Orogen styles in the East African Orogen: A review of the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian tectonic evolution

Fritz, Harald; Abdelsalam, M. G.; Ali, Kamal A.; Bingen, Bernard; Collins, Alan S.; Fowler, Abdel-Rahman; Ghebreab, Woldai; Hauzenberger, Christoph; Johnson, Peter R.; Kusky, Timothy M.; Macey, P.H.; Muhongo, S.; Stern, Robert J.; Viola, Giulio

doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2013.06.004

Cited by 597 publications

(348 citation statements)

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“…5), beginning with the cratonic margins in Africa and India, before discussing juvenile arcs, oceanic sutures, and reworked cratonic rocks within the orogen itself. Fritz et al (2013), Tucker et al (2014) and Collins et al (2014) provided detailed reviews of these relationships, with a focus on east Africa, Madagascar and India respectively, although some of their explanations for these relationships differ from those proposed here.…”

Section: Tectonic Architecture Of the East African Orogenmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…This region lies at the intersection of two Pan-African orogenic belts: the East African Orogen (Stern, 1994;Fritz et al, 2013), which trends north-south in present-day African coordinates from Arabia to Mozambique; and the Damara-Zambezi-Lurio belts, which trend west-east from Namibia to Mozambique and perhaps extended into Sri Lanka and Antarctica (Gray et al, 2008). This latter series of belts is often called the Kuunga Orogen (Meert, 2003) and is distinguished by relatively young 0.57-0.53 Ga metamorphic ages compared to ages of 0.65-0.61 Ga in the East African Orogen, although the tectonic relationship between these nearorthogonal belts is controversial .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pan–African granulites of Madagascar and southern India: Gondwana assembly and parallels with modern Tibet

Fitzsimons

2016

Journal of Mineralogical and Petrological Sciences

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Granulites of the southern East African Orogen formed by continental collision during Gondwana assembly. The highest metamorphic gradients of 25-50°C km −1 were attained at 0.58-0.53 Ga in a microcontinental block that was sandwiched between two collisional sutures and is now exposed in Madagascar and southern India. The 50 Myr duration of extreme pressure-temperature (P-T) conditions and lack of coeval mantle magmatism suggest that metamorphism was driven by radiogenic heat accumulation beneath a long-lived orogenic plateau. Bounding sutures most likely record transfer of this microcontinent across the Neoproterozoic Mozambique Ocean, analogous to Gondwanan terranes that crossed Tethys before final India-Asia collision and, like Tibet, these sutures mark the edges of a plateau that formed following terminal ocean closure and collision. Both sutures record moderate metamorphic gradients of 15-25°C km −1 but with quite different ages. Metamorphism along the western suture at 0.65-0.61 Ga followed the end of magmatism in an adjacent 0.85-0.65 Ga ocean-arc terrane. It has an anti-clockwise P-T path that reflects preferential thickening of the hot arc during early stages of collision, and dates ocean closure at the western suture. Metamorphism along the eastern suture at 0.53-0.51 Ga has a clockwise P-T path and is widely assumed to date terminal collision in the East African Orogen. However, this event was coeval with rapid exhumation of granulites in the adjacent plateau and is more likely to reflect reactivation of a much older eastern suture during plateau collapse. Great care should be taken when using metamorphism to date ocean closure in ancient orogens. Rocks with hot metamorphic gradients give poor age constraints on initial collision because peak T is attained >50 Myr after ocean closure if radioactivity is a major part of the heat budget. Suture zone rocks with moderate metamorphic gradients can provide more reliable estimates for the time of ocean closure but are also prone to later reactivation in orogens with protracted histories.

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Section: Tectonic Architecture Of the East African Orogenmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pan–African granulites of Madagascar and southern India: Gondwana assembly and parallels with modern Tibet

Fitzsimons

2016

Journal of Mineralogical and Petrological Sciences

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“…The assembly of Gondwana was originally perceived as a single largescale collision between two Neoproterozoic continental masses, East Gondwana (India-Australia-Antarctica) and West Gondwana (Africa-South America), along the Mozambique Ocean during the interval 800-650 Ma (Dalziel, 1992;Hoffman, 1991;McWilliams, 1981;Stern, 1994;Windley, Razatiniparany, Razakamanana, & Ackermand, 1994). However, new palaeomagnetic, geochronological and geological data have revealed that both East and West Gondwana have never existed as separate Neoproterozoic supercontinents, but their constituents came together during Neoproterozoic Fitzsimons, 2000;Fritz et al, 2013;Johnson et al, 2011;Meert, 2003;Meert & Van Der Voo, 1997;Meert, Van der Voo, & Ayub, 1995;Torsvik et al, 2012 and references therein). A multiphase assembly of Gondwana is suggested in these studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Especially, the East African Orogen and Kuunga Orogen (600-500 Ma) have played an important role in the final configuration of supercontinent Gondwana. The East African Orogen (Stern, 1994) resulted from the amalgamation of arc terranes in the northern Arabian-Nubian Shield and continental collision between East African fragments in the south, Sahara-Congo-Tanzania-Bangweulu Cratons, parts of the Azania terrane comprising of MadagascarSomalia-Ethiopia-Arabia, India, Sri Lanka and East Antarctica Fritz et al, 2013). This tectonic episode formed the Mozambique Belt, which extends from southern Israel, Sinai and Jordan in the north to Mozambique and Madagascar with continuation to Antarctica in the south (Jacobs & Thomas, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second major orogenic episode, which was termed as the Kuunga Orogeny by Meert et al (1995) resulted from the collision between Australia and East Antarctica with the tectonic units assembled earlier during the older East African Orogen. However, Fritz et al (2013) broadened this term including the common~600 and 500 Ma tectonothermal events characterising the final assembly of Gondwana.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late Neoproterozoic granulite facies metamorphism in the Menderes Massif, Western Anatolia/Turkey: implication for the assembly of Gondwana

Koralay

2015

Geodinamica Acta

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The Menderes Massif is a major polymetamorphic complex in Western Turkey. The late Neoproterozoic basement consists of partially migmatized paragneisses and metapelites in association with orthogneiss intrusions. Pelitic granulite, paragneiss and orthopyroxene-bearing orthogneiss (charnockite) of the basement series form the main granulite-facies lithologies. Charnockitic metagranodiorite and metatonalite are magnesian in composition and show calc-alkalic to alkali-calcic affinities. Nd and Sr isotope systematics indicate homogeneous crustal contamination. The zircons in charnockites contain featureless overgrowth and rim textures representing metamorphic growth on magmatic cores and inherited grains. Charnockites yield crytallization age of~590 Ma for protoliths and they record granulite-facies overprint at~580 Ma. These data indicate that the Menderes Massif records late Neoproterozoic magmatic and granulite-facies metamorphic events. Furthermore, the basement rocks have been overprinted by Eocene Barrovian-type Alpine metamorphism at~42 Ma. The geochronological data and inferred latest Neoproterozoic-early Cambrian palaeogeographic setting for the Menderes Massif to the north of present-day Arabia indicate that the granulite-facies metamorphism in the Menderes Massif can be attributed to the Kuunga Orogen (600-500 Ma) causing the final amalgamation processes for northern part of the Gondwana.

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The evolution of a Gondwanan collisional orogen: A structural and geochronological appraisal from the Southern Granulite Terrane, South India

et al. 2015

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Gondwana amalgamated along a suite of Himalayan-scale collisional orogens, the roots of which lace the continents of Africa, South America, and Antarctica. The Southern Granulite Terrane of India is a generally well-exposed, exhumed, Gondwana-forming orogen that preserves a record of the tectonic evolution of the eastern margin of the East African Orogen during the Ediacaran-Cambrian (circa 600-500 Ma) as central Gondwana formed. The deformation associated with the closure of the Mozambique Ocean and collision of the Indian and East African/Madagascan cratonic domains is believed to have taken place along the southern margin of the Salem Block (the Palghat-Cauvery Shear System, PCSS) in the Southern Granulite Terrane. Investigation of the structural fabrics and the geochronology of the high-grade shear zones within the PCSS system shows that the Moyar-Salem-Attur shear zone to the north of the PCSS system is early Paleoproterozoic in age and associated with dextral strike-slip motion, while the Cauvery shear zone (CSZ) to the south of the PCSS system can be loosely constrained to circa 740-550 Ma and is associated with dip-slip dextral transpression and north side-up motion. To the south of the proposed suture zone (the Cauvery shear zone), the structural fabrics of the Northern Madurai Block suggest four deformational events (D 1 -D 4 ), some of which are likely to be contemporaneous. The timing of high pressure-ultrahigh temperature metamorphism and deformation (D 1 -D 3 ) in the Madurai Block (here interpreted as the southern extension of Azania) is constrained to circa 550-500 Ma and interpreted as representing collisional orogeny and subsequent orogenic collapse of the eastern margin of the East African Orogen. The disparity in the nature of the structural fabrics and the timing of the deformation in the Salem and the Madurai Blocks suggest that the two experienced distinct tectonothermal events prior to their amalgamation along the Cauvery shear zone during the Ediacaran/Cambrian.

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Orogen styles in the East African Orogen: A review of the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian tectonic evolution

Cited by 597 publications

References 287 publications

Pan–African granulites of Madagascar and southern India: Gondwana assembly and parallels with modern Tibet

Pan–African granulites of Madagascar and southern India: Gondwana assembly and parallels with modern Tibet

Late Neoproterozoic granulite facies metamorphism in the Menderes Massif, Western Anatolia/Turkey: implication for the assembly of Gondwana

The evolution of a Gondwanan collisional orogen: A structural and geochronological appraisal from the Southern Granulite Terrane, South India

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