Abstract
The continental margin of the West African Shield in the northern Gulf of Guinea may be divided into three characteristic areas:
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1.
The Liberia continental margin is linked to two structural trends. The first one corresponds to the escarpment of the Liberia marginal plateau, the second one to a deep structural trend that merges into the continental slope of the Ivory Coast to the west of Abidjan and is in alignment with it. This feature has been identified as the prolongation of the St. Paul’s fracture zone.
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2.
The continental margin off the Ivory Coast and Ghana is characterized by the occurrence of a thick sedimentary basin which developed between the coastal fault system and the Romanche fracture zone. The seismic profiles reveal that this basin was weakly structured and contains sediments as old as the Late Cretaceous. The basin continues eastward on the marginal plateau of the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Here one can postulate the presence of older formations, probably Paleozoic in age. It is bounded to the south by a steep escarpment aligned in the Romanche fracture. One can point out the noteworthy similarity, from a tectonic standpoint, of the Liberia and Ivory Coast-Ghana marginal plateaus.
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3.
To the east the main feature of the Niger continental margin is, on the one hand, the development of diapiric phenomena that can be attributed to clay-shale diapirs, and, on the other, the existence of two fracture zones, the Chain fracture and a new one called the Charcot fracture zone.
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Delteil, JR., Valery, P., Montadert, L., Fondeur, C., Patriat, P., Mascle, J. (1974). Continental Margin in the Northern Part of the Gulf of Guinea. In: Burk, C.A., Drake, C.L. (eds) The Geology of Continental Margins. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01141-6_22
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