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THE ACE OF TIT3 ?TIGER DELTA (IZST AAFRICA)

The Age of the Niger Delta (West Africa)

R. A. REYMENT,
Sweden
ABSTRACT
Recent investigations on the biostratigraphy and palaeobiogeography of the southern Atlantic region indicate t h a t the first incursion of the sea in Nigeria took place
from the south during late Middle Albian time, in the most northerly extension of the
southern Atlantic rift. The gradual post-Middle-Albian rotational(?) movement of
South America away from Africa finally left, in the Lower Turonian, a 200-km-wide
gap in the crust that began to fill rapidly with sediments. This marks the initiation of
the Niger Delta, a delta with a tectonic origin. The delta has, since the Turonian, grown
about 200 km outward from t h e original coastline. The drift interpretation of the origin
of t h e delta carries with i t the implication that the sediments flooring the outer delta
basin cannot be older than Lower Turonian.

LNTRODUCTION
A GLANCE a t the map of West Africa shows that the coastline of the Gulf of
Guinea is dominated by the outward-expanding Niger Delta. In palaeogeographical reconstruction of western Africa, i t is not always taken into account that
this outgrowth of the coastline i s a relatively recent occurrence, although this
was demonstrated by Reyment (1956), and more recently by Stoneley (1966).
The growing belief in the likelihood of the South Atlantic ocean having
originated by the agency of continental drift fits in with the geological facts
surrounding the history of the delta. Following on from this, and in wider perspective, these facts must be understood if the developments of the West African
and opposite South American margins are to be lucidly interpreted.
The conclusions presented in this paper result from 20 years of study of the
Cretaceous and Tertiary geology of West Africa and more recent studies in South
America.

THE FIRST MARINE TRANSGRESSION IN THE NIGERIAN

SEDIMENTARY BASIN
The oldest, reliably dated marine sediments in the Nigerian sedimentary
basin are Middle Albian in age (Reyment, 1955, 1957, 1965). They have only been
found outcropping in the middle Benue Valley, where they contain a typical association of oxytropidoceratids and dipoloceratids. What preceded this incursion
of the sea is still "shrouded in mystery". Unfortunately, the geologists who have
worked in Nigeria have shown very slight interest in the pre-marine Cretaceous
sediments, which is a reflection of the poor state of our knowledge on the stratigraphic relationships of the Benue Valley, on the southern side of which, a t least,
fair exposures of terrestrial sediments, underlying the marine Albian, occur
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Authors' addresses are given a t the back of this book.

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(Reyment, 1965). I t is also unresolved as to whether the Nigerian marine sequence began during the Middle Albian, or somewhat earlier in the Cretaceous.
The Upper Aptian, the time a t which the f i r s t dateable marine transgressions
took place in the southern Atlantic rift, between Angola and Alagoas (Brazil)Gabon, can be considered as a lower limit for the age of the delta. All of these
sequences begin with thick salt deposits of Aptian age. I t is now known that
the opening of the Atlantic r i f t had affected the Alagoas-Sergipe-Gabon area by
the Upper Aptian, but the events that occurred in the Lower Albian north of
this region still remain to be elucidated. TWOpossibilities a r e sugge.sted: first,
that the rift continued to open gradually during the Lower Albian, during which
time the sea entered the Nigerian basin via the Benue graben and attained its
maximum extension during the Middle Albian. The second hypothesis is that
the opening processes marked time during the Lower Albian and then suddenly
continued during Middle Albian. From what we now know of the rates of processes of drift mechanisms, the former hypothesis seems to be more likely than
the latter. This implies that if the first hypothesis is true, progressively younger
deposits of Lower Albian age must line the margins of the rift, in a narrow
zone, from Alagoas to the Nigerian Basin. Moreover, the older part of the Nigerian sedimentary basin, the distal half of the "Benue urgraben", must be
floored by sediments of late Lower Albian to early Middle Albian age.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DELTA CRADLE

I t now seems highly likely that West Africa became definitely separated
from South America during the later part of the Lower Turonian. Thus, as the
basement rocks of the Pernambuco section ( N E Brazil) moved away from the
Nigerian basement, a gap some 200 km wide was left in the crust. As I demonstrated graphically in a recent publication (Reyment, 1969), the subtriangular
region between Natal and Recife in northeastern Brazil f i t s snugly into this gap
in the crystalline basement between the Benin and Calabar flanks of the Niger
Delta.
After the gap had been formed, sediments began to accumulate i n this large,
though structurally weak, basin. The oldest of the sediments in this part of the
Nigerian Basin must be Lower Turonian in age, if the foregoing argument is
essentially correct.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE DELTA

The evolution of the Niger Delta proper must, as a result of the above arguments, be dated from the late Lower Turonian. The deepest indentation of the
middle Turonian coastline lay some 200 km inland from the present outermost
point of the delta, which clearly indicates that the over-all outgrowth of the
coast since the birth of the delta is of this order. The maximum thickness of sediments in the Niger Delta is in excess of 5000 m, according to estimates based
on geophysical work (cf. Stoneley, 1966).
The present-day symmetrical deltoid shape of the delta may possibly reflect
the form of the crustal gap left by the departure of the Pernambuco basement.
The drift interpretation of the origin of the South Atlantic ocean bears with it
the corollary of a tectonic origin of the Niger Delta.

SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

The stringent application of the ideas presented in this paper to the geology
of the continental margin of West Africa and northeastern Brazil leads to some
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'TABLE 1 -- Estimates of t h e ages of t h e oldest marine sediments i n t h e immediate

offshore zones of central West Africa a n d northeastern Brazil
Coastal stretch
(West Africa)

Age estimate

Coastal stretch
(NE Brazil)

Age e s t i m a t e

Northern Gabon
Cameroun
Eastern Nigeria
Vestern Nigeria

Upper Aptian
Lower Alhian
Lower Albian
Lower Turonian

Sergipe-Alagoas
South Pernambuco
North Pemambuco
Rio Grande do Norte

Upper Aptian
Lower Albian
Middle Albian
Lower Turonian

i n t e r e s t i n g conclusions concerning t h e a g e s of t h e oldest sediments of m a r i n e

origin in t h e immediate o f f s h o r e zones of t h e s e coastlines. M y e s t i m a t e s f o r
p a r t s of t h e s e coastlines a r e summarized in Table 1. T h e s e a g e e s t i m a t e s depend
entirely on t h e validity of the d r i f t hypothesis.
REFERENCES
Reyment, R. A., 1955. The Cretaceous Ammonoidea of Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons. Bull. Geol. Surv. Nigeria, 25, 112 p.
, 1956. On the stratigraphy and palaeontology of Nigeria and the Cameroons,
British West,,Africz. Geol. Foren. Stockh. Forh., 78, p. 17-96.
, 1957. Uber einige wirbellose Fossilien aus Nigerien und Kamerun, Westafrika. Palaeontographica, 109, p. 41-70.
------, 1965. Aspects of the geology of Nigeria. Ibadan University Press, 145 p.
, 1969. Ammonite biostratigraphy, continental drift, and oscillatory transgressions. Nature, 5215, p. 137-140.
Stonely, R., 1966. The Niger Delta region in the light of the theory of continental
drift. Geol. Mag., 103, p. 385-397.

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