Generation and age of early Archaean greenstone belt remnants in the southeastern Kaapvaal craton of South Africa

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This project will investigate supracrustal and associated granitoid rocks in several small greenstone remnants exposed in the southeastern Kaapvaal craton near the town of Piet Retief. Methods used will be field investigations, single zircon dating, geochemistry, as well as the analysis of Hf and Nd isotopic systems. Our previous work has identified ca. 3530-3550 and ca. 3445 Ma felsic metavolcanic units in the Barberton Greenstone Belt and several greenstone remnants in Swaziland, whereas there are no age data for the above greenstone remnants near Piet Retief. Our aim is to establish the age, petrogenesis and evolution of suitable lithologies in the above greenstone remnants and to test the hypothesis that these, together with the Barberton Greenstone Belt, were once part of an extensive early Archaean continental flood basalt sequence covering a large part of the southeastern Kaapvaal craton, similar to what has been proposed for the East Pilbara terrane in Western Australia.