Project outline & field work
20/08/2015
The current field mission of “CoBra” (= Congo-Brazil thermochron: opening of the South Atlantic) frames in a Ghent University (BOF) project awarded to Prof. De Grave, and in which Gerben Van Ranst will fulfill his PhD. The project looks at the tectonic evolution of supercontinent cycles, and in particular at the role of structural inheritance as driving factors of tectonic reactivation of pre-existing structures. Using low-temperature thermochronometers (e.g. apatite fission-track analysis) we aim at constraining the timing of reactivation events in the West Gondwanan crystalline basement of the Araçuaí-West Congo Belt, an inherited orogenic belt (now located partly in Brazil and partly in West Africa) along which the Cretaceous opening of the South Atlantic basin transpired. This first field and sampling campaign will take us to the granitoids of the Araçuaí belt in co-operation with the Federal University of Minaís Geraís in Belo Horizonte.
Blog posts
First impressions from the field
Gallery
Funding
