page_title: Agulhas Bank
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Agulhas Bank / Geology
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Agulhas Bank, Ridge, Basin, and Plateau south of Africa.
context_page_description: The Agulhas Bank is a broad, shallow part of the southern African continental shelf which extends up to 250 km south of Cape Agulhas before falling steeply to the abyssal plain.
  It is the ocean region where the warm Indian Ocean and the cold Atlantic Ocean meet. This convergence leads to treacherous sailing conditions, accounting for numerous wrecked ships in the area over the years. However, the meeting of the oceans here also fuels the nutrient cycle for marine life, making it one of the best fishing grounds in South Africa.
context_section_description: The oldest rock found along the coastline of the Agulhas Bank are eugeosynclinal sediments of the up to 3 km (1.9 mi) thick Kaaimans Group deposited during continental rifting some 900 million years ago (Mya).  The proto-South Atlantic closed during the Saldanian orogeny to form part of the supercontinent Gondwana (700-600 Mya).  The Cape granites were emplaced and the Kaaimans Group rocks were folded and thermally metamorphosed during this period.  The formation of the main basin in the Cape Province commenced 570 Mya and lasted for 200 My.  The Table Mountain Group is 4 km (2.5 mi) thick and an erosional unconformity marking its base is composed of both terrestrial and marine sediments.  Synclines along the coast of the southern Cape contains sediments from the Bokkveld Group.
  The Cape Fold Belt (CFB) rocks and the Karoo Basin were deposited 450 Mya; the Cape Supergroup 450-300 Mya during a series of transgression-regression cycles.
  Pan-African thrusts were reactivated 270-215 Mya to form the CFB which was then part of  a continuous fold belt that developed during the Gondwanide orogeny together with Sierra de la Ventana (Argentina), Pensacola Mountains (East Antarctica), and Ellsworth Mountains (West Antarctica).  In the late Carboniferous and early Jurassic, the Karoo Supergroup was deposited in the Karoo Basin north of where the CFB is located today, and covering nearly two-thirds of present-day South Africa.
caption: The Agulhas Bank relative to the Agulhas Ridge, Basin, and Plateau
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