The Western Desert (WD) rift trend continues to propagate eastwards  into the Hameimat (HA) Basin (Gras and Thusu, 1998). Clastic sedimentation rates rise substantially on NW African margins north of Senegal. This is linked to AFTA data that indicate uplift and erosion at this time over the Reguibat (RE : Charton et al, 2021) and into the Taoudenni (TA) Basin (Girard, 2015).

The whole of the African plate would appear now to be experiencing NE-SW tension, creating a series of NW-SE passive rifts, bounded by E-W trending transforms. The Afro-Brazilian depression (ABD) forms as part of this population (Chaboureau et al, 2013). The Parana (PA)-Etendeka (ET) plume is represented by thick volcanics.  Two further seed points are created for what will later become a dextral transform system crossing Africa, the Marajo Basin (MA) of Brazil (Costa et al, 2002) and a series of transforms in NE Brazil (Popoff, 1988), while rifting spreads eastwards in Sudan (Mchargue et al, 1992). 

The first segment of the South Atlantic is created between the Agulhas (AG) and Cape (CT) Transforms (Macdonald et al, 2003). Rifting proceeds ahead of this as far as the Skeleton Rift (SR) to the north. In the Orange (OR) Basin, a volcanic rifted margin is starting to form.  

In East Africa, the Davie (DFZ) and associated transforms are transporting Eastern Gondwana to the south (Reeves, 2018). The most intense activity lies between the Seagap (SG) Fracture Zone of Tanzania and southwest offshore Madagascar. Numerous inversion structures are developed, including a possible accretionary prism off northwest Mozambique (Roche et al, 2023). The more outboard ‘Davie-Walu’ (DW) trend is a less dramatic feature.

The Late Aptian ‘Austrian event’ includes a) a widespread uplift and unconformity on which erosion increases towards the Sirt rift (Boote et al, 2015), b) faulting in Tunisia/offshore Libya and c) inversions along shear zones in eastern Algeria (Boote et al, 1998). A connection of lineaments from Nigeria to Tunisia can be construed as a segmentation of Africa into two plates The trend could connect to the Adria plate margin, where the first significant ‘Eo-Alpine’ compressions are occurring (Handy et al, 2010). The deep erosion on the rift shoulders and the development of a 'triple junction' between the three branches of the Sirt system suggests that these rifts are ‘plume-related active’ rifts. However, a paucity of volcanism is noted. In Egypt, rifting switches to a more regionally consistent NW-SE trend (Moustafa, 2020).

A continuous dextral shear system is now developed between the Marajo (MA) Basin and Sudan (Popoff, 1988;  Ye et al, 2017. Early stage uplift is suggested by AFTA data on the Leo (LEO) Massif (Wildman et al, 2022). 

Rifting continues off Gabon in the early Aptian, particularly in distal regions, while off Angola, a series of symmetrical unfaulted ‘sag’ basins are created in proximal settings, passing into regions of continued rifting in the deepwater (e.g. Araujo et al, 2023). The subsidence of the sags has been related to thinning of the ductile lower crust (Brune et al, 2014). Following a major peneplanation unconformity at ca 118Ma, sedimentation resumes of clastics in the north and of carbonates in the south (shown as underlay on map). The chemistry of the carbonate waters illustrate the development of a highly alkaline lake covering the Campos (CA), Santos (SA) and Kwanza (KW) Basins, which must precede continental separation. Above this level, the Late Aptian salt (purple hatch on map) was deposited between 116-114Ma within a combination of sag and distal syn-rift settings. (Araujo et al, 2023). Over northern Gabon (NG)/Brazil, the cross-sections of Caixeta et al (2014) show the salt basins to be separated by a zone of Albian rifts. Thus first oceanic crust emplacement over most of the Gabon-northern Namibia segment of the south Atlantic did not occur till around 113-110 Ma (i.e. earliest Albian). An exception seems to be a zone off the Kwanza (KW) and northern Benguela (BE) Basins, where salt is reported to onlap oceanic crust (Marton and Pascoe, 2020). 

Within the Cape Fold Belt area, Moore et al (2009) interpret the first phase of uplift of the southern Africa plateau. This may be driven by transpression caused by the Maurice Ewing Bank (MEB) passing on the Agulhas Fault.

This interval captures a transpressive and inversion event. At 86Ma, the African plate is demonstrated by paleomagnetic data to take a sharp turn and starts to drift northwards towards Europe (Guiraud & Bosworth, 1997). This causes rapid closure of the Izmir-Ankara Ocean (IZ), ophiolite (Oph) obduction and will eventually lead to collision of the Taurides and Pontides blocks at 75Ma (Menant, 2016). A period of anticlockwise rotation of Africa versus Europe commences, initiating dextral wrench movements across north Africa. Inversions are most frequent observed in northeast Africa, particularly in Cyrenaica (CY) and in the Western Desert (WD, Bosworth & Tari 2020), extending through to Israel (‘Syrian Arc I’, Shabar 1994). A major inversion structure is developed under Djerba Island (DI), along the Sabratah Fault. There are limited reports of dextral fault movements and inversions on the now-inactive Hameimat arm (HA, ,Gras and Thusu, 1996), of the Sirt Basin, which can be speculated to be an extension of the Alamein (AL) inversion trend in Egypt. The continued extension in the NW-SE trending arm (Ajdabiya Trough, AJ) of the Sirt Basin (Abdunaser and McCaffrey, 2014) could be related to movements on transforms along the NW Libyan coast and from Egypt into Hameimat, similar to the model originally proposed by Antekell, (1996). The event is weak and localised in the Atlas (AT) mountains (Frizon et al, 2008). 

Major inversion is seen in E-W trending basins of the CARS (Genik, 1991), continuing along the Romanche transform (Davison et al, 2015). The Agadez Line in Niger is also reported to be active (Genik, 1991). It is not easy to link events in this region to the compression of northeast Africa, though a link through the Trans-African Lineament (TAL) is possible. Alternatively, this trend is possibly related to a change in the relative spreading rates of different portions of the Atlantic. 

Inversion effects in eastern Africa of interpreted Santonian age extend through the Mandera Lugh (ML) Basin (Bosworth, 1992). Late Cretaceous tectonics also occur offshore East Africa, including reversal on the Seagap (SG) Fracture Zone.  Precise dating of these events is poor, but the consensus seem to be that such activity commences around around Turonian times (e.g. de Franca, 2012, MSc thesis) and is likely to related to transform activity on the Proto-Owen F.Z. as India moves rapidly north from 89Ma. A volcanic event in the Turonian is centred on Madagascar, termed the ‘Marion Plume’.

The topographic model for the Southern Africa Plateau (SAP) on the maps from now onwards will follow the ‘Hybrid Late’ model of Stanley et al (2021) . The broad nature of the uplift and the association with alkaline magmatism and kimberlites at this time seemingly point to a mantle origin for the uplift, possibly associated with a Present Day S wave velocity in the lower mantle.