Relics of ophiolite-bearing accretionary wedges in NE Brazil and NW Africa: Connecting threads of western Gondwana´s ocean during Neoproterozoic times

Abstract

Neoproterozoic breakup of Rodinia resulted in the formation of several oceanic realms between dispersing cratons, which were later consumed during the assembly of Gondwana. In its western portion, the interior orogenic belts of Gondwana formed during the Brasiliano-Pan African Orogeny in the late Neoproterozoic-early Cambrian. Available geophysical, structural and petrological data suggest that the complex network of shear zones that once connected the Borborema province (NE Brazil), Tuareg shield (Hoggar) and Central African domain (NW Africa) likely represent ancient sutures that mark collisional episodes between Archean-Paleoproterozoic paleocontinents such as Amazonian-West African and São Francisco-Congo. Mafic, ultramafic and sedimentary sequences associated with this set of structures respresent dismembered ophiolite slices interpreted as oceanic remnants (sensu lato) that were emplaced during the late stages of the Gondwana assembly. For instance, the composite Transbrasiliano-Khandi-In-Tedeini-Silet shear system crosscuts rock assemblages preserving a complex history of oceanic-crust-transition development (Novo Oriente complex) in association with primitive to evolved magmatic arcs and UHP rocks both in the Borborema province and NW Africa. In the central Borborema province, preserved ophiolitic slices are strongly overprinted by ductile and brittle deformation events, but partially preserved MORB-like amphibolites are akin to subduction-related-types that crystallized in early- and late Neoproterozoic times docked via terrane accretion and dispersed by strike-slip shear zones. In the southern Borborema province, an example of a Neoproterozoic ophiolitic assemblage is the Monte Orebe complex, that encompasses T-MORB mafic rocks, ultramafic lenses, and exhalative sedimentary rocks akin to early to late stages of oceanic basin spreading, emplaced during convergent plate motions between the Pernambuco-Alagoas superterrane and the São Francisco craton. Correlative units are found in Cameroon, including the strongly hydrotermalized ultramafic rocks of the Lomié and Boumnyebel complexes, that are structurally controlled by top-to-the-south verging nappes found in the N-NW margin of the Congo craton. In all scenarios, the ophiolitic complexes are related to intra-oceanic and continental magmatic arcs as well as to geophysical signatures comparable to Phanerozoic suture zones. Although strongly dismembered, scrapped off Neoproterozoic oceanic crust partially preserved within the major belts of western Gondwana demonstrate the role of accretion-collisional orogenesis during its assembly.