Abstract The Mesoproterozoic cover rocks of the Archaean Grunehogna Province in western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, are gently folded and intensely fractured by a progressive ductile to brittle deformation event. The cause was dominantly NNW-SSE transpression related to a regionally extensive intracontinental sinistral strike-slip event at c. 520 Ma. This reactivated the boundary between the Archaean Grunehogna Province and the high grade Mesoproterozic Maudheim Province, and resulted in the formation and deformation of the Cambrian Urfjell pull-apart basin. In a Gondwana refit, this strike-slip system can be linked to similar zones in southeast Africa which post-date the 750–650 Ma early Pan-African collisional events of that region. The NNW movement of the Maudheim Province along this strike-slip zone was responsible for the development of thrusts in the Lurio Belt of northern Mozambique. The driving force for this movement is considered to be related to the late Pan-African collisional events elsewhere in the growing supercontinent.