Anatomy of the Mozambique Belt of Eastern and Southern Africa: Evidence from Tanzania

The Mozambique belt of eastern and southern Africa is polyorogenic and marks the sites for the assembly (collision and suturing) and dispersion (rifting and drifting) of the Proterozoic supercontinents. Subduction zones and collisional sutures in this belt are of variable ages. Reliable isotope and geological data from the Mozambique belt of Holmes (1951) suggest that there existed three major Proterozoic oceans within this belt: the Palaeoproterozoic, Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic “Mozambique Oceans”. However, the accretion and collisional tectonic history of this orogenically coalescent belt are complex and thus still enigmatic.