Author(s)

Alain Rodrigue Nzeuga^1*, Françoise Enyegueà Nyam¹, Robert Nouayou¹, James Derek Fairhead²

¹Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon.
²School of Earth and Environment, Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK.

The coastal and intracontinental sedimentary basins of Cameroon owe their origins to the opening of the South Atlantic. Among these sedimentary basins, we can mention those of Mamfe, Douala and Rio Del Rey, which are the subject of our current study. These were formed following geodynamic processes between the periods from the lower Cretaceous to the Neogene. These processes have significantly affected the basement of these basins leaving as consequences of multiple faults which would in their turn favor a rise of the magma towards the surface which then cooled to give birth to the volcanic rocks which exist there today. A study of the impact of the opening of the South Atlantic on the tectonics of these basins will be made from a geodynamic approach, relying in the first time on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the anomaly map of the total magnetic intensity field reduced to the pole of each basin, then in a second time on the interpretation of the 2D geological models realized on a profile chosen on the anomaly map of the total magnetic intensity field reduced to the pole of each basin. At the end of this study, we will show that the opening of the South Atlantic has similarly impacted the structure of the three basins and the results of the spectral analysis show that the oceanic crust is thinner than the continental crust.

Magnetism, Structural Analysis, Spectral Analysis, Magnetic Modeling, Volcanism, Geodynamics

Nzeuga, A. , Nyam, F. , Nouayou, R. and Fairhead, J. (2019) Impact of the South Atlantic Opening on the Origin and the Tectonic of the Mamfe, Douala and Rio Del Rey Sedimentary Basins, Geodynamics Implication. Open Journal of Earthquake Research, 8, 299-312. doi: 10.4236/ojer.2019.84017.