The basement of the North China Craton consists of the Eastern and Western blocks, separated by the Central Zone. Both the Eastern and Western blocks are dominated by late Archaean tonalitic–trondhjemitic–granodioritic gneiss complexes interdigitated with minor supracrustal rocks metamorphosed at ∼2.5 Ga, with anticlockwise P–T paths. The Central Zone is composed of reworked late Archaean components and Palaeoproterozoic juvenile crustal materials that underwent regional metamorphism at ∼1.85 Ga, with clockwise P–T paths involving isothermal decompression as a result of collision between the Eastern and Western blocks, which resulted in the final assembly of the North China Craton.

The Nellore–Khammam schist belt, SE India, is sandwiched in between the Proterozoic Eastern Ghats terrane and the Archaean Dharwar–Bastar craton. We report Sm–Nd and Rb–Sr mineral isochron ages of amphibolite from the schist belt. The Sm–Nd and Rb–Sr ages are 824±43 Ma and 481±16 Ma, respectively. The Sm–Nd age indicates the timing of peak metamorphism, whereas the Rb–Sr age indicates the Pan-African thermal overprint. The peak metamorphism was related to collision of the Eastern Ghats terrane with the Dharwar-Bastar craton, which occurred during early Neoproterozoic time.