New U–PB baddeleyite ages of mafic dyke swarms of the west African and amazonian cratons : Implication for their configuration in supercontinents through time
Eight different generations of dolerite dykes crosscutting the Paleoproterozoic basement in West Africa and one in South America were dated using the high precision U–Pb TIMS method on baddeleyite. Some of the individual dykes reach over 300Â km in length and they are considered parts of much larger systems of mafic dyke swarms representing the plumbing systems for large igneous provinces (LIPs).