ABSTRACT
The Belingwe Greenstone Belt, in south-east Zimbabwe, contains a well-preserved succession of Archaean lavas and sedimentary rocks, laid down on older continental crust. Surrounding the belt is a varied granite-gneiss terrain ranging from 3.6 to 2.6 Ga in age. The supracrustal rocks consist of two distinct sequences. The lower sequence, the Mtshingwe Group, includes the Hokonui (conglomerates and acid volcanic rocks), Bend (komatntic lavas and ironstones), Koodoovale (conglomerates and acid volcanic rocks) and Brooklands (komatiitic lavas and varied sedimentary rocks) Formations. The sequence was probably laid down on a basement of older gneiss. Lying unconformably above both the Mtshingwe Group and the older granite-gneiss terrain, with well exposed basal contacts, is the 2.7 Ga Ngezi Group. This consists of the Manjeri (thin sedimentary rocks), Reliance (komatiites), Zeederbergs (basalts) and Cheshire (mainly shallow water sedimentary rocks) Formations. The Manjeri and Cheshire Formations both contain stromatolitic horizons.
The stratigraphy of the Zimbabwe Archaean Craton has been reassessed in the light of work in Belingwe and it has been shown (Wilson et al. 1978; Wilson 1979) that the Belingwe succession serves as a basis for a craton-wide correlation.
