Pan-African reactivation of the Lurio segment of the Kibaran Belt system: a reappraisal from recent age determinations in northern Mozambique

Abstract

The role of the Lurio Belt in northern Mozambique, and the geological evolution of its foreland in the Proterozoic are discussed in the light of recent, single zircon age determinations showing Pan-African age for the granulite-facies metamorphism. The following tentative conclusions are reached, and evidence for and against them is reviewed. The Lurio Belt had a two-fold history, as a crust-forming orogen during the Kibaran and as a transpressive suture in Pan-African times. Together with the Zambezi Belt and the Schlesien-Mwembeshi Lineament, it formed a 3000 km discontinuity which underwent an embryonic oceanic development before being sutured during the Pan-African collisional event. The Lurio Belt foreland had a tectonic-metamorphic evolution at ca 1000 Ma, prior to major, Pan-African overprinting and was probably continuous with the basement of Queen Maud Land (Antarctica) and Natal. In Pan-African times, clockwise transpressive movements along the Lurio Belt brought about emplacement of granulite klippen in its foreland. If there is a southward continuation of the Pan-African Mozambique Belt beyond Mozambique, it is probably to be found in Antarctica.