(a) Schematic map of the separation of South American and Africa and (b) corresponding dynamic model. In (a), the present topography is shown; data for the red-shaded basaltic lava are from Coffin et al. (2013); thick dashes mark the approximate location of the transect crossing the Paraná–Etendeka LIP shown in (b). TBL = Transbrasiliano Lineament in South America and KSZ = Kandi Shear Zone in Africa. In (b), magenta bars indicate the fast polarization directions of crustal anisotropy; the blue-shaded region labelled ‘rifting’ corresponds to the region of strong anisotropy observed in this study.