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The H 2 O and CO 2 content of cordierite was analysed in 34 samples from successive contact metamorphic zones of the Etive thermal aureole, Scotland, using Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The measured volatile contents were used to once free hydrous fluid is exhausted. All sillimanite zone samples record total volatile contents that are significantly lower than modelled H 2 O-CO 2 saturation surfaces,

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ABSTRACT:The Kaapvaal Craton hosts a number of Precambrian sedimentary successions which were deposited between 3105 Ma (Dominion Group) and 1700 Ma (Waterberg Group) Although younger Precambrian sedimentary sequences outcrop within southern Africa, they are restricted either to the margins of the Kaapvaal craton, or are underlain by orogenic belts off the edge of the craton. The basins considered in this work are those which host the Witwatersrand and Pongola, Ventersdorp, Transvaal and Waterberg strata. Many of these basins can be considered to have formed as a response to reactivation along lineaments, which had initially formed by accretion processes during the amalgamation of the craton during the Mid-Archaean.Faulting along these lineaments controlled sedimentation either directly by controlling the basin margins, or indirectly by controlling the sediment source areas.Other basins are likely to be more controlled by thermal affects associated with mantle plumes. Accommodation in all these basins may have been generated primarily by flexural tectonics, in the case of the Witwatersrand, or by a combination of extensional and thermal subsidence in the case of the Ventersdorp, Transvaal and Waterberg. Wheeler diagrams are constructed to demonstrate stratigraphic relationships within these basins at the first-and second-order levels of cyclicity, andcan be used to demonstrate the development of accommodation space on the craton through the Precambrian.

This paper discusses geological events with an approximately global preservational scale which can aid inter-cratonic correlations and contribute to postulates of supercontinents for a set of chosen Precambrian cratons. The chronological scale of such events is highly variable, and most event types detailed (supercontinent-, mantle plume-, orogenic-, chemostratigraphic-, glacial events and major unconformities) have durations concomitant with the large scale interaction of mantle thermal and plate tectonic processes that were largely responsible for their genesis, i.e. 10's to 100's of millions of years. Geologically instantaneous events of global compass (e.g., impact or major eruptive events) provide important chronological markers for interpreting the longer term events. The same interplay of tectono-thermal geodynamic processes that drives the evolution of the Earth and the operation of its supercontinent cycles is also, ultimately, responsible for and of comparable duration to first-and second-order sequence stratigraphic cyclicity. This paper thus serves to introduce these concepts and discuss the problems in their application to specific Precambrian cratons, in relation to the aim of this special issue, of providing a set of accommodation curves for many of these ancient crustal terranes.