The Neoproterozoic Dorsal de Canguçú strike-slip shear zone: its nature and role in the tectonic evolution of southern Brazil

Abstract

The Dorsal de Canguçú Shear Zone (DCSZ) is part of a strike-slip fault system showing trends parallel to the Neoproterozoic Dom Feliciano Belt in southern Brazil. As an attempt to assess the role played by this fault system in the tectonic evolution of the continental crust in southern Brazil, a re-evaluation of the main structural, magmatic and geochronological characteristics of the best known shear zone of this system was conducted. Magmatism syntectonic to the strike-slip shear zone is represented by mantle-derived granodioritic magmas emplaced into transtensional segments. These were followed by crustal melts, represented by successively younger peraluminous granites. The porphyritic granodiorites have a mixed origin involving a parental dioritic magma that suffered fractional crystallisation and assimilation of crustal rocks. They present a well-developed subvertical magmatic fabric with northeast to north-south trending foliation and low plunging lineations defined by dimensional orientation of K-feldspar megacrysts. Partial melting of the country rocks is the most likely petrogenetic process for the origin of the peraluminous granites. Microstructures produced by solid-state deformation under lower amphibolite- to greenschist-facies metamorphic conditions exhibit ubiquitous kinematic indicators of sinistral displacement. The contribution of the transcurrent fault zones to crustal growth was limited to the emplacement of relatively small volumes of mantle-derived dioritic magma during their early stages of development. Large-scale tectonic control of the overall strain field responsible for the nucleation and sinistral displacement of these faults is likely to be a far-field effect of convergence between the Kalahari and Zaire Cratons during the final stages of Neoproterozoic amalgamation of West Gondwana.