Orogeny in 1890 to describe the process of mountain building as distinguished from epeirogeny. The formation of an orogen can be accomplished by the tectonic processes such as oceanic subduction (where a continent rides forcefully over an oceanic plate for accretionary orogeny) or continental subduction convergence of two or more continents for collisional orogeny). Orogeny usually produces long arcuate (from the Latin "", "to bend like a bow") structures, known as "orogenic belts". Generally, orogenic belts consist of long parallel strips of rock exhibiting similar characteristics along the length of the belt. Although orogenic belts are associated with subduction zones, subduction
Pan-African orogeny collisions of several continental blocks. Furthermore, the Pan-African events are contemporaneous with the Cadomian orogeny in Europe and the Baikalian orogeny in Asia, and crust from these areas were probably part of Pannotia (i.e. Gondwana when it first formed) during the Precambrian. Attempts to correlate the African Pan-African belts with the South American Brasiliano belts on the other side of the Atlantic has in many cases been problematic. Orogenic belts comprising the Pan-African system include: Pan-African orogeny The Pan-African orogeny was a series of major Neoproterozoic orogenic events which related to the formation of the supercontinents Gondwana and Pannotia about