Proterozoic first-order sedimentary sequences of the São Francisco craton, eastern Brazil.

Abstract

The São Francisco craton in eastern Brazil hosts sedimentary sequences deposited between the Paleoarchean (∼3300 Ma) and Late Neoproterozoic (∼580 Ma). Proterozoic successions occurring in this region comprise five 1st-order sedimentary sequences, which besides episodes of global significance record major basin-forming events. The ca. 8000 m-thick Minas-Itacolomi 1st-order sequence, exposed in the Brazilian mining district of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero and containing as marker bed the Lake Superior-type Cauê Banded Iron Formation, tracks the operation of a Wilson cycle in the Paleoproterozoic Era. The quartz-arenite dominated Espinhaço I and II sequences record at least two major rift-sag basin-forming events, which affected the host continent of the São Francisco craton at around 1.75 Ga and 1.57 Ga. The Macaúbas sequence and its correlatives in the extracratonic domains witness the individualization of a São Francisco-Congo plate in synchronicity with the break-up of Rodinia in the Cryogenian period. The São Francisco-Congo plate together with various fragments derived from Rodinia reassembled to form Gondwana in the Ediacaran period. In the course of the Gondwana amalgamation, orogenic belts developed along the margins of the craton; its interior, converted into foreland basins, received the shallow water carbonates and pelites of the Bambuí 1st-order sequence and its correlatives.