High‐silica Ediacaran volcanism in the Dom Feliciano Belt, southernmost Brazil

Abstract

The Cerro Chato region is located in the southern portion of Rio Grande do Sul and is characterized by associations of acid volcanic and subvolcanic rocks, whose magmatism has been related to the later Pelotas Batholith suites from the Dom Feliciano Belt. The vulcanites of the region are affected by NW and NE faults and are grouped into two geomorphologically distinct features: Cerro Chato and Cerro Partido. Cerro Chato is represented by ignimbrites that occur in two main facies: lithic rich ignimbrites and crystal rich ignimbrites. They are poorly selected and consist of lapilli-sized pyroclasts in a tuffaceous matrix. The lithoclasts rich facies is characterized by cognate fragments of rhyolites and ignimbrites and, occasionally, accidental fragments. The crystal-rich ignimbrites are characterized by the abundance of crystal fragments and phenocrysts of K-feldspar and quartz. Both facies present eutaxitic structure and a matrix made up of ash-sized vitroclasts. Hemi-crystalline rhyolitic flows represent effusive events, with porphyritic texture, flow structures and spherulites. Cerro Partido is characterized by a subvolcanic body, elongated in the NE-SW direction, of approximately 8 km long by 0.7 km wide.. It consists of rocks with porphyritic/glomeroporphyritic texture, composed of quartz, Kfeldspar and plagioclase phenocrysts, within a fine quartz-feldspathic equigranular matrix. Through geochemical data the rhyolitic volcanites were characterized as high-silica type rhyolites, correlated to the alkaline series, but close to the limit of the sub-alkaline series; they present metaluminous to peraluminous character and high contents of alkalis, FeOt / FeOt + MgO and agpaitic index. The Cerro Partido rhyolites were classified as high-Ti with higher CaO, P2O5, FeOt, MgO and K2O contents than the Cerro Chato low-Ti rhyolites. The rhyolites REE pattern is slightly enriched in LREE in relation to the HREE and has a strong negative Eu anomaly, typical of metaluminous and highly differentiated alkali systems. The chemical characteristics are similar to those of A type granitic magmatism, related to postcollisional environments. U-Pb geochronological dating indicates an age of 561 ± 2 Ma for the rhyolites of Cerro Partido, suggesting contemporaneity with the granitoids associated to the Dom Feliciano suite. The zircon U-Pb isotopes dating of the Cerro Chato rhyolites indicates an age of 630.4 ± 2.8 Ma. These ages are in agreement with those obtained in the volcanic clasts at the base of the Maricá formation, which may indicate a possible relationship between the volcanites of the Cerro Chato with the initial sin-sedimentary volcanism of the Camaquã Basin.