Provenance of the Novo Oriente Group, southwestern Ceará Central Domain, Borborema Province (NE-Brazil): A dismembered segment of a magma-poor passive margin or a restricted rift-related basin?

Integrated field, LA-MC-ICP-MS geochronology and geochemical data from the Novo Oriente Group have been investigated in order to determine their provenance and possible tectonic setting. This group in the southwestern portion of the Ceará Central Domain, is a well-preserved metavolcanosedimentary sequence, in part exhalative, composed of two distinct formations. The proximal coastal Bonsucesso Formation comprises mainly quartzite and minor basic metavolcanic rocks and is in gradational contact with the distal Caraúbas Formation which constitutes a metapelitic–volcanic-carbonate sequence, including metabasic rocks with pillow structure and sheared serpentinized ultrabasic rocks. The youngest detrital zircon found in the quartzite of the Bonsucesso Formation yielded an age of ca. 2.1 Ga and well-defined peaks around 2.2, 2.3–2.4 and 2.5 Ga. In addition, zircons from a related metabasalt yielded an upper intercept age of 2083 ± 28 Ma. We interpret the zircons found in this metabasalt as inherited from the host quartzite. This fact is supported by depleted-mantle Nd model ages (TDM age) from correlated metabasic and metaultrabasic rocks from other places in the Novo Oriente sequence, which have yielded ages between 1.36 and 1.69 Ga, that is younger than the zircon age obtained in the metabasalt extruded over the Bonsucesso quartzite. Geochemical data of the metasedimentary rocks from the Caraúbas Formation indicates a provenance composed of a mixture of felsic and intermediate sources typical of old stable cratons and older continental roots of active tectonic settings. The rocks of the Granja (Médio Coreaú Domain) and Bacajá Complexes (southeastern Amazonian Craton) exposed to the west of the Novo Oriente Group, and largely covered by the Phanerozoic Parnaíba intracratonic basin, are the most likely source rocks. Since the precise age of the Novo Oriente Group is not yet well constrained, two distinct settings may be proposed: (1) it may represent a more evolved basin developed from extensional processes during the Mesoproterozoic (ca. 1.5–1.3 Ga); and (2) it could constitute part of the passive margin systems developed during the break-up of the Rodinia crown copyright supercontinent (ca. 0.95–0.8 Ga), associated with a pre-Brasiliano/Pan-African ocean (e.g. Pharusian Ocean).