Orogeny process whereby new mountains and other land-forms were thrust up, or else there would eventually be no land; he suggested that marine fossils in mountainsides must once have been at the sea-floor. Orogeny was used by Amanz Gressly (1840) and Jules Thurmann (1854) as "orogenic" in terms of the creation of mountain elevations, as the term "mountain building" was still used to describe the processes. Elie de Beaumont (1852) used the evocative "Jaws of a Vise" theory to explain orogeny, but was more concerned with the height rather than the implicit structures created by and contained in orogenic belts. His
Damara orogeny Ma and 545–530 Ma Gariep Belt (Kalahari Craton, now in southern Africa). The Damara orogeny saw a peak in deformation and metamorphism at 530–500 Ma. Thrusting occurred onto the Kalahari Craton until 480 Ma. Río de la Plata docked to Congo before the closure of the Damara Belt oceans (Mozambique and Khomas) which made the Damara orogeny part of the Kuunga orogeny which stretched from Antarctica to India across Africa. All African cratons had been assembled by 550 Ma and the last stages of the Damara–Kuunga Orogeny (the final amalgamation of north and South Gondwana) were intra-cratonic. The Damara orogeny