Geological Society of America Special Paper 405 2006 SHRIMP zircon age constraints on Mesoarchean crustal development in the Vredefort dome, central Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa Richard A. Armstrong † Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra 0200, A.C.T., Australia Cristiano Lana ‡ Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, 2050 Wits, Johannesburg, South Africa Wolf Uwe Reimold § Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, 2050 Wits, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Museum für Naturkunde (Mineralogy), Humboldt University, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany Roger L. Gibson Impact Cratering Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, P.O. Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa ABSTRACT SHRIMP (sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe) U-Pb zircon dating of the Archean basement rocks in the core of the Vredefort dome, South Africa, is integrated with results of lithological and structural mapping and geochemical data to assess the tectonic evolution of the central parts of the Kaapvaal Craton. Recent tectonic models have envisaged the rocks in the core of the dome as part of a much larger, >3200 Ma, Archean cratonic shield (Kaapvaal Shield) that attained stability during partial melt- ing of its early crust and emplacement of voluminous, Mesoarchean, crustally derived granitoid bodies between 3200 and 3100 Ma. Our studies have indicated, however, that the oldest sialic rocks (tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite—TTG) in the core of the dome were only formed between 3120 and 3100 Ma, probably in an island arc set- ting, and that they were accreted onto the craton shortly thereafter. Tectonic accretion of the TTG rocks led to crustal thickening, partial melting, and emplacement of 3100–3080 Ma granites and granodiorites at midcrustal levels under high-grade meta- morphic conditions, slightly later than the main pulse of granitoid magmatism in the Kaapvaal Shield. This event was followed almost immediately by collapse of the thick- ened crust, leading to rapid exhumation of the midcrustal rocks prior to the deposi- tion of rift-related volcanic and sedimentary supracrustal strata at ca. 3074 Ma. The Mesoarchean tectonomagmatic activity in the core of the dome was terminated with emplacement of 3068 Ma aplite dikes. Keywords: Kaapvaal Craton, Vredefort dome, Archean tectonics, zircon, SHRIMP. Armstrong, R.A., Lana, C., Reimold, W.U., and Gibson, R.L., 2006, SHRIMP zircon age constraints on Mesoarchean crustal development in the Vredefort dome, central Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa, in Reimold, W.U., and Gibson, R.L., Processes on the Early Earth: Geological Society of America Special Paper 405, p. 233–253, doi: 10.1130/2006.2405(13). For permission to copy, contact editing@geosociety.org. ©2006 Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. 233 † E-mail: richard.armstrong@anu.edu.au. ‡ Present Address: Impacts and Astromaterials Research Centre, Imperial College London, Royal School of Mines, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ, UK. § E-mail: uwe.reimold@museum.hu-berlin.de.