Abstract
The tectonic development of the Limpopo Mobile Belt is reviewed and a plate-tectonic model is presented to explain this development and the evolution of the southern African cratons. It is postulated that the belt formed ∼ 3570 Ma ago with the establishment of a continental rise that collapsed into an aulacogen. The aulacogen and the sedimentary and igneous rocks that filled it were successively deformed as a result of differential movements between crustal plates encompassing what are now commonly termed the Rhodesian and Kaapvaal cratons. The timing of events in the evolution of the Limpopo Mobile Belt correlates well with the chronology of the tectonic development of the granite-greenstone terrains of the Rhodesian and Kaapvaal cratons. The pattern of crustal evolution in southern Africa may be viewed in terms of the accretion of a series of deformed back-arc basins and island arcs onto a nucleus of continental rocks including the Limpopo Mobile Belt.
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