Abstract Recent studies of Pan-African events in East Gondwana are critically reviewed, particularly recent models of amalgamation of East Gondwana during the Pan-African period. It is pointed out that critical data are insufficient to constrain the newly proposed models and so the classical model of the Grenvillian Circum-East Antarctic Orogen cannot yet be replaced. Grenvillian tectonothermal events with a peak between 1.0 and 1.2Ga assembled different crustal blocks of the East Antarctic Shield with different geohistories. Pan-African tectonothermal reworking took place over wide but selected areas of the orogen. Careful geochronological studies, including SHRIMP dating associated with structural and petrological investigations to correlate ages with those events, are shown to be important, since fluid-rich and/or deformational conditions are equally effective as temperature conditions for mineral recrystallization and resetting of isotopic systematics. Pan- African suture zones, one extending from the Mozambique Belt to the Shackleton Range and another connecting the Mozambique Belt to the Zambezi Belt, are equally possible, although the width of the southern Mozambique Ocean is poorly understood. The extent of Pan-African sutures in the Prydz Bay area is enigmatic, although they represent definite orogens. Palaeomagnetic studies may provide critical constraints in evaluating the sutures, provided that the age of magnetization is well established.

Abstract The Southern Granulite Terrain of India comprises four Proterozoic domains (from north to south): the Madurai Block, and the Achankovil, Ponmudi and Nagercoil Units. All but the Achankovil Unit share similarities with the Highland Complex of Sri Lanka: (1) evidence for Palaeoproterozoic crust formation (from U–Pb ages and 2.0–3.0 Ga Nd model ages); and (2) Pan-African ultrahigh-temperature metamorphism between 610 and 550 Ma. More specifically, the Ponmudi Unit and the Madurai Block share lithological and petrological characteristics with the low- P and high- P domains of the Highland Complex, respectively. The Achankovil Unit is correlated with the Wanni Complex of Sri Lanka on the basis of lithologies and Nd model ages (1.0–2.0Ga). These domains and the Vijayan and Kadugannawa Complexes of Sri Lanka represent Late Mesoproterozoic-Early Neoproterozoic crustal domains. Similarities in tectonic style, degree of metamorphism and Neoproterozoic U–Pb ages, suggest a common Pan-African tectonothermal evolution for the lower crustal domains of southern India, Sri Lanka and the Lützow-Holm Bay of Eastern Antarctica. Sri Lanka may have been located at the junction between the Mozambique Belt and a second belt partly involving areas that underwent a Grenvillian high-grade event during the formation of Rodinia. Madagascar shows a similar Pan-African metamorphic overprint, but is located in a different position and lacks the influence of the second belt. Alternative views are discussed.

Abstract The East Antarctic Shield consists of a variety of Archaean and Proterozoic–Cambrian high-grade terranes that have distinct crustal histories and were amalgamated at various times in the Precambrian-Cambrian. High-grade Pan-African tectonism at 600–500Ma is recognized from four distinct belts: the Dronning Maud Land, Lützow-Holm Bay, Prydz Bay and Denman Glacier Belts. These high-grade belts juxtapose distinct Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic crustal provinces (Maud, Rayner and Wilkes), the Rauer Terrane, and have also marginally affected Archaean cratonic remnants in the Napier Complex and southern Prince Charles Mountains. The Wilkes Province experienced its principal tectonothermal events prior to 1130Ma and was not affected by the younger events that characterize the Maud Province (1150 and 1030–990Ma), the Rayner Province (990–920Ma) and the Rauer Terrane (1030–990Ma). These differences between the isotopic/event records of the basement provinces now separated by the Pan-African belts require that the older provinces were not formerly parts of a continuous ‘Grenville’ belt as proposed in the SW US-East Antartic model. East Antarctica was not a single unified crustal block within either East Gondwana or Rodinia until the Cambrian, which is now demonstrated to be the key phase of high-grade and ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) metamorphism associated with supercontinent assembly. The high-grade Pan-African tectonism is characterized by extensive infracrustal melting, clock-wise P–T paths, rapid post-peak exhumation along isothermal decompression paths to shallow- or mid-crustal levels by 500 Ma and the generation, at least locally, of UHT conditions. A significant flux of heat from the mantle into the deep and initially overthickened crust is required to produce these observed metamorphic effects. Whilst the thermal evolution can be explained by models that invoke the removal of most of the lithospheric mantle following crustal thickening and prior to rapid extension of the remaining crust, these one-dimensional models are inconsistent with present crustal thicknesses of 25–35km in the Pan-African domains of the East Antarctic Shield.

Abstract Dronning Maud Land contains a fragment of an Archaean craton covered by sedimentary and magmatic rocks of Mesoproterozoic age, surrounded by a Late Mesoproterozoic metamorphic belt. Tectonothermal events at the end of the Mesoproterozoic and in Late Neoproterozoic–Cambrian times (Pan-African) have been proved within the metamorphic belt. In western Dronning Maud Land a juvenile Mesoproterozoic basement was accreted to the craton at c. 1.1 Ga. Mesoproterozoic rocks were also detected by zircon SHRIMP dating of gneisses in central Dronning Maud Land, followed by a long hiatus for which geochronological data are lacking, an amphibolite to granulite facies metamorphism and syntectonic granitoid emplacement of Pan-African age have been dated. During this orogeny older structures were completely overprinted in a sinistral tranpressive deformation regime, leading to the mainly coast-parallel tectonic structures of the East Antarctic Orogen. Putting Antarctica back in its Gondwana position, the East Antarctic Orogen continues northward in East Africa as the East African Orogen, whereas a connection to the marginal Ross Orogen at the Pacific margin of East Antarctica is suggested along the Shackleton Range. The East Antarctic-East African Orogen resulted from closure of the Mozambique Ocean and collision of West and East Gondwana, i.e. western Dronning Maud Land was part of West Gondwana. During this collision the lithospheric mantle probably delaminated, allowing the asthenosphere to underplate the continental crust and producing heat for the voluminous, typically anhydrous, Pan-African granitoids of central Dronning Maud Land.