Provenance of metasedimentary rocks from the Ceará Central Domain of Borborema Province, NE Brazil: implications for the significance of associated retrograded eclogites

Abstract

In the Forquilha area (NE Brazil), in NW Borborema Province, high to ultra-high pressure rocks are an important geological key to understanding West Gondwana amalgamation. U–Pb geochronological data for a retrograded eclogite sample yielded an upper intercept age of ca. 1520 Ma and a lower intercept age of ca. 620 Ma. These ages most likely represent the crystallization age of the basaltic protolith and the regional metamorphism, respectively. The retrograded eclogites are enclosed in migmatized quartz-feldspathic gneiss and sillimanite (after kyanite)-garnet-biotite gneiss. Detrital U–Pb zircon data for these paragneisses show only Paleoproterozoic zircon grains with ages clustering from ca. 1800 Ma (the maximum depositional age) to ca. 2480 Ma, and frequency peaks at 2.2–2.0 Ga. Combined with Nd isotopic data from the Forquilha paragneisses, one can assume a single Paleoproterozoic source. Basement rocks of the Ceará Central and the Rio Grande do Norte domains are the most likely candidates. The absence of Meso- and Neoproterozoic zircon grains suggest that the retrograded eclogite bodies possibly do not represent slivers of oceanic rocks captured in active margin sequences during subduction. It was identified that the high-pressure rocks of the Forquilha area are in tectonic contact with high-pressure granulite facies rocks of the Ceará Complex (Independência unit) that present detrital zircon records of an active margin setting, with ages ranging from ca. 660 Ma to 2200 Ma. Metamorphism of this sequence occurred at ca. 650 Ma. Considering previous studies, field relationships, and metamorphic paragenesis, a tectonic scenario is inferred, in which the Forquilha retrograded eclogites represent Mesoproterozoic basaltic rocks of an extensional event that were metamorphosed under eclogite facies conditions during Late Neoproterozoic continental subduction/collision, and juxtaposed to an active margin sequence during the exhumation process.