The Pombal granite pluton: Magnetic fabric, emplacement and relationships with the Brasiliano strike-slip setting of NE Brazil (Paraiba State)

Abstract

The Pombal pluton (500 km 2), a suite of diorite, syenite and porphyritic granite bodies, is here used to constrain kinematics of Brasiliano-age tectonic episodes in northeast Brazil. The pluton intrudes high-grade to migmatitic gneiss forming the western basement of the Seridó belt, and is located at the intersection between two sets of continental-scale dextral strike-slip shear zones. The northern set of shear zone strikes NE-SW and branches, southwards, into the E-W Patos mega-shear zone. A detailed microstructural and low-field magnetic susceptibility study was performed to unravel the relationships between solid-state deformation in the country rocks and magma emplacement. Porphyritic granite and syenite have quite high magnetic susceptibilities (10 −3–10 −2 SI units) indicative of magnetite as the principal carrier of susceptibility. The magnetic fabric is remarkably homogeneous in orientation throughout the pluton. It is characterized by a shape-preferred alignment of magnetite, itself parallel to the shape fabric of mainly biotite (±amphibole), i.e. to the magmatic fabric. Even close to the contact with the high-temperature mylonites of the Patos shear zone, south of Pombal, no imprint of the E-W-trending structures is observed in the fabrics of either the granite or the host rocks. Granite emplacement and its internal fabric development is concluded to be independent of the movement of the Patos shear zone. In the southwestern border of the pluton, a low-dip foliation bearing a NE-SW-striking lineation is shared in both the magmatic fabric of the pluton and the solid-state fabric. Farther to the north, approaching the NE-SW strike-slip shear zone, the magmatic fabric is characterized by a steeply dipping NE-striking foliation carrying a subhorizontal lineation. Transition from low to steep dips of the planar fabrics is progressive. Two models are proposed for emplacement of the Pombal pluton. One considers magma injection during an early episode of tangential tectonics, responsible for the gently dipping foliations, evolving later to strike-slip deformation. The other model considers that the pluton was emplaced in a pull-apart domain developed in the overlapping sector of a right-hand en échelon system of a dextral shear zone. Compatibility of these models with the tectonic evolution of the Seridó belt is discussed.