Timing of the HT/LP transpression in the Neoproterozoic Seridó Belt (Borborema Province, Brazil): Constraints from U[sbnd]Pb (SHRIMP) geochronology and implications for the connections between NE Brazil and West Africa

Abstract

The Seridó schist belt is a classical domain of the Borborema Province (NE Brazil) recording crustal melting at HT/LP conditions in a tectonic setting dominated by dextral transpressive deformation. A comparable tectonometamorphic setting has been described in the Pan-African Igarra and Ilesha schist belts of south Nigeria (Africa). The HT‐transpression of the Seridó has previously been imprecisely dated by using a range of isotopic methods on a suite of syntectonic granites. We provide new UPb zircon ages of the Acari granite and Santa Luzia migmatite that constrain the HT/LP metamorphism of the Seridó at c. 575Ma. Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility of the Santa Luzia migmatite shows that the magnetic fabric records the NE-trending dextral kinematics similar to those previously described in the Acari pluton. On the other hand, the UPb ages of the Totoró pluton provide evidence for an older, mostly mafic to intermediate magmatism intruding the pelitic schist that precedes the HT/LP metamorphism by approximately 15m.y. In contrast with the Acari pluton and Santa Luzia migmatite, the magnetic fabrics of Totoró show a concentric steep-dipping structure apparently related to magma ascent. Thermobarometric studies in the Seridó, Igarra and Ilesha schist belts indicate that a large domain in the northern Borborema and south of the Nigeria shields was deformed at a high temperature and at relatively shallow depths. Although the tectonic setting for such a post-collision HT event remains an open issue, it allows us nevertheless to refine the across-Atlantic geological correlation between the continents.