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Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP) U‐Pb dating of zircon from basement granite gneisses and nepheline syenites of the Sinapalli Nappe, occurring along the northwestern margin of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt, indicate high grade regional metamorphism and associated folding accompanying juxtaposition of the nappe with the Bhandara Craton, to have taken place between 617 ± 85 Ma (lower intercept age of a reworked basement unit) and 517 Ma (age of the youngest syenite). This shows, for the first time, that the final juxtaposition of the northwestern parts of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt against the Bhandara Craton came about in the late Neoproterozoic and not, as previously thought, during the Mesoproterozoic. The northwestern part of the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt comprises a fold‐ thrust belt consisting of a stack of northwesterly verging nappes that have been thrust over the Bhandara Craton. The Sinapalli Nappe is the lowermost nappe and rests over a tectonic contact on the Archean granites and gneisses of the craton. The basal décollement is exposed as a two‐km‐wide ductile‐brittle thrust, hosting nepheline syenite plutons that show fabrics consistent with a synkinematic emplacement during thrusting. The Sinapalli Nappe is comprised of a sequence of alternating mafic granulites and quartzofeldspathic gneisses with slivers of basement granites, which are folded in three phases of folding (F1, F2 and F3) and were subjected to granulite facies metamorphism during F1 folding. Thrusting is synkinematic to F2 folding and is responsible for the juxtaposition of the northwestern part of the Eastern Ghats Terrane over the Bhandara Craton during the assembly of parts of eastern Gondwana.

18 Palaeomagnetic analysis of the Lakhna Dykes (Bastar Craton, India) yields a palaeopole at 36.6°N, 19 132.8°E, dp=12.4°, dm=15.9°, and the U-Pb zircon age obtained from one of the rhyolitic dykes is 20 1466.4 ± 2.6 Ma (MSWD=0.21, concordia age based on two analyses with identical Pb/U ages), 21 similar to previously published U-Pb ages. Major and trace element analyses of the Lakhna Dykes 22 30 2 model. Our preferred reconstruction implies a long Palaeo-to Mesoproterozoic accretionary orogen 31 stretching from south-eastern Laurentia through south-western Baltica to south-eastern India. Breakup 32 of India and Baltica probably occurred in the Late Mesoproterozoic, but additional constraints are 33 needed. 34

Strain fabric and monazite microstructure were studied and dated by Electron Probe Microanalyser (EPMA) in situ Th‐U‐total Pb monazite geochronology in the Ambaji granulite, South Delhi terrane, NW India. The Ambaji granulite comprises pelitic, calcareous, and mafic granulites with several phases of granite intrusions, G0‐3. The granulites were deformed by three phases of folding, F1–3, during South De lhi orogeny and marked by a subhorizontal pervasive fabric, S1, axial planar to isoclinal‐recumbent F1 folds that developed during granulite facies metamorphism. S1 is overprinted by discrete sets of subvertical shear zones associated with a mylonitic fabric, S2, that were developed axial planar to NE‐SW striking upright F2 folds and facilitated exhumation of granulite facies rocks to the upper crust. The shear zones show early history of high‐temperature thrust sense shear and late stage low‐temperature sinistral shear. The NW‐SE striking F3 folds also affected the granulite facies rocks resulting in interference patterns and variations in regional structural trends. Brittle strike slip, and normal fault (Sf fabric) that developed post F3, led the final exhumation of the granulite facies rocks to the surface. The S1 monazites are Y‐depleted and recrystallized through dislocation creep, and the S2‐Sf monazites are Y‐enriched and recrystallized through dissolution‐precipitation creep. Different monazite population yielded distinct ages of circa 875‐857, 834‐778, and 764‐650 Ma for S1, S2, and Sf strain, respectively, indicating that the South Delhi orogeny spanned 875‐650 Ma overlapping with the early phase of the Pan‐African orogeny or representing a transition between Grenvillian and Pan‐African orogeny.

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