Were the African and South American cratons part of Rodinia?

The current geochronological and palaeomagnetic database casts doubt on the proposal that the cratons and late Mesoproterozoic and early Neoproterozoic rocks of Africa and South America have played any role in the formation and dispersal of the supercontinent Rodinia, believed to have existed between ∼1000 and 750 Ma ago. First, there is little evidence for the production of large volumes of ∼1.4-1.0 Ga (Kibaran- or Grenvillian-age) continental crust in the Mozambique belt (MB) of East Africa and Madagascar, except, perhaps, in parts of northern Mozambique. This is also valid for most terrains related to West Gondwana, which are made up of basement rocks older than Mesoproterozoic, reworked in the Brasiliano/Pan-African orogenic cycle. This crust cannot be conclusively related to either magmatic accretion processes on the active margin of Rodinia or continental collision leading to amalgamation of the supercontinent. Second, there is no conclusive evidence for a ∼1.0 Ga high-grade metamorphic event in the MB, and the same goes for the Neoproterozoic tectonic belts of South America and West Africa. Third, there is also no evidence for post-1000 Ma sedimentary sequences that were deposited on the passive margin(s) of Rodinia. In contrast, the MB is characterized by extensive structural reworking and metamorphic overprinting of Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic rocks, and these either constitute marginal parts of cratonic domains or represent crustal blocks (terranes or microcontinents?) of unknown derivation. This is also the case for most terrains included in the Borborema/Trans-Saharan belt of northeastern Brazil and West-Central Africa, as well as those of the Central Goiás Massif in central Brazil and the Mantiqueira Province of eastern and southeastern Brazil. There is evidence for extensive granitoid magmatism in the time period ∼950 to <600 Ma whose predominant calc-alkaline chemistry suggests subduction-related active margin processes during the assembly of the supercontinent Gondwana. The location of the main Neoproterozoic intra-oceanic magmatic arcs suggests that a large oceanic domain separated the core of Rodinia, namely Laurentia, Amazonia, Baltica and West Africa, from several continental masses and fragments now in the southern hemisphere, such as the Sao Francisco-Congo, Kalahari and Rio de La Plata cratons, as well as the Borborema/Trans-Saharan, Central Goiás Massif and Paraná blocks. A similar situation is envisaged for the Arabian-Nubian ocean and its extension to the south, separating the same cratonic masses from Eastern Gondwana. Many extensional tectonic events detected in the southern hemisphere continental masses and granitoids associated with this process are comprised within the 800-1000 age interval. This is incompatible with current views on the disintegration of Rodinia at around 750 Ma.