The southern Brazilian Shield comprises a number of tectonostratigraphic blocks representing two terranes. The São Gabriel block consists of relics of two Brasiliano juvenile magmatic arcs; the Porongos belt located on the Encantadas block formed in a passive margin setting. Plate tectonic evolution started with opening of an oceanic basin to the east of the Rio de la Plata craton since at least 0.9–1.0 Ga. An intra-oceanic island arc formed due to eastward subduction and was subsequently accreted to the eastern margin of the Rio de la Plata craton. Westward subduction beneath the newly formed active continental margin occurred between ca. 850 and 700 Ma. At the same time, the Porongos basin formed on stretched continental crust of the Encantadas passive margin. Collision of the two terranes took place at ca. 700–660 Ma followed by left-lateral ductile shear along the Dorsal de Canguçu Shear Zone between 670 and 620 Ma and 630- to 610-Ma sinistral shearing in the Dom Feliciano belt farther east. The episodic character of orogenic evolution can be observed throughout Brazil. The Brasiliano belts cannot be directly linked with pan-African belts in southwestern Africa because main deformation in the latter occurred 50–70 Ma later. The assembly of Gondwana comprises a series of collisions of cratons and microcontinents over a time span of nearly 400 Ma; however, a number of orogenic episodes can be discriminated. Their synchroneity suggests that temporally equivalent episodes are coupled with the global plate tectonic framework, which, however, is far from resolved.