The southern part of the African continent is a mosaic of several Archean cratonic nuclei, which are separated by a network of younger orogenic belts of broadly Paleo-, Meso-, and Neoproterozoic ages. The northern part of the Tete Province is underlain by rocks of the Irumide Orogenic Belt. These rocks are comprised of metamorphosed and deformed supra-crustal volcano-sedimentary rocks as well as Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic granitoids.
In the Neoproterozoic, the Mesoproterozoic crystalline basement of Tete Province were subjected to the Pan-African orogenic event involving three major Pan-African lithospheric plates, i.e., East, West and South Gondwana, that collided and amalgamated. Consumption of the Mozambique Ocean between 841 and 632 Ma, and collision and amalgamation of West Gondwana and East Gondwana at ~640-530 Ma, gave rise to the development of the N/S trending, 6,000 km long East Africa Orogen. Late Pan-African remobilisation at ~500-480 Ma, followed by post-Pan-African orogenic collapse at ~480-430 Ma, was accompanied by the emplacement of granitoids and pegmatites.
Primary gold mineralisation occurs in the form of mesothermal shear zone-hosted, lode Au (Ag-Cu) deposits. Gold-bearing units include large, boudinage-quartz veins associated with intense metasomatism of the surrounding host rocks within the various shear zones as well as metasomatic aplitic-quartz veins associated with large-scale thrust zones. The deposits are linked to greenschist-facies dynamo-metamorphism and the associated liberation of metamorphic fluids. Regional, brittle-ductile deformation, as well as granitic magmatism and associated hydrothermal activity occurred as a response to various major orogenic events. The deformation events formed a complex network of brittle-ductile, sub-vertically inclined shear zones and shallow-dipping thrust zones. These structures are found extensively throughout the Tete Province and are continuous for several tens of kilometres.