West Gondwana: Pre-Cenozoic Correlations across the South Atlantic Region (Geological Society Special Publication No. 294)

427 Pages·2008·16.49 MB·English

by  R. J. Pankhurst

ERRATUM
Special Publication 294
PAIXAO,M.A.P.,NILSON,A.A.&DANTAS,E.L.2008.TheNeoproterozoicQuatipuruophioliteandthe
Araguaia fold belt, central-northern Brazil, compared with correlatives in NW Africa. In: PANKHURST,
R. J., TROUW, R. A. J., BRITO NEVES, B. B. & DE WIT, M. J. (eds) West Gondwana: Pre-Cenozoic
Correlations Across the South Atlantic Region. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 294,
297–318.DOI:10.1144/SP294.16
Thewrongfigureappearsonpage313.ThecorrectFigure15isgivenbelow.Thecaptioniscorrectinthe
printed/onlineversion.
West Gondwana: Pre-Cenozoic Correlations Across the
South Atlantic Region
The Geological Society of London
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PANKHURST,R.J.,TROUW,R.A.J.,BRITO NEVES,B.B.&DE WIT,M.J.(eds)2008.WestGondwana:
Pre-Cenozoic Correlations Across the South Atlantic Region. Geological Society, London, Special
Publications,294.
MOHRIAK,W.,NEMCOK,M.&ENCISO,G.2008.SouthAtlanticdivergentmarginevolution:rift-border
uplift and salt tectonics in the basins of SE Brazil. In: PANKHURST, R. J., TROUW, R. A. J., BRITO
NEVES,B.B.&DEWIT,M.J.(eds)WestGondwana:Pre-CenozoicCorrelationsAcrosstheSouthAtlantic
Region.GeologicalSociety,London,SpecialPublications,294,365–398.
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY SPECIAL PUBLICATION NO.294
West Gondwana:Pre-Cenozoic Correlations Across the
South Atlantic Region
EDITED BY
R. J. PANKHURST
British Geological Survey, UK
R. A. J. TROUW
Universidade Federale doRio de Janeiro
B. B. DE BRITO NEVES
Universidade de Sa˜oPaulo, Brazil
and
M. J. DE WIT
University of Cape Town, South Africa
2008
Published by
The Geological Society
London
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Preface
Although the theme of the construction of and biological nature, continue to hamper the
Gondwana has been touched on at successive advancement of our detailed understanding of
Gondwana Symposia (the first of which was held the formation and break up of Gondwana. We are
in 1967, in Mar del Plata, Argentina), at sure that the data and interpretations presented at
International Geological Congresses, and at the thesymposium,muchofwhicharenowcollatedin
ColloquiaonAfricanGeology,nodirectfocushas this book, will help to forge new strategies for
yet been dedicated to it in publication. At the future research on the evolution of Gondwana
Tenth Gondwana Symposium, in Cape Town throughrefiningformergeologicallinksacrossthe
(1998) it emerged clearly that former links South Atlantic.
betweentheGondwanafragments,suchasbetween We are especially grateful to the following,
Africa and South America, are well defined on a who have given their time in reviewing the
broad scale, yet in detail many correlations manuscripts submitted to this volume:
remained unresolved. Kodjopa Attoh, Peter Cawood, Umberto
For this reason, at the Twelfth Gondwana Cordani, Silas Dada, Ian Dalziel, Patrick
Symposium in Mendoza, Argentina (2005), a Eriksson, Steve Flint, Hartwig Frimmel, Rein-
special symposium was dedicated to the subject, hardt Fuck, Claudio Gaucher, Paulo Gorayeb,
convened by B. B. Brito Neves and R. A. David Gray, Chris Hawkesworth, Moˆnica
Armstrong. The idea was to bring together the Heilbron, Patrick Ledru, Nuno Machado, Aroldo
most prominent geoscientists who have worked in Misi, Brendan Murphy, Soenke Neben, Marcio
the coastal and flanking areas of the two Pimentel, Victor Ramos, Augusto Rapalini,
continents, in order to compare structures and Magdalena Scheck-Wenderoth, Karel Schuman,
rocks on a scale as detailed as possible, and to Alcides Sial, Antonio Pedrosa-Soares, Bryan
establish the present limits and uncertainties of Storey, Ricardo Trinidade, Alexandre Uhlein,
well-known correlation. The choice of the tile for Alan Vaughan, Randy Van Schmus, Andre
thesymposium,WestGondwana,thetiesthatbind, Steenken, and several anonymous reviewers.
was meant to be provocative, in that it was RJP also thanks Alan Vaughan for his help with
recognizedthatmanyproblems,bothofgeological the editing of one paper.
Contents
Preface vii
DE WIT,M.J.,BRITO NEVES,B.B.,TROUW,R.A.J.&PANKHURST,R.J.Pre-Cenozoic 1
correlationsacrosstheSouthAtlanticregion:‘thetiesthatbind’
PISAREVSKY,S.A.,MURPHY,J.B.,CAWOOD,P.A.&COLLINS,A.S.LateNeoproterozoicand 9
EarlyCambrianpalaeogeography:modelsandproblems
PEDREIRA,A.J.&DE WAELE,B.ContemporaneousevolutionofthePalaeoproterozoic– 33
MesoproterozoicsedimentarybasinsoftheSa˜oFrancisco–CongoCraton
ARTHAUD,M.A.,CABY,R.,FUCK,R.A.,DANTAS,E.L.&PARENTE,C.V.Geologyofthe 49
northernBorboremaProvince,NEBrazilanditscorrelationwithNigeria,NWAfrica
VAN SCHMUS,W.R.,OLIVEIRA,E.P.,SILVA FILHO,A.F.,TOTEU,S.F.,PENAYE,J.& 69
GUIMARAES,I.P.ProterozoiclinksbetweentheBorboremaProvince,NEBrazil,andtheCentral
AfricanFoldBelt
SANTOS,T.J.S.,FETTER,A.H.&NETO,J.A.N.Comparisonsbetweenthenorthwestern 101
BorboremaProvince,NEBrazil,andthesouthwesternPharusianDahomeyBelt,SWCentralAfrica
DADA,S.S.ProterozoicevolutionoftheNigeria–Boboremaprovince 121
KLEIN,E.L.&MOURA,C.A.V.Sa˜oLu´ısCratonandGurupiBelt(Brazil):possiblelinkswith 137
theWestAfricanCratonandsurroundingPan-Africanbelts
PEDROSA-SOARES,A.C.,ALKMIM,F.F.,TACK,L.,NOCE,C.M.,BABINSKI,M.,SILVA,L.C.& 153
NETO,M.A.M.SimilaritiesanddifferencesbetweentheBrazilianandAfricancounterpartsof
theNeoproterozoicArac¸ua´ı–WestCongoorogen
MOURA,C.A.V.,PINHEIRO,B.L.S.,NOGUEIRA,A.C.R.,GORAYEB,P.S.S.&GALARZA, 173
M.A.SedimentaryprovenanceandpalaeoenvironmentoftheBaixoAraguaiaSupergroup:
constraintsonthepalaeogeographicalevolutionoftheAraguaiaBeltandassemblyofWest
Gondwana
VALERIANO,C.M.,PIMENTEL,M.M.,HEILBRON,M.,ALMEIDA,J.C.H.&TROUW,R.A.J. 197
TectonicevolutionoftheBras´ıliaBelt,CentralBrazil,andearlyassemblyofGondwana
HEILBRON,M.,VALERIANO,C.M.,TASSINARI,C.C.G.,ALMEIDA,J.C.H.,TUPINAMBA,M., 211
SIGA,O.&TROUW,R.A.J.CorrelationofNeoproterozoicterranesbetweentheRibeiraBelt,SE
BrazilanditsAfricancounterpart:comparativetectonicevolutionandopenquestions
BASEI,M.A.S.,FRIMMEL,H.E.,NUTMAN,A.P.&PRECIOZZI,F.WestGondwana 239
amalgamationbasedondetritalzirconagesfromNeoproterozoicRibeiraandDomFeliciano
beltsofSouthAmericaandcomparisonwithcoevalsequencesfromSWAfrica
GRAY,D.R.,FOSTER,D.A.,MEERT,J.G.,GOSCOMBE,B.D.,ARMSTRONG,R.,TROUW,R.A.J. 257
&PASSCHIER,C.W.ADamaraorogenperspectiveontheassemblyofsouthwesternGondwana
SCHMITT,R.S.,TROUW,R.A.J.,VANSCHMUS,W.R.&PASSCHIER,C.W.Cambrianorogenyin 279
theRibeiraBelt(SEBrazil)andcorrelationswithinWestGondwana:tiesthatbindunderwater
PAIXAO,M.A.P.,NILSON,A.A.&DANTAS,E.L.TheNeoproterozoicQuatipuruophioliteand 297
theAraguaiafoldbelt,central-northernBrazil,comparedwithcorrelativesinNWAfrica
MILANI,E.J.&DE WIT,M.J.CorrelationsbetweentheclassicParana´ andCape–Karoo 319
sequencesofSouthAmericaandsouthernAfricaandtheirbasininfillsflankingthe
Gondwanides:duToitrevisited
vi CONTENTS
PAZOS,P.J.,BETTUCCI,L.S.&LOUREIRO,J.TheNeoproterozoicglacialrecordintheR´ıodela 343
PlataCraton:acriticalreappraisal
MOHRIAK,W.,NEMCOK,M.&ENCISO,G.SouthAtlanticdivergentmarginevolution:rift-border 365
upliftandsalttectonicsinthebasinsofSEBrazil
DE WIT,M.J.,STANKIEWICZ,J.REEVES,C.RestoringPan-African–Brasilianoconnections: 399
moreGondwanacontrol,lessTrans-Atlanticcorruption
Index 413
Pre-Cenozoic correlations across the South Atlantic
region: ‘the ties that bind’
M.J. DE WIT1, B. B. DE BRITO NEVES2, R.A. J. TROUW3 &
R. J. PANKHURST4
1AEON-AfricaEarthObservatoryNetworkandDepartmentofGeologicalSciences,University
of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa (e-mail:[email protected])
2Instituto de Geocieˆncias da Universidade de Sa˜oPaulo, Rua do Lago 562,
CEP 055089-080 Sa˜oPaulo, Brazil
3Departamento de Geologia, Universidade Federal doRio de Janeiro, Ilha doFunda˜o,
CEP 21949-900 Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
4Visiting Research Associate, British Geological Survey, Keyworth,
Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK
Thefirsttorecognizethecomplementaryshapesof sequences of southern Africa across the Atlantic
AfricaandSouthAmericaandtosuggestthatthese into Brazil and Argentina, and then summarized
continents were once joined together was Dutch these findings in his book Our Wandering Conti-
scientist Ortelius in 1596. He was followed in nents(1937)(Fig.1).Bytheearly1960s,advances
1620 by Elizabethan philosopher Sir Francis in palaeomagnetism andthe discovery of apparent
Bacon, who asserted that the similarity of their polar wander paths finally helped to place Wege-
shapes could not be accidental. Nearly 200 years ner’s concept of continental drift on more robust
later, German naturalist von Humboldt described geophysical footing. This period culminated in a
how the two continents may have fitted together, well-knownRoyalSocietysymposiumoncontinen-
and in 1860 French geographer Antonio Snyder tal drift at which the first computer-controlled fit
producedthefirstmapthatshowedSouthAmerica between Africa and South America was presented
andAfricainclosecontact(e.g.,Blankett1965).By (Bullard et al. 1965). Very shortly thereafter,
1915 the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener following the discovery of sea-floor spreading,
hadamassedenoughdatatopublishacomprehen- the emergence of plate tectonic theory rapidly
sive scientific argument for the past conjunction embedded Wegener’s continental drift and
ofthese twocontinentsonthebasisofsimilarities evolvedintoatrulynewfieldofsolidearthgeody-
in the Palaeozoic–Mesozoic geology on each side namics (Oreskes 2001). All this stimulated new
of the South Atlantic, and then boldly proposed geologicalandgeochronologicalresearchtoevalu-
that ‘horizontal displacements of the continents’ ateandtestdifferentSouthAmerica–Africarecon-
(HorizontalverschiebungenderKontinente)caused structions that had been proposed by then. A
theirsubsequentseparation(Wegener1915). comparative survey of ages and structures of the
Wegener’s original hypothesis of ‘continental basementrocksoneachsideoftheAtlanticOcean
displacement’ (Krause & Thiede 2005) was between Brazil and West Africa was well on the
severely criticized, especially by geophysicists way before the 1970s (e.g., Hurley et al. 1967;
(Oreskes1999).Neverthelesstheconceptwassuc- Almeida&Black1968).
cessfully transformed into the continental drift Similar contributions of this type followed
hypothesisthroughthesupportof,amongstothers, rapidlyandamajorinternationalprogrammefocus-
two prominent geologists working in South sedoncross-Atlanticcorrelationswasinitiatedwith
America and Africa, respectively: Argentine Juan UNESCOsupport(InternationalGeologicalCorre-
Keidel(1916)recognizedthegeologicalsimilarities lation Programme, Projects Nos 108 and 144,
between the Sierra de La Ventana Fold Belt in 1975–1984). Significant syntheses resulting from
ArgentinaandtheCapeFoldBeltinSouthAfrica, this new geological research were published over
whilstSouthAfricanAlexduToit(1927),following a period of more than a decade (e.g., Torquato &
his extended visit to South America in 1923s, Cordani 1981; Porada 1989; Trompette 1994). In
first correlated in detail the litho- and bio- parallel,geophysicalinvestigationsinthesouthern
stratigraphyofthePalaeozoicandMesozoicKaroo oceansrevealedwithincreasingdetailthemagnetic
From:PANKHURST,R.J.,TROUW,R.A.J.,BRITONEVES,B.B.&DEWIT,M.J.(eds)WestGondwana:
Pre-CenozoicCorrelationsAcrosstheSouthAtlanticRegion.GeologicalSociety,London,SpecialPublications,
294,1–8. DOI:10.1144/SP294.1 0305-8719/08/$15.00#TheGeologicalSocietyofLondon2008.