Battling the appraisal backlog: A challenging professional obligation for Botswana National Archives and Records Services

This article discusses the challenges faced by Botswana NationalArchives and Records Services (BNARS) in addressing its appraisalbacklog. The backlog is a result of a fragmented records managementsystem where the Department played a custodial role for semicurrentrecords and preservation of archival records. Management of current records was not in the control of BNARS, but rather lay with creating agencies. For various reasons no appraisal was done in these agencies resulting in accumulation of unappraised materials. The backlog of unappraised records presents challenges of denying access to information which, according to law should be availed. It also presents a space management problem as Records Centres and records management units get congested with ephemeral records. The Department initially struggled to make an impact on the backlog, but with the introduction of new initiatives and resources significant progress has been made. An assessment of attempts to resolve the backlog is made and lessons are drawn from that. The challenges presented relate to professional records management matters, the records management structure in the public sector, human resource issues and BNARS operational issues. Ongoing strategies and planned solutions addressing the challenges are also discussed

Zircon geochronology of basement granitoid gneisses and sedimentary rocks of the Tsodilo Hills Group in the Pan-African Damara Belt, western Botswana: age constraints, provenance, and tectonic significance

New U-Pb sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) dating of zircon from granitoid gneisses and siliciclastic metasedimentary rocks of the Tsodilo Hills Group in the Pan-African Damara Belt in western Botswana were examined to determine the emplacement ages of the granitoids and to identify the provenance of the sediments and the source area.This study was financially supported by the Geological Survey of Botswana and the University of Botswana and was partly carried out as the field supervision of past University of Botswana students by MW and RBM, as well as AGH Statutory Research No. 11.11.140.626 by MW. The SHRIMP work was supported by the Botswana Geoscience Institute (formerly Geological Survey of Botswana) and the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources to LVR. RAA would like to thank the Electron Microscopy Unit at the Australian National University for access to their facilities

The Kalahari Craton during the assembly and dispersal of Rodinia

In this paper, we review the dimensions, geometry and architecture of the components of the Kalahari Craton and the various positions this important crustal block could have occupied within Rodinia. The Kalahari Craton was spawned from a small composite Archaean core which grew by prolonged crustal accretion in the Palaeoproterozoic along its NW side (Magondi–Okwa–Kheis Belt, Rehoboth Subprovince) to form the Proto-Kalahari Craton by 1750 Ma. From ca. 1400 to 1000 Ma, all margins of this crustal entity recorded intense tectonic activity: the NW margin was a major active continental margin between ca. 1400 and 1200 Ma and along the southern and eastern margins, the Namaqua–Natal–Maud–Mozambique Belt records a major arc–accretion and continent–collision event between ca. 1100 and 1050 Ma. By ca. 1050 Ma, the Proto-Kalahari nucleus was almost completely rimmed by voluminous Mesoproterozoic crust and became a larger entity, the Kalahari Craton. Apart from southern Africa, fragments of the Kalahari Craton are now exposed in East- and West-Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and possibly also in South America. Immediately prior to the onset of arc– and continent–continent collision along the Namaqua–Natal–Maud Belt (part of the widespread “Grenville-age” orogeny during which Rodinia was assembled), Kalahari was subjected to intraplate magmatism – the Umkondo–Borg Large Igneous Province – at ca. 1110 Ma. The post-Rodinia rift and drift history of the Kalahari Craton is best preserved along the western, south-western and north-western margin, where rift sediments and volcanics indicate rifting and break-up at ca. 800–750 Ma. The position of the Kalahari Craton in Rodinia is problematic, and there is no unique solution for its placement in the supercontinent. One set of models has the Kalahari Craton lying along the SW side of Laurentia with the Namaqua–Natal–Maud Belt facing either inboard (correlation with the Ottawan cycle of the Grenville orogen) or outboard (mainly for palaeomagnetic reasons). In this arrangement the relatively late rift history and the subsequent incorporation of Kalahari into Gondwana is problematic. Alternatively, Kalahari could have been attached to Western Australia. In this model the Namaqua–Natal–Maud Belt has no counterpart and, although the timing of rifting at ca. 750 Ma fits, the location of rifting is problematic—the Kalahari Craton would have had to undergo major rifting along its eastern, rather than its western side, which is not consistent with overservations. So the matter is as yet unresolved, and much of the evidence of rifting along the eastern side of the Kalahari Craton was obliterated due to high-grade overprint along the Late Neoproterozoic/Early Palaeozoic East African–Antarctic Orogen