Petrography and detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology of sedimentary rocks of the Campo Alegre Basin, Southern Brazil: implications for Gondwana assembly

Abstract

Abstract The Campo Alegre Basin is a volcano-sedimentary sequence covering an area of about 500 km 2 , located at the northeast portion of Santa Catarina state (Brazil), and formed during the late stages of the Neoproterozoic era. Three main stratigraphic units compose this basin, the lowermost of which is the Bateias Formation, corresponding to the pre-volcanic stage. It is characterized by the fanglomeratic sediments at the basin’s northern boundary, which were deposited in a fluvial environment and progressively replaced by fluvial sandstones towards the south. Poorly sorted conglomerates and breccias compound the fanglomeratic facies, which comprises angular to subrounded fragments in a matrix ranging from sand fractions to fragments larger than gravel. The ubiquitous presence of volcanogenic and metamorphic fragments in the fanglomeratic facies strongly suggests that the Piên Magmatic Arc and a volcanic manifestation coeval with the earlier stages of the basin formation were important source areas, as well as the basin basement (the Luís Alves Terrane). In this sense, geological, petrographic, and detrital zircon geochronology data are combined in order to interpret the mechanisms that had acted during the deposition of these sedimentary rocks and to constraint the maximum depositional ages of Bateias Formation at ca. ~606 Ma.