Mesoproterozoic orogenic belts in southern and central Africa

The present collection of papers is a final product of a UNESCO–IGCP Project entitled ‘Evolution of the Kibaran Belt System in southwestern Africa: comparison with equatorial and southern Africa’. The proposal for this project was submitted to the IUGS in late 1996 by Henri Kampunzu and Roger Key and was accepted as IGCP Project 418. As used in the project title, the term Kibaran refers to the various 1.4–1.0 Ga orogens present in Africa, named after the large Kibaran belt (sensu stricto) in central Africa; whether usage of the term in the general sense should be continued in the future will be addressed in a separate contribution. The project description for IGCP418 noted that the role of the Kibaran Belt System of Africa was being largely ignored in Mesoproterozoic reconstruction models of the Rodinia Supercontinent suggested by leading geoscientists from non-African universities. In part this was due to a lack of detailed knowledge of the geological history of the various major Mesoproterozoic (Kibaran) orogens of central and southern Africa and the geological and temporal relationships between these orogenic belts.