The Zambezi Belt is an area of

orogenic Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted t ...

deformation in southern

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

and northern

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. It is a segment of a broader belt lying between the

Congo Craton The Congo Craton, covered by the Palaeozoic-to-recent Congo Basin, is an ancient Precambrian craton that with four others (the Kaapvaal, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and West African cratons) makes up the modern continent of Africa. These cratons were fo ...

and the

Kalahari Craton The Kalahari Craton is a craton, an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, that occupies large portions of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. It consists of two cratons separated by the Limpopo Belt: the larger Kaapvaal Cra ...

, which also includes the

Lufilian Arc The Lufilian Arc (or Lufilian Belt) is part of a system of orogenic belts in southern Africa formed during the Pan-African orogeny, a stage in the formation of the Gondwana supercontinent. It extends across eastern Angola, the Katanga Province of ...

and the Damaran Belt. The eastern margin of the belt interacts with the north-south Eastern African orogen. The Zambezi belt shows evidence of two large tectonothermal events, one between about 890-880 Ma and the other about 550-520 Ma. Both events reworked existing

Archean The Archean Eon ( , also spelled Archaean or Archæan) is the second of four geologic eons of Earth's history, representing the time from . The Archean was preceded by the Hadean Eon and followed by the Proterozoic. The Earth Earth ...

Mesoproterozoic The Mesoproterozoic Era is a geologic era that occurred from . The Mesoproterozoic was the first era of Earth's history for which a fairly definitive geological record survives. Continents existed during the preceding era (the Paleoproterozoic), ...

components, with small additions of younger material. The second event was caused by the collision of the Congo and Kalahari cratons during the assembly of the

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continent, continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", ...

at the end of the

Neoproterozoic The Neoproterozoic Era is the unit of geologic time from 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago. It is the last era of the Precambrian Supereon and the Proterozoic Eon; it is subdivided into the Tonian, Cryogenian, and Ediacaran periods. It is ...

. The belt includes the Kadunguri

Whiteschist A whiteschist is an uncommon metamorphic rock formed at high to ultra-high pressures. It has the characteristic mineral assemblage of kyanite + talc, responsible for its white colour. The name was introduced in 1973 by German mineralogist and petrol ...

s, which were formed by metasomatic alteration at high pressures of ocean-island-type

metabasalt Amphibolite () is a metamorphic rock that contains amphibole, especially hornblende and actinolite, as well as plagioclase feldspar, but with little or no quartz. It is typically dark-colored and dense, with a weakly foliated or schistose (flak ...

s during the

Pan-African orogeny The Pan-African orogeny was a series of major Neoproterozoic orogenic events which related to the formation of the supercontinents Gondwana and Pannotia about 600 million years ago. This orogeny is also known as the Pan-Gondwanan or Saldanian Oro ...

. The

Mwembeshi Shear Zone The Mwembeshi Shear Zone is a ductile shear zone about 550 million years old that extends ENE-WSW across Zambia. In Zambia, it separates the Lufilian Belt to the northwest from the Zambezi Belt to the southeast. It is associated with a sinistral ...

forms the northern boundary of the Zambezi Belt, separating it from the Lufilian Arc. The shear zone also dates to the Pan-African orogeny. It allowed a change in the structural

vergence A vergence is the simultaneous movement of both eyes in opposite directions to obtain or maintain single binocular vision. When a creature with binocular vision looks at an object, the eyes must rotate around a vertical axis so that the proje ...

, or direction of folding, between the Zambezi Belt and the Lufilian Arc.

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Sources * * * * Cambrian orogenies Ediacaran orogenies Orogenies of Africa Neoproterozoic orogenies Belt regions {{Palaeogeography-stub