A fault-controlled crustal uplift (orogenesis) in the south influenced the foreland system at the beginning of the Stormberg deposition. This crustal uplift had been underway millions of years prior due to the subduction of the Paleo-pacific plate beneath the Gondwanan Plate, which had also resulted in the creation of the Gondwanide mountain range. At this time a divergent plate boundary was forming the Atlantic Ocean, southwest of Gondwana, heralding the earliest stages of the break-up of the Gondwanan supercontinent.[10][11][12]