The Saldania Belt in southern Africa a product of the Pan-African Saldanian Orogeny forms
part of a system of Neoproterozoic mobile belts that border and weld older cratons on the
African continent (Figure 5A). It is a low-grade orogenic belt situated along the south-western
margin of the Kalahari Craton and is composed of a number of inliers of greenschist facies
metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks (Malmesbury Group) unroofed in mega-anticlinal hinges
of the Permo-Triassic Cape Fold Belt (Gresse et al. 1992 Rozendaal et al. 1999). The
Malmesbury Group and its main exposure to the north of Cape Town constitute the oldest rocks in
the belt. They are divided into three tectono-stratigraphic terranes (Figure 6) by predominant
northwest trending sinstral dextral strike-slip fault and shear zones (Hartnady et al. 1974).
Towards the east of the belt several smaller exposures of supposed 'pre-Cape' rocks form part
of the Saldania Belt. As previously mentioned these are the: Gamtoos Group in the Port
Elizabeth area the Kaaimans Group in the George area and the Kango Group in the Oudtshoorn
area.The folding and thrusting seen in the Saldania Belt was a result of the Permo-Triassic
Cape Orogeny. This tectonism along with its weakly metamorphosed Neoproterozoic basement
resulted in the overprinting of most of the earlier 'pre-Cape' structures and reset radiometric
ages in the metamorphites (some granite as well) to 230-278 Ma (Halbich et al. 1983 Gresse
and Scheepers 1993).
