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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2008; v. 297; p. 453-465;
DOI: 10.1144/SP297.21
© 2008 Geological Society of London

The Variscan orogeny along the West African craton

Devonian extension of the Pan-African crust north of the West African craton, and its bearing on the Variscan foreland deformation: evidence from eastern Anti-Atlas (Morocco)

Lahssen Baidder1, Youssef Raddi2, Mohamed Tahiri2 & André Michard3

1 Laboratoire de Géodynamique, Faculté des Sciences Aïn Chok, BP 5366 Maârif, Casablanca, Morocco (e-mail: l.baidder{at}fsac.ac.ma, lbaidder{at}yahoo.fr)
2 Direction du Développement Minier, Ministère de l'Energie et des Mines, BP 6208, Rabat Agdal, Morocco
3 Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France

The Anti-Atlas belt belongs to the northern fringe of the West African craton, moderately deformed during the Variscan orogeny south of the Meseta Block. Field-based investigations into the stratigraphy and structure of the Palaeozoic cover have been performed in the eastern part of Anti-Atlas, with emphasis on the Devonian terranes. The Pan-African basement, which crops out in the Ougnat massif, was fragmented into a mosaic of tilted blocks during a sequence of extensional faulting events that occurred from Cambrian to (mostly) Late Devonian times. The Devonian normal fault pattern indicates a multi-directional extension, with a dominant northward direction. The Variscan compression resulted in the inversion of the palaeofaults as strike-slip–reverse faults, the kinematics of which points to a NE-trending regional direction of shortening, probably Permian in age. The occurrence of the Late Devonian palaeofault array accounts for the thick-skinned style of the (eastern) Anti-Atlas belt. The Devonian paleogeography of the Anti-Atlas can be correlated with that of the Meseta, but the lack of any Late Devonian compressional event in the Anti-Atlas shows that the two domains were not mechanically coupled at that time.





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H. Ouanaimi and N. Lazreq
The 'Rich' group of the Draa Basin (Lower Devonian, Anti-Atlas, Morocco): an integrated sedimentary and tectonic approach
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 2008; 297: 467 - 482.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]