Indian ocean floor formed between India and Antarctica c. 120 Ma (left). The Kerguelen LIP began to form the Ninety East ridge c. 80 Ma (centre). The Indian and Australian plates merged c.

East Gondwana, comprising Antarctica, Madagascar, India, and Australia, began to separate from Africa. East Gondwana then began to break up c. 132.5 to 96 Ma when India moved northwest from Australia-Antarctica.[44] The Indian plate and the Australian plate are now separated by the Capricorn plate and its diffuse boundaries.[45] During the opening of the Indian Ocean, the Kerguelen hotspot first formed the Kerguelen Plateau on the Antarctic plate c. 118 to 95 Ma and then the Ninety East Ridge on the Indian plate at c.

Separation between Australia and East Antarctica began c. 132 Ma with seafloor spreading occurring c. 96 Ma. A shallow seaway developed over the South Tasman Rise during the Early Cenozoic and as oceanic crust started to separate the continents during the Eocene c. 35.5 Ma global ocean temperature dropped significantly.[47] A dramatic shift from arc- to rift magmatism c. 100 Ma separated Zealandia, including New Zealand, the Campbell Plateau, Chatham Rise, Lord Howe Rise, Norfolk Ridge, and New Caledonia, from West Antarctica c.

At c. 126 Ma (left) the Falkland Plateau began to slide past southern Africa and the Paraná-Etendeka LIP had opened the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. At c. The opening of the South Atlantic Ocean divided West Gondwana (South America and Africa), but there is considerable debate over the exact timing of this break-up.

Rifting propagated from south to north along Triassic-Early Jurassic lineaments, but intra-continental rifts also began to develop within both continents in Jurassic-Cretaceous sedimentary basins, subdividing each continent into three sub-plates. Rifting began c. 190 Ma at Falkland latitudes, forcing Patagonia to move relative to the still static remainder of South America and Africa, and this westward movement lasted until the Early Cretaceous 126.7 Ma.

From there rifting propagated northward during the Late Jurassic c. 150 Ma or Early Cretaceous c. 140 Ma most likely forcing dextral movements between sub-plates on either side. South of the Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise the Paraná and Etendeka magmatics resulted in further ocean-floor spreading c. 130 to 135 Ma and the development of rifts systems on both continents, including the Central African Rift System and the Central African Shear Zone which lasted until c. 85 Ma.

At Brazilian latitudes spreading is more difficult to assess because of the lack of palaeo-magnetic data, but rifting occurred in Nigeria at the Benue Trough c. 118 Ma. North of the Equator the rifting began after 120.4 Ma and continued until c. The first phases of Andean orogeny in the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous were characterised by extensional tectonics, rifting, the development of back-arc basins and the emplacement of large batholiths.[51][52] This development is presumed to have been linked to the subduction of cold oceanic lithosphere.[52] During the mid to Late Cretaceous (c. 90 million years ago), the Andean orogeny changed significantly in character.[51][52]

Warmer and younger oceanic lithosphere is believed to have started to be subducted beneath South America around this time. Insular India began to collide with Asia circa 70 Ma, forming the Indian subcontinent, since which more than 1,400 km (870 mi) of crust has been absorbed by the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen.

Australia and Antarctica

In the Early Cenozoic, Australia was still connected to Antarctica c. Australia was warm and wet during the Paleocene and dominated by rainforests. The opening of the Tasman Gateway at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (33 Ma) resulted in abrupt cooling but the Oligocene became a period of high rainfall with swamps in southeastern Australia. During the Miocene, a warm and humid climate developed with pockets of rainforests in central Australia, but before the end of the period, colder and drier climate severely reduced this rainforest.

A brief period of increased rainfall in the Pliocene was followed by drier climate which favoured grassland. Since then, the fluctuation between wet interglacial periods and dry glacial periods has developed into the present arid regime. The Tasman Gateway between Australia and Antarctica began to open c. 40 to 30 Ma. Palaeontological evidence indicates the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) was established in the Late Oligocene c. 23 Ma with the full opening of the Drake Passage and the deepening of the Tasman Gateway.

The oldest oceanic crust in the Drake Passage, however, is 34 to 29 Ma-old which indicates that the spreading between the Antarctic and South American plates began near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.[60] Deep sea environments in Tierra del Fuego and the North Scotia Ridge during the Eocene and Oligocene indicate a "Proto-ACC" opened during this period. Later, 26 to 14 Ma, a series of events severally restricted the Proto-ACC: change to shallow marine conditions along the North Scotia Ridge; closure of the Fuegan Seaway, the deep sea that existed in Tierra del Fuego; and uplift of the Patagonian Cordillera. This, together with the reactivated Iceland plume, contributed to global warming.