The detrital zircon record of an Archaean convergent basin in the Southern São Francisco Craton, Brazil

•U–Pb/Lu–Hf detrital zircon analyses constrain the evolution of an ancient convergent basin in SE Brazil.•The basin developed during a fundamental shift in the evolution of the southern São Francisco Craton.•Sedimentation was concomitant with exhumation of a proximal 2770–2780 Ma TTG magmatic arc.•Crust–mantle mixing processes built the Archaean crust of the São Francisco craton.

Detrital zircon ages are an important tool to study the provenance and evolution of sedimentary rocks, and currently there is a general lack of such studies in greenstone belt basins. In this paper, we combine field observations and in situ U–Pb/Lu–Hf detrital zircon analyses to constrain the evolution of a large, ancient convergent basin in SE Brazil. The Maquiné Group (the uppermost clastic sequence of the Rio das Velhas Greenstone Belt) was deposited during a fundamental shift in the evolution of the southern São Francisco Craton that ended with closure of the greenstone belt basin and the stabilization of the continental crust at ca. 2730–2700 Ma. We show that detritus accumulated in the Maquiné basin derived from uplifted nearby source rocks and that sedimentation was marked by drastic upward lithological changes (from flysch to molasse-type sedimentation). The restricted distributary provenance (marked by a strong uni-modal age spectra at 2770–2780 Ma) requires that sedimentation was concomitant with exhumation of a proximal 2770–2780 Ma TTG magmatic arc. The entire detrital zircon spectra show that maximum deposition ages are very close to the timing of deposition, and confirm that deposition occurred during or immediately after tectonic convergence. Variations in ɛHf(t) values support the idea that the Archaean crystalline crust of the craton was built by crust–mantle mixing processes with a successive decrease of values in zircons crystallized after 3100 Ma. In a regional context, our dataset supports previous interpretations of a long-lived evolution of the southern São Francisco Craton comprising a succession of magmatic arcs and Archaean convergent basins.