The Kaapvaal Craton stabilises
Southern Africa's ancient heart cools, thickens and becomes permanent.
- When
- Known to
- ± 100 million years
- Era
- Mesoarchean, Archean
The Kaapvaal Craton reaches the thick, cold, buoyant state that lets continental crust survive indefinitely. Beneath it a deep keel of mantle forms — the setting in which diamonds crystallise, later carried up by kimberlite pipes. Cratons like Kaapvaal are why any of this record exists: everything not protected by one has long since been recycled.