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When did Africa separate from South America?

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Watch Earth's Continents Move — paleogeography Watch a time-lapse of Earth changing through geologic time, from the Cambrian Era to the projected period of Pangea Proxima.

In the context of paleogeography, the separation of Africa and South America was a key stage in the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana.

While these continents were joined as part of the western half of Gondwana, they began to rift apart approximately 140 million years ago, which initiated the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. This process was part of a broader sequence of continental drift; prior to this separation, Africa and South America had remained attached to each other while rifting away from the eastern portion of Gondwana (comprising Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica) around 180 million years ago.21

Geologic evidence for this separation is found in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic basins along the present-day Atlantic margins, where sedimentary deposits record the transition from restricted marine conditions to open oceanic circulation by the Late Cretaceous Period.13