Tectonic breccia of the Cabo Frio area, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, intruded by Early Cretaceous mafic dyke: evidence of the Pan-African brittle tectonism?

This paper presents the field descriptions and microscopic observations of a tectonic breccia in the basement gneiss of the Cabo Frio and Arraial do Cabo areas, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and its intrusive contact with the Early Cretaceous mafic dyke. At the sea cliff close to the Ilha do Japonês, there is an excellent contact outcrop between them. The tectonic breccia zone is 10 to 20m wide and has N30ºE direction. The breccia clasts are angular and characterized by auto-brecciation texture, and composed of breccia with similar aspect of the host tectonic breccia. The matrix is firmly consolidated by hydrothermalism and following silicification. The mafic dyke is 7 to 10m wide and of N45ºE direction. Along the contact, the dyke chilled margin featured by fine-grained basalt and prismatic joints can be observed. At the Conchas Beach and Arraial do Cabo city, there are four outcrops demonstrating the mafic dyke intrusion into the consolidated tectonic breccias. These outcrops prove that the tectonic breccias are older than the Early Cretaceous tholeiitic dykes. The fault breccias could have been formed during the brittle-phase tectonism of the last stage of the Pan-African Orogeny by hydrothermalism without magmatic activities, namely tectonic hydrothermalism. The existence of the clasts constituent of the breccia that are composed of breccia suggests that the fault movement and following hydrothermalism occurred repeatedly.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Motoki,Akihisa, Vargas,Thais, Iwanuch,Woldemar, Sichel,Susanna Eleonora, Balmant,Alex, Aires,José Ribeiro
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Escola de Minas 2011
Online Access:	http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0370-44672011000100003
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