ABSTRACT
The pre-break-up extensional deformation of Gondwana began in the Permo-Triassic in widely separated areas with minor rifting events: along the East African margin, inside southern and eastern Africa and in the Tethys. The break-up began in the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous along the present-day continental margins of Africa and started to affect the interior of the African plate from the Late Jurassic onwards. From the Permian onwards major pulses of alkaline igneous activity in north and central Sudan can be broadly correlated with tectonic events in NE Africa. Continental rifting in Sudan was preceded by a prolonged history of basement uplift and alkaline magmatism, but initial rifting did not occur until plate-scale stress conditions were favourable to cause large extensional strains, that is, from the Late Jurassic onwards. A significant global plate boundary re-organization occurred during the Middle Jurassic with the formation of Neo-Tethyan subduction system north of Gondwana and the evolution of the proto-Pacific margin south of Gondwana.
