Structural style of basin inversion at mid-crustal levels: two transects in the internal zone of the Brasilizno Ara çuai Belt, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

The Ara çuai belt is the orogenic belt that directly borders the eastern margin of the Sa˜o Francisco Craton in eastern Brazil. Detailed structural investigations in the Governador Valadares region of Minas Gerais indicate that the amphibolite-to granulite-grade internal zones of the Ara çuai belt contain several major, west-vergent, crystalline overthrust sheets. These thrust sheets contain approximately homoclinal east-dipping gneissic banding and are separated from one another by zones of isoclinally and sheath-folded, ductiley sheared, metasedimentary units that behaved as mechanically weak glide horizons during deformation. We interpret this regionally imbricated sequence of basement and cover to be the mid-crustal level manifestation of closure of a mid-Neoproterozoic rift basin that existed to the east of the Sa˜o Francisco Craton. The major thrusts, which are all cratonvergent, are of Brasiliano/Pan-African age (650-450 Ma) becuase they cut the Neoproterozoic Galiléia batholith. Older fabrics are locally preserved in the basement slices, and these fabrics may be relicts of the Transamazonian orogeny (2.0 Ga). Discrete zones of ductile-brittle extension that were identified in several localities in the study area suggest the occurrence of postorogenic collapse following Brasiliano overthrusting. Alternations of rigid crystalline thrust sheets and highly deformed metasedimentary sequences, such as those of the Governador Valadares region, may be a common structural geometry at a depth of 15–20 km in modern regions of collision and basin closure.