The paleoproterozoic post-tectonic granites of the Gavião Block: the example of Salininha monzogranite, Brumado, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

The Gavião Block is underlain by a variety of Archean orthogneisses and greenstone belts, intruded by a suite of syn-deformational and post-tectonic granitoids which ages of emplacement are poorly constrained between the Paleoand Mesoproterozoic. The Salininha monzogranite is a massive intrusion located approximately 50 km northwest of Brumado, south-central Bahia state, Brazil. The intrusion is representative of several post-tectonic felsic plutons in the Gavião Block. Their petrology, geochemistry and age have been largely unstudied. Salininha pluton is a roughly 16 km2 irregular, elongate body intruding strongly deformed and metamorphosed orthogneisses and migmatites of the Archean Gavião Complex. Modally, the Salininha rocks contain biotite as the major ferromagnesian accessory, besides lesser hornblende, muscovite, chlorite, zircon, opaques and epidote. They are slightly peraluminous rocks with high silica contents (71.6 – 75.0wt%), obtained by lithium tetraborate fusion inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The rocks have high concentration of Rb, Sr and Ba (323,88 and 1,155 ppm, respectively). These values were obtained by lithium tetraborate fusion (mass spectrometer—MS). The average value obtained for the La/Yb ratio was 18.83. Chondrite-normalized rare earth element (REE) patterns show a smooth, restricted range, with moderate light REE enrichment, but flat heavy REE patterns — all samples show pronounced negative Eu anomalies consistent with feldspar fractionation. Major and trace elements have trends, which indicate that crystal fractionation of plagioclase, K-feldspar and biotite — an important process during magmatic evolution of the pluton. The trace element data provided support to the classification of the Salininha monzogranite as a post-collisional intrusion. A representative sample has yielded an early Orosirian U-Pb (zircon) age of 2003 ± 4 Ma, via chemical abrasion-isotope dilution-thermal ionization