Southern Africa and its post-Palaeozoic regional setting

Post-Palaeozoic time covers the period during which the modern morphology and outline of southern Africa evolved in a succession of important tectonic events: the boundary between the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras roughly coincided with the last orogenic episode to affect the subcontinent; Triassic-Jurassic time is characterized by intracontinental down warping and the development of regional tensional structures (rifting), during the Cretaceous and Tertiary, southern Africa completed separation from its neighbouring parts of Gondwanaland (drifting), and the present interior of the subcontinent was subjected to erosion in which the main direction of sediment transport was to the continental margins and adjacent ocean basins.