Successive sedimentary recycling regimes in southwestern Gondwana: Evidence from detrital zircons in Neoproterozoic to Cambrian sedimentary rocks in southern Africa

The detrital zircon data from southern Africa highlight the importance of protosource generation during periods of supercontinent assembly, followed by storage in continental margin and intracontinental basins, and recycling, mixing and redistribution in periods of breakup and denudation. In a scenario where recycling is a dominant factor, protosources that can be identified from detrital zircon data have little or no relevance for the tracing of detritus in a deposit from “source to sink”.