Paleoproterozoic felsic volcanism of the Tapajós Mineral Province, Southern Amazon Craton, Brazil

Amazonian rocks record one amongst the most complete and best-preserved Paleoproterozoic magmatic episodes on Earth. The present contribution documents the extremely well preserved paleoproterozoic architecture of a series of felsic rocks found in the Tapajós Mineral Province (TMP), located in the western part of Pará State, southern Amazon Craton, north of Brazil. These rocks are the first to be investigated to comprehend, based on their textural evidences, their emplacement mechanisms. Textural characterization allowed to identify three main facies with, as following reported, 1) chaotic (“Breccia”) group, 2) eutaxitic (“Eutax”) group and 3) parataxitic (“Paratax”) group vitrophyric textures. Given the superb preservation of our samples, the investigated rocks are grouped, according to their grade of welding, into a wide variety of lithofacies from very low-grade to high-grade and rheomorphic ignimbrites. In the “Paratax group” strong similarities with banding in lava flows are observed. Based on the presented data we discuss the effusive or explosive origin of the observed flow mechanisms.