The >1510-1500 Ma Ernest Henry Fe-oxide-Cu-Au orebody is a hydrothermal deposit hosted in K-feldspar altered ca 1740 Ma plagioclase phyric volcanic rocks in the Cloncurry district, Mount Isa Inlier. Mineralization occurred late in a post-peak metamorphic hydrothermal system, and the ore is mainly hosted in an infill-supported hydrothermal breccia that grades to crackle veining at the margins. The orebody has a > 1km down dip extension, and is structurally-controlled between two shear zones that trend NE-SW and dip -35° to the SE. The ore is mainly composed of subrounded clasts separated by a fine- to medium-grained infill composed of magnetite, calcite, pyrite, biotite, K-feldspar, chalcopyrite, hematite, garnet, barite, fluorite, quartz and molybdenite.

This Special Publication of the Geological Society of London, The Evolving Continents: Understanding Processes of Continental Growth, is dedicated to the long and spectacular career of Brian F. Windley, a pioneer in the application of uniformitarianism to Precambrian rocks, a leader in linking field geology with the geochemistry and geochronology of different orogenic units with global tectonic history, and an overall polymath who has had a deep influence on many fields of geological sciences.

The Analyzing Development Issues (ADI) team and research participants express their gratitude to the Bunong indigenous people in the Mondulkiri villages of Gati and Pou Rapeth for sharing with us their experiences of interacting with the corporate mining companies in their midst. The researchers would also like to thank the local authorities and mining officials in Mondulkiri who cooperated in this study. Tien Hien Tang and Vaing Samrith from Development and Partnership in Action (DPA) assisted the fieldwork in Gati village in Keo Seima district.

The African continent preserves a long geological record that covers almost 75% of Earth’s history. The Pan-African orogeny (c. 600–500 Ma) brought together old continental kernels (or cratons such as West African, Congo, Kalahari and Tanzania) forming Gondwana and subsequently the supercontinent Pangea by the late Palaeozoic (Fig. 1).
The break-up of Pangea since the Jurassic and Cretaceous, primarily through the opening of the Central Atlantic (e.g. Torsvik et al. 2008; Labails et al. 2010), Indian (e.g. Gaina et al. 2007; Mu¨ller et al. 2008; Cande et al. 2010) and South Atlantic (e.g. Torsvik et al. 2009) oceans and the complicated subduction history to the north gradually shaped the African continent and its surrounding oceanic basins. Many first-order questions of African geology are still unanswered.