Geology of Somaliland
Open-knowledge reference entry
The geology of Somaliland is very closely related to the geology of the rest of Somalia. Because it encompasses the former territory of British Somaliland, the territory is historically better researched than former Italian Somaliland. Somaliland is built on more than 700-million-year-old igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock. These ancient units are covered in thick layers of sedimentary rock formed in the last 200 million years and influenced by the drifting apart of the Somali Plate and the Arabian Plate.
Stratigraphy and geologic history
The oldest rock units in Somaliland date back over 700 million years to the Proterozoic, forming crystalline basement rock. Many rock units date to the Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic eons.
Proterozoic
Somaliland preserves good examples of Proterozoic rocks. As basement rocks, they form a composite terrane, with younger rocks in the east and older rocks in the west. The older rocks pre-date the Pan-African orogeny and were affected by both igneous and metamorphic activity 840, 800 to 760 and 720 million years ago.
The early geology of Somaliland is divided into four major events.
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