The
Central Atlantic magmatic province (
CAMP) is a large igneous province composed mainly of
basalt that formed prior to the breakup of
Pangaea in the
Mesozoic Era, near the end of the
Triassic and the beginning of the
Jurassic periods. The subsequent breakup of Pangaea created the
Atlantic Ocean and provided a legacy of
basaltic dikes,
sills, and
lavas over a vast area around the present central North Atlantic Ocean, including large deposits in northwest
Africa, southwest
Europe, as well as northeast
South and southeast
North America (found as continental
thoeliitic basalts in
subaerial flows and
intrusive bodies). The name and CAMP acronym were proposed by Andrea Marzoli (Marzoli et al. 1999) and adopted at a symposium held at the 1999 Spring Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.