The Basement Complex

The basement complex is one of the three major litho-petrological components that make up the geology of Nigeria (Fig. 1.1). The Nigerian basement complex forms a part of the Pan-African mobile belt and lies between the West African and Congo Cratons (Fig. 1.2) and south of the Tuareg Shield (Black, 1980). It is intruded by the Mesozoic calc-alkaline ring complexes (Younger Granites) of the Jos Plateau and is unconformably overlain by Cretaceous and younger sediments. The Nigerian basement (Fig.1.3) was affected by the 600 Ma Pan-African orogeny and it occupies the reactivated region which resulted from plate collision between the passive continental margin of the West African craton and the active Pharusian continental margin (Burke and Dewey, 1972; Dada, 2006). The basement rocks are believed to be the results of at least four major orogenic cycles of deformation, metamorphism and remobilization corresponding to the Liberian (2,700 Ma), the Eburnean (2,000 Ma), the Kibaran (1,100 Ma), and the Pan-African cycles (600 Ma).