The Ribeirão da Folha ophiolite-bearing accretionary wedge (Araçuaí orogen, SE Brazil): New data for Cryogenian plagiogranite and metasedimentary rocks

Abstract

The Araçuaí orogen and West Congo belt make up a singular confined orogenic system, embraced by the San Francisco – Congo craton: the AWCO. It includes a southern sector with ophiolite bodies and magmatic arc, and a northern sector free of them, suggesting the precursor basin was an embayment partially floored by oceanic crust. The northernmost ophiolitic rock-assemblage found in the Araçuaí orogen comprises metamafic and meta-ultramafic rocks with signatures of ocean-floor magmas, and associated pelagic to oceanic metasedimentary rocks of the Ribeirão da Folha Formation. Although tectonically dismembered and metamorphosed, those rocks resemble the classical ophiolite pseudostratigraphy. The Ribeirão da Folha Formation comprises rocks expected to be found in the upper units of an ophiolite edifice, like Al-rich micaschist (pelagic pelite), graphite-rich schist (black shale), sulfide-bearing metachert, diopsidite with massive sulfide, and banded iron formations (chemical-exhalative sediments), and sulfide-bearing fine-grained ortho-amphibolite with thin metachert intercalations (mafic volcanic unit). That formation hosts tectonic slices of banded ortho-amphibolite (dolerite) with plagiogranite veins, and coarse-grained massive ortho-amphibolite (gabbro), representing dismembered slivers from deeper mafic units, and slices of meta-ultramafic rocks from the deepest ophiolite units. Zircon crystals from a plagiogranite vein yielded the U-Pb SHRIMP age of 645 ± 10 Ma, providing a new time constraint for ocean-floor emplacement. Micaschist samples show chemical attributes typical of distal passive margin pelites. Among three progressive deformation phases, the main ductile phase (Dn) shows kinematic indicators related to top to SW mass transport, associated with intermediate P-T (St, Ky, Sil) metamorphic zoning. Although the few youngest grains of detrital zircon from three siliciclastic samples have distinct ages (around 599 Ma, 741 Ma, and 816 Ma), their wide-range age spectra and Hf signatures suggest similar sediment sources. The wide lithological variety and stratigraphic complexity along with the intricate tectonic framework of the Ribeirão da Folha region, comprising thrust slices of ophiolitic rocks tectonically interleaved with older rift-related rocks, characterize an accretionary wedge that was scrapped off the subducted slab and involved in collisional tectonics, marking the AWCO suture zone for some 250 km between the Guanhães basement block (lower plate) and Rio Doce magmatic arc (upper plate).