New Rb-Sr isotope data from the Mzumbe Gneiss Suite, the oldest granitoid in the Mzumbe Terrane, Natal Metamorphic Province

Although the rocks of the Mzumbe Gneiss suite display a close similarity to many Archaean, high-alumina tonalite-trondhjemite suites, an origin by the reactivation of a pre-existing Archaean or early Proterozoic infrastructure during the Namaqua-Natal orogenesis, can be effectively excluded. It is proposed that the Natal Metamorphic Provunce was formed by the generation and successive accretion of discrete fragments of juvenile crust onto the southern margin of the Kaapvaal craton between ∼1200 and 900 Ma. 1 fig., 9 refs