Late Pleistocene marine terrace deposits in northeastern Brazil: sea-level change and tectonic implications

Abstract

Coastal areas of passive margins are among the best places to examine the reality of sea-level changes. Elevation of marine terraces is central to interpretation of their approximate age in this kind of tectonic setting. The recognition of Pleistocene shorelines on the South American eastern continental margin is becoming increasingly common, but data are commonly imprecise in both time and space, and the resulting chronology is based mainly on geomorphological attributes. Nine thermoluminescence dates and four optically stimulated luminescence dates of 220–206 ka and 117–110 ka were obtained for two marine terrace deposits along 340 km of coast in Rio Grande do Norte State, northeastern Brazil. They are correlated with the highstands of marine oxygen-isotope substages 7c and 5c sea level, respectively. The older deposit occurs mainly on the N–S-trending coast and ranges in elevation between 7.5 and 1.3 m. The latter is found along the E–W-trending coast at altitudes that vary between 1 m and 20 m. It indicates relative downfaulting of the 220–206-ka marine terrace and uplift of the 117–110-ka marine deposit, which is locally about 12 m higher than deposits of similar age described 1000 km to the south. It follows that elevation alone is an unreliable tool for establishing a Quaternary sea-level change chronology also on passive margin coastal areas.