Crustal evolution in the East African Orogen: a neodymium isotopic perspective

The East African Orogen (EAO) is one of Earth’s great collision zones, where East and West Gondwana collided to form the supercontinent ‘Greater Gondwana’ or ‘Pannotia’ at the end of Neoproterozoic time. There is now sufficient Nd isotopic data for basement rocks of the EAO to yield a useful summary. A total of 449 samples were gleaned from the literature, recalculated to a common value for the La Jolla Nd standard, and entered in Excel spreadsheets. This data set was filtered to exclude samples with Sm/Nd > 0.165, considered to yield unreliable model ages, leaving 413 suitable data. The crust of the Arabian–Nubian Shield, including Egypt east of the Nile, Sudan east of the Keraf suture, Sinai, Israel, Jordan, most of Arabia, Eritrea, and northern Ethiopia yields overwhelmingly Neoproterozoic model ages. Crust to the east, in the Afif terrane of Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, and Eastern Ethiopia yields much older model ages, averaging 2.1 Ga, demonstrating an abundance of reworked ancient crust. This provides an isotopic link with Madagascar (mean age of 2.4 Ga), which in pre-Jurassic reconstructions lies on the southern extension of this older, remobilized tract. Crust in the far southern extreme of the EAO in Tanzania also yields ancient model ages, averaging 2.3 Ga. The central EAO, in southern Ethiopia and Kenya, yields intermediate ages (mean 1.1–1.2 Ga), interpreted to indicate extensive mixing between Neoproterozoic mantle-derived melts and ancient crust. The Nd isotope data indicate that the northern EAO is composed of juvenile Neoproterozoic crust sandwiched between reworked older crust, whereas the EAO farther south is progressively dominated by ancient crust reworked during Neoproterozoic time. The distribution of juvenile and reworked ancient crust suggests that the most intense collision between East and West Gondwana occurred in the southern part of the EAO. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.