Making ends meet in Gondwana: retracing the transforms

of the Indian Ocean and reconnecting continental shear zones

Colin Reeves1* and Maarten de Wit2
1
International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC), PO Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands; 2Centre for
Interactive Graphical Computing for Earth Systems, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South
Africa

ABSTRACT
Interpretation of the detailed patterns of ocean-¯oor trans-
forms revealed by satellite altimetry enables the creation of the
Indian Ocean to be described quantitatively as four consecutive
plate-tectonic regimes separated at 200, 136, 89 and 43 Ma.
Each regime is reversed in turn by keeping transform termini
coincident and colinear until conjugate points on the margins of
pre-existing plates regain their pre-regime integrity. Progres-
sive elimination of the Indian Ocean, demonstrable as a smooth
computer animation (http://www.kartoweb.itc.nl/gondwana),
leads to a re®ned re-assembly of the continental fragments of
central Gondwana that is substantiated by new geological data.
A sequence of Euler interval poles that describes the dispersal
of the Gondwana fragments, time-calibrated against available
magnetic anomaly data, is given. The model requires a mid-
Cretaceous position for India's southern tip about 1000 km
south of Madagascar, prior to India's rapid northward migra-
tion.
Terra Nova, 12, 272±280, 2000

creation of the Indian Ocean requires regime. However, it is argued herein

Introduction
Satellite-based sea-surface altimetry
(Haxby, 1987; Smith and Sandwell,
1997) reveals with new clarity the
topography of the world's oceans
and their transform faults and frac-
ture zones. The present contribution
outlines an attempt to reverse the
growth of transforms by keeping their
termini coincident and colinear, so as
to determine starting positions for the
continents around the Indian Ocean
through retracing the trajectories by
which they separated.
The elegance of plate tectonic theory
lies in its ability to describe Earth
processes as the relative movement of
a small number of rigid plates on a
spherical surface. This may be exem-
pli®ed by the growth of the South
Atlantic Ocean, where a single Euler
interval pole and a constant rate of
Euler rotation of rigid South America
and Africa is a fair ®rst-approximation
to the growth of this ocean since rifting
turned to drifting. While departures
from this simplicity (such as the role of
microplates, di€use continental plate
boundaries or the nonuniformity of
spreading rates) may be interesting,
even a simpli®ed description of the
*Correspondence: C. Reeves, International
Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth
Sciences (ITC), Kanaalweg 3, 2628 EB,
Delft, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31/ 15
2748847; Fax: +31/ 15 2623961; E-mail:
reeves@itc.nl
several distinct, consecutive `®rst-
order' plate tectonic regimes of this
type. The main features of Indian
Ocean tectonics were described by
Norton and Sclater (1979) 20 years
ago, but even recent summaries of
Gondwana dispersal (e.g. de Wit et al.,
1988; MuÈller et al., 1993; Storey, 1995;
Roeser et al., 1996) reveal the many
detailed uncertainties that remain in
the sequence of events by which the
supercontinent dispersed. An attempt
is made herein to resolve some of these
by taking a `global' view of what is
possible, given the constraints of the
new data.
The approach described has led to
the quantitative de®nition of four such
®rst-order plate tectonic regimes for
the Indian Ocean. The main lines o€er
some new ideas that are economical of
hypothesis within a framework of
known data. For each regime, Euler
interval poles (Table 1) are listed
which approximate the instantaneous
rotation poles for the regime. Reas-
sembling plates with coincidence and
alignment of the transforms in their
palaeo-positions on a spherical earth
in practice gives little room for misin-
terpretation in deciphering the nature
and sequence of the main events. The
available ocean-¯oor magnetic anom-
aly evidence can then be used to time-
calibrate and re®ne the model. Where
this is suciently detailed, it indicates
a uniform rate of movement of the
main plates through the lifetime of a
that the new transform data o€er a
more robust system of constraints
than that presently available from
magnetic anomaly data alone. In
particular, by bridging the gap in
the magnetic record caused by the
Cretaceous Normal Superchron
( 84±118 Ma), it is possible to eluci-
date tectonic events in this period with
new con®dence. The long periods of
uniform motion described herein
appear to be abruptly terminated
and replaced by new and distinct plate
tectonic regimes, perhaps prompted
by the break-out of plumes or hot-
spots (e.g. Storey, 1995).
The published satellite altimeter
dataset for the Indian Ocean (now
available at http://www.ngdc.noaa.
gov/mgg/image/2minsurface) was
imaged on a Mercator projection at
scale 1:20 million using conventional
PC-based geophysical imaging soft-
ware (GeosoftÒ, http://www.geosoft.
com). The ocean-¯oor topographic
features ± particularly transforms but
also oceanic plateaux and continental
margins ± were interpreted on an
overlay and digitized. The features
were then ascribed to their respective
plates (Africa, Madagascar, East
Antarctica, India, Sri Lanka and
Australia) and to the spreading
regimes described here. Orthographic
projections were used to display the
data in the Cambridge `Atlas' palaeo-
geographic mapping system (http://
www.atlas.co.uk/cpsl) to minimize

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Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280 C. Reeves and M. de Wit · Making ends meet in Gondwana
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Table 1 Interval Rotation poles. Relative movements are only in the time intervals indicated. From model: reev509y
Euler pole
Near time Far time Latitude Longitude Rotation angle* Remarks

Africa with respect to hotspot reference frame, present-day coordinates

0.00 10.4 59.3 )31.6 )1.89 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 20.5 50.9 )44.5 )4.36 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 35.5 40.3 )43.0 )7.91 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 42.7 37.7 )41.2 )9.65 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 50.3 32.8 )40.8 )12.09 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 58.6 30.1 )41.7 )13.89 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 68.5 26.4 )40.9 )16.23 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 73.6 22.3 )39.6 )17.80 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 80.2 18.0 )38.9 )19.98 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 84.0 19.0 )40.9 )21.53 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 90.0 19.4 )41.9 )23.31 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 100.0 18.9 )41.4 )25.35 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 110.0 17.7 )39.5 )26.71 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 118.7 18.7 )39.7 )27.37 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 130.0 16.7 )37.5 )28.52 MuÈller et al. (1993)
0.00 200.0 16.7 )37.5 )43.88 Above rotation extrapolated
Arabia w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
0.00 9.67 36.5 18.0 )3.08 McKenzie and Sclater (1971);
Le Pichon and Francheteau (1978)
0.00 25.00 36.5 18.0 )6.08 This paper
Horn of Africa w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
20.00 25.00 3.0 38.5 6.00 This paper
Madagascar w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
117.50 136.00 2.0 115.0 )5.28 Regime 2, this paper
136.00 148.00 2.0 115.0 )3.42 Regime 1, this paper
148.00 173.00 11.8 100.0 )9.5 Regime 1, this paper
173.00 200.00 )3.95 )133.09 5.03 Regime 1, this paper
India w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
0.00 43.00 )24.74 )141.55 18.28 Regime 4, this paper
43.00 64.00 17.0 12.5 )20.0 Regime 3B, this paper
64.00 89.00 17.0 12.5 )26.1 Regime 3A, this paper
89.00 117.50 12.5 )35.0 3.8 Regime 2B, this paper
117.50 136.00 )16.35 )23.89 9.0 Regime 2A, this paper
136.00 148.00 2.0 115.0 )3.42 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
148.00 173.00 11.8 100.0 )9.5 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
173.00 200.00 )3.95 )133.09 5.03 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
Antarctica w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
0.00 43.00 0.0 )30.0 12.00 Regime 4, this paper
43.00 64.00 34.12 )121.84 6.24 Regime 3B, this paper
64.00 84.00 15.75 )59.95 4.05 Regime 3A, this paper
84.00 102.00 )17.06 )7.01 15.05 Regime 2, this paper
102.00 136.00 )20.81 8.59 28.56 Regime 2, this paper
136.00 148.00 2.0 115.0 )3.42 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
148.00 173.00 11.8 100.0 )9.5 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
173.00 200.00 )3.95 )133.09 5.03 Regime 1, same as Madagascar
Seychelles w.r.t. Madagascar, Madagascar coordinates
65.00 89.00 )5.5 44.77 )58.50 This paper
Madagascar Rise w.r.t. Madagascar, Madagascar coordinates
96.00 127.50 23.95 )45.0 5.91 This paper
Sri Lanka w.r.t. India, India coordinates
100.00 114.00 9.8 86.4 )20.0 This paper
114.00 120.00 34.44 75.12 )1.0 This paper
Central Indian Basin w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates
0.00 43.00 )15.11 )124.11 26.29 This paper, after MuÈller et al. (1993)
43.00 65.00 )32.52 149.16 17.87 This paper

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Making ends meet in Gondwana · C. Reeves and M. de Wit Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280
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Table 1 Continued
Euler pole
Near time Far time Latitude Longitude Rotation angle* Remarks

Australia w.r.t. Antarctica, Antarctica coordinates

0.00 43.79 15.10 31.30 )24.50 Royer and Sandwell (1989)

intermediate steps Royer and Sandwell (1989)

0.00 132.00 )2.0 38.9 )31.50 Royer and Sandwell (1989)

South America w.r.t. Africa, Africa coordinates

0.00 43.13 57.5 )32.0 17.60 Cande et al. (1988)
intermediate steps Cande et al. (1988)
0.00 73.12 63.0 )33.5 27.90 Cande et al. (1988)
0.00 83.00 61.59 )34.15 33.50 Shaw and Cande (1990)
0.00 93.00 58.96 )34.08 40.01 Livermore and Hunter (1997)
0.00 118.70 51.78 )34.74 52.51 Martin et al. (1982)

intermediate steps Martin et al. (1982)

0.00 131.65 47.53 )32.94 55.74 Martin et al. (1982)
131.65 136.00 )2.5 5.5 5.5 This paper
136.00 140.00 39.64 53.16 1.73 This paper

*Anticlockwise rotations positive in reverse time.

misconceptions attributable to distor-
tion in other projections (Fig. 1).
Ocean ¯oor topography
Regime 4 (0±43 Ma)
The transforms produced by the cur-
rent ocean-¯oor spreading regime
(Fig. 1) are distinct from those in the
older ocean crust and may be traced
back to an hiatus that appears every-
where in the Indian Ocean at 43 Ma
(Norton, 1995). At this time, the
transforms cease to be straight linea-
ments, signalling some local plate
movements or reorganization that
mark the most recent interregnum.
Regime 3 (43±89 Ma)
Eliminating the Regime 4 crust (some
40% of the Indian Ocean) enabled
the pre-43 Ma ocean to be re-assem-
bled (Fig. 2). Regime 3 is dominated
by the rapid northward displacement
of India and its attached fragments
(Sri Lanka, areas north of peninsular
India and, until about 65 Ma, the
Seychelles). A number of important
Regime 3 transforms are evident in
the re-assembly and show persuasive
continuity (features A, B and C,
Fig. 2).
In particular, the 43 Ma reassembly
restores the continuity of the Mau-
ritius±Chagos±Maldive Fault Zone
(B, Fig. 2) that joins a point on the
coast of India with a point o€ the
Madagascar Rise (Fig. 2). To a good
approximation, the movement of
India with respect to Africa in this
period can be described by a single
Euler interval pole for which this
reassembled transform is a line of
Euler latitude. The proto-Owen frac-
ture zone (A±A, Fig. 2) is a line of
latitude about the same Euler pole.
The Indian plate (including some
ocean created during Regimes 1 and
2) moved north with respect to Africa
and Arabia along this second trans-
form during Regime 3 (Reeves and
Leven, 2000). The complications in
the north-west Indian Ocean that
involve the additional plates of Arabia
and Iran (Smith, 1999) need not, then,
detract from the main course of events
described herein. The ridge-jump to
the north-east at  65 Ma, separating
India from the Seychelles and most of
the ocean ¯oor created between India
and Madagascar before then
(Fig. 3a), appears to have had little
other e€ect on this system. An
important conclusion is that India
started its rapid northward journey
from a position with its southern tip
over 1000 km south of Madagascar
(as suggested by Powell et al., 1997).
A single interval Euler pole for the
India±Antarctica system is capable of
telescoping the three prominent trans-
forms (C, Fig. 2) into each other with
high precision over a distance of
4500 km in the same period.
At Anomaly 34 time (83 Ma), the
location for India o€ the east coast of
Madagascar is consistent with mag-
netic anomaly evidence (Fig. 3b) and
hotspot models such as MuÈller et al.
(1993) and Torsvik et al. (1998).
However, retracing the older parts
of the transform system requires that
the Regime 3 motion is extended
about 6 Myr further back in time,
taking India and Sri Lanka about
1000 km further south before `dock-
ing' with Madagascar and Antarctica
(Fig. 3c). The situation at 89 Ma
(Fig. 3c) gives a persuasive alignment
of Regime 2 transforms for Africa,
Antarctica and [Sri Lanka±India] and
perhaps gives a role for the Marion
hotspot as the trigger for Regime 3
and the break-out of India (Torsvik
et al., 1998).
Regime 2 (89±136 Ma)
Regime 2B (89±117.5 Ma). The
Africa±Antarctic Corridor (AAC,
Fig. 1), which is interpreted as the
direct result of separation between
continental Africa and Antarctica,
constrains the relative positions of
these two major plates throughout
the present model. Within the corri-
dor, a near-central spreading ridge
appears to have been retained
throughout its  170 million years of

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Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280 C. Reeves and M. de Wit · Making ends meet in Gondwana
.............................................................................................................................................................

Fig. 1 The topographic features of the present-day Indian Ocean as interpreted from Geosat imagery. Current mid-ocean ridges:
thick black lines; transforms: thin black lines; submarine plateaus and pre-drift continental margins: dark grey. The narrow
corridor of ocean ¯oor that records the separation of Antarctica and Africa (AAC) is shaded light grey: Orthographic projection
centred at 30°S, 70°E.

development, with a total of about
6100 km of separation. Within the
AAC, the transforms of Regime 2 show
continuous creation without obvious
hiatus (Bergh, 1977). A steady rate of
movement ( 50 km Myr±1) has been
assumed here throughout Regime 2,
which lacks magnetic anomalies until
M0 at 117.5 Ma. From 98 to 117.5 Ma,
telescoping of the transforms occupy-
ing most of the space between Sri
Lanka and Antarctica (compare
Fig. 3c,d) can be demonstrated, that
occurred simultaneously with an equiv-
alent length of transforms in the AAC.
The region between the Eighty®ve East
Ridge and the Investigator Fracture
Zone consumes the remaining ocean
that lies immediately north of the
hiatus at which these transforms
abruptly change direction. This brings
Bangladesh, eastern coastal India and
the Rajmahal Traps (Storey, 1995;
Hawkesworth et al., 1999) into regis-
tration with the Kerguelen Plateau
(Fig. 3d).
Within Regime 2B, India retreats
north along the coast of Madagascar,
taking the Madagascar Rise with it
(cf. Fig. 3c,d).
Regime 2A (117.5±136 Ma). The
strong curvature of the transforms
resulting from Regime 2A on the
African side of the AAC indicates
a clockwise rotation of Antarctica

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Making ends meet in Gondwana · C. Reeves and M. de Wit Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280
.............................................................................................................................................................
®rst, the N±S closure of the proto-
ocean between Madagascar and Kenya
±Somalia (undoing ocean creation and
restoring the continental crust to the
form that had resulted from pro-
longed rifting in the period between
the Permian and the Jurassic), and
secondly the E±W closure of Dron-
ning Maud Land against the eastern
escarpment of southern Africa. Such
a ®t brings together (Fig. 4) the
Lebombo monocline of South Africa
with the Explora Wedge o€ Antarc-
tica (Groenewald et al., 1991; Cox,
1992). These features appear as
opposite sides of a rift that was ®rst
stretched E±W (prior to about
170 Ma) then torn apart with dextral
transtensional faulting.
The record of movement of Mada-
gascar (with the remainder of East
Gondwana attached) against Africa is
to be found in the Davie Fracture
Zone (DFZ, Fig. 4). During Regime
2A this transform developed in a
direction striking 10° west of north,
placing Madagascar close to the coast
of Mozambique at 136 Ma. In order
to reverse Regime 1 and keep the two
Fig. 2 The Indian Ocean at 43 Ma. The Regime 4 crust indicated in Fig. 1 has been
removed and the transforms created during Regime 3 (89±43 Ma) reassembled to be
parts of the Davie fracture zone coin-
coincident and colinear. M, margin to Regime 2 crust south of Sri Lanka±India (part cident and colinear, Madagascar must
of which is the Eighty®ve-east Ridge); M¢, the conjugate margin north of Antarctica; pursue a path about 20° west of north,
A±A, Owen fracture zone; B±B, Mauritius±Chagos±Maldive fracture zone, C±C, parallel to (i) the northern part of the
three transforms that relate Sri Lanka to Antarctica; D±D, Ninety East Ridge; E±E, Davie FZ and (ii) the coastal faults
Investigator Fracture Zone; SM, Seychelles±Mascarene Bank; K, Kerguelen plateau. interpreted from continental magnetic
Orthographic projection centred at 30°S, 45°E, hotspot reference frame. anomaly mapping in SE Tanzania
(Batterham et al., 1983), NE Mozam-
relative to Africa, India and Mada- noncontinental parts of the Seychelles, bique (Perera, 1997) and SW Mada-
gascar of some 20 degrees in this older parts of the Mascarene Ridge gascar (Yardimcilar and Reeves,
period, as was also suggested by Bank and the Madagascar Rise 1998). If the ®nal closure of the
MuÈller et al. (1993). The start of this (Fig. 3d). Madagascar was left with Explora±Lebombo rift uses an Euler
rotation de®nes the beginning of little continental shelf, but with some pole for East Gondwana in the region
Regime 2 and the initiation of full- onshore Cretaceous volcanic rocks of the contact between Madagascar
speed South Atlantic growth, very (Torsvik et al., 1998) with counter- and East Africa, then only minor
early in the Cretaceous. The south- parts in St Mary's Islands at latitude rifting occurs this far north prior to
ward motion of India with respect to 13°25¢ on the Indian west coast about 170 Ma.
Madagascar in this period allows the (Subrahmanya, 1998).
start of India±Antarctica separation In reverse time, the remainder of the
Pre-drift Central Gondwana
to be postponed for about 10 million Regime 2 AAC was consumed in this
years. India, as it were, tends to move period while the oceanic crust of the A tight reconstruction of the contin-
with Antarctica±Australia before lag- Sri Lankan microplate shrank and ental blocks of Gondwana is
ging behind (at least temporarily) with `folded in', continental Sri Lanka favoured in the present contribution,
Madagascar and Africa. adopting its original position, separ- as proposed for example, by Lawver
The slight clockwise rotation of ated by only the width of rift valleys and Scotese (1987) and Bergh (1987),
India away from Madagascar from the similarly aged Precambrian for the reasons argued in Reeves
amounts to transtensional rifting with rocks of India and Antarctica (Fig. 4) (1999). The 200 Ma position for the
slow growth of a small wedge of (de Wit et al., 2000). ®ve fragments East Africa, Madagas-
extended crust and sediment-®lled car, India, Sri Lanka and East Ant-
rifts, now largely preserved as the arctica was determined by studying
Regime 1 (136±200 Ma)
continental shelf of India's west coast and digitizing published interpreta-
(Chaubey et al., 1998). Other frag- Regime 1 involves just two plates tions of continental aeromagnetic
ments of this crust now form the moving in just two distinct stages: survey data for Tanzania (Batterham

276 Ó 2000 Blackwell Science Ltd

Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280 C. Reeves and M. de Wit · Making ends meet in Gondwana
.............................................................................................................................................................

Fig. 3 Four scenes of the central Indian Ocean. IF, Investigator Fracture Zone; M, margin to Regime 2 crust south of Sri Lanka±
India (part of which is the Eighty®ve-East Ridge); M¢, the conjugate ocean margin north of Antarctica; MR, Madagascar Rise;
S, Seychelles; MzR, Mozambique Rise; AP, Agulhas Plateau; K, Kerguelen Plateau; 90, Ninety-East Ridge. Orthographic
projection centred at (a) 40°S, 50°E, (b±d) 50°S, 40°E, hotspot reference frame. (a) At 65 Ma, the Cretaceous±Tertiary boundary,
time of extrusion of the Deccan Trap basalts (DT). At this time the mid-ocean ridge jumped from the extinct ridge still preserved
and shown here between Madagascar and India to a new ridge between India and the Seychelles (S). (b) At 83 Ma, near Anomaly
34 time. Anomaly 34 itself (partly conjectural, data provided by Scotese, pers. comm.) o€ Madagascar, con®rms the latter's
distance of separation from India (where it has not been recorded) and the oldest Regime 3 transforms indicate their direction of
separation. The margins of Regime 2 ocean ¯oor o€ Sri Lanka (M) and Antarctica (M¢) approach their docking positions. (c) At
89 Ma. MH, Marion Hotspot. Note the colinearity of the re-united Regime 2 transforms both within the Africa±Antarctica
Corridor (AAC) and between Sri Lanka and Antarctica. East of Sri Lanka, a new, active mid-ocean ridge must lie close to the
coastline of India while an earlier, extinct ridge probably lies centrally in the older ocean. (d) At 112 Ma. The oldest part of the
Kerguelen plateau (K) ( 118 Ma) is coincident with the Rajmahal Trap basalts (RT) of West Bengal. The remaining Regime 2
transforms in the AAC show the curvature at their northern end that resulted from the clockwise rotation of Antarctica±Australia
during Regime 2A. Sri Lanka functioned as a microplate between India and Antarctica during this Regime.

et al., 1983) and Kenya (Reeves
et al., 1987) and recent work on sim-
ilar data for Madagascar (Yardimcilar
and Reeves, 1998). Figure 5 indicates
the outlines of the Precambrian
extent of these fragments thus
interpreted, reassembled at a spacing
of 50±100 km. The absolute rotations
used in achieving this ®t are listed in
Table 2.
The parallelism of the interpreted
margins of Madagascar and Africa,
together with the identi®cation of a
considerable suite of deep-seated
intrusions now distributed on the
margins of both fragments, but clearly
sharing a common origin when recon-
structed (Yardimcilar and Reeves,

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Making ends meet in Gondwana · C. Reeves and M. de Wit Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280
.............................................................................................................................................................
1998), gives a persuasive pre-drift ®t.
This, however, postdates a consider-
able amount of earlier (Karoo,
pre-200 Ma) rifting both between
Africa and Madagascar and in the
Anza rift of Kenya (Reeves et al.,
1987).
The colinearity of reassembled con-
tinental geological features extends
the present approach from the reas-
sembly of previously aligned ocean
transforms to features of continental
geology. Conjugate termini or `pier-
cing points', used to match continen-
tal margins, should meet at least
three criteria. First, they must be
geological features that formed after
Gondwana coalesced and before its
dispersal. A time bracket between
» 750 and 250 Ma therefore needs
to be demonstrated. Second, the pier-
cing points on both margins should
be the termini of near-vertical fea-
tures (planar in 3D) such as dykes or
faults of the same age. Third, these
planar features should be at least
subvertical because only such an
orientation assures that any post-drift
di€erential uplift and erosion of
once-contiguous margins will not
Fig. 4 East and West Gondwana at 140 Ma, near the Jurassic±Cretaceous bound- a€ect the purely horizontal linking
ary. All younger oceanic crust has been removed and the transforms of Regime 1
of piercing points at present day
(168±136 Ma) aligned between (a) Madagascar and Somalia and (b) Antarctica and
exposure level. A number of features
Mozambique. FP, Falklands Plateau; DFZ, Davie Fracture Zone (dashed); EX,
Explora Wedge; GR, Gunnerus Ridge; LM, Lebombo Monocline. Microplates west
meeting these criteria from recent
of the AAC have not been considered in detail. Orthographic projection centred at ®eld studies are listed in Table 3
45°S, 30°E, hotspot reference frame. and plotted in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5 The Precambrian crustal frag-

ments of central Gondwana that sur-
vived disruption without signi®cant
extension (white) in their con®guration
at 200 Ma showing the alignment of the
predisruption late Precambrian shear
zones (thick black lines) listed in
Table 3. The Xixano±Chivaro shear
zone (B1) of Mozambique (interpreted
from its magnetic anomaly expression
by present authors) aligns with the shear
zone (B2) that became the rift between
India and Madagascar. Dark grey:
extended crust within the rifted zones
between fragments. Light grey: presently
submarine fragments with continental
characteristics; M, continental part of
Madagascar Rise. Present-day coastlines
shown as thin black lines. Model:
reev509y. Orthographic projection,
centred at 50°S, 25°E (hotspot reference
frame of Table 1).

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Terra Nova, Vol 12, No. 6, 272±280 C. Reeves and M. de Wit · Making ends meet in Gondwana
.............................................................................................................................................................
Table 2 Euler rotation poles (present-day coordinates, ®xed Africa) for the 200 Ma reconstruction illustrated in Fig. 5
Fragment Latitude Longitude Rotation angle* Remarks
Africa 90.00 0.00 0.00 Africa ®xed
Horn of Africa 3.00 38.50 6.00
Seychelles 3.34 55.28 )73.34
Madagascar )4.73 )85.08 20.97
Madagascar Rise 2.90 )78.38 25.27
Northern Mozambique 90.00 0.00 0.00 Fixed to Africa
Peninsular India 29.59 41.01 )65.62
Bundelkhand 29.59 41.01 )65.62 Fixed to India
Sri Lanka 20.90 49.28 )81.47
East Antarctica )10.18 )31.04 58.73

*Anticlockwise rotations positive in reverse time.

Table 3 Conterminous Shear Zones in Central Gondwana

Key to Fig. 5 Location Geological feature Structure Age
A Madagascar Eastern margin of Karoo rift Subvertical normal fault 350±250 Ma
A¢ Tanzania Eastern margin of Karoo rift Subvertical normal fault 350±250 Ma
B Madagascar Ampahiny/Vorokafortra Subvertical ductile shears 605±630 Ma
B¢ Mozambique Xixano±Chivaro [1] Ductile lineaments  600 Ma
C Madagascar Tranomoro [2] Subvertical ductile shear zone > 560 Ma
C¢ India Achankovil Subvertical ductile shear zone 570±610 Ma
D Madagascar Ranotsara Subvertical ductile-brittle shear zone 530±550 Ma
D¢ India KKPT [3] Subvertical ductile-brittle shear zone 560±570 Ma
E Madagascar Ifondiana [2] Subvertical ductile-brittle shear zones > 550 Ma
E¢ India Palghat-Chauvery/Moyar Subvertical ductile-brittle shear zones 600±722 Ma

[1] Jamal et al. (1999); [2] Martelat et al. (1997); [3] Ghosh (1999); [4] B. K. Sahu (personal communication).

A computer animation designed to
illustrate this approach to reconstruc-
tion may be found at the website
http://kartoweb.itc.nl\gondwana.
Acknowledgements
We thank Scripps Institution of Oceanog-
raphy, La Jolla, California for making the
satellite altimetry data available via the
Internet and Alan Smith and Lawrence
Rush at the University of Cambridge for
assistance with implementation of the Atlas
and Timetrek software. Chris Scotese
kindly provided the world magnetic anom-
aly data we used to check and re®ne our
model. B. K. Sahu, Sergio Chavez Gomez,
Eveline Rosendaal, Cenk Yardimcilar,
A. G. S. R. Perera and Mubu Mubu all
contributed to this work in various ways
during their studies at ITC as did Joy
G. Ghosh, Leon Randrianasoli, Nicolas
Rakotosolofo and Daub Jamal during
their studies at UCT. CVR acknowledges
support from ITC internal research funds.
B. KoÈbben created the website.
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