A tale of two domes: Neogene to recent volcanism and dynamic uplift of northeast Brazil and southwest Africa

•Stratigraphy, drainage, volcanism, gravity and seismic structure imply dynamic support.•Volcanic chemistry and seismic velocities record 50°C above ambient beneath either region. Present-day lithospheric thickness is ∼100 km beneath Angola and could be as thin as 60 km in the Borborema Province. For Angola, thermobarometry on mantle xenocrysts from Cretaceous kimberlites is used to estimate palaeogeothermal gradients. Results indicate a pre-existing gradient in lithospheric thickness between the edge of the Congo craton and the centre of the Angolan dome at ∼120 Ma. This gradient likely steepened as a result of additional Neogene thinning by 30±10 km beneath the centre of the dome. We conclude that the mechanism for Neogene epeiro