Problems in Western Gondwana Geology
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PROBLEMS IN WESTERN GONDWANA GEOLOGY - I Workshop - “South America - Africa correlations: du Toit revisited” th th Gramado-RS-Brazil, August 27 to 29 , 2007 EXTENDED ABSTRACTS Edited by Roberto Iannuzzi and Daiana R. Boardman PROBLEMS IN WESTERN GONDWANA GEOLOGY - I Workshop - “South America - Africa correlations: du Toit revisited” Gramado-RS-Brazil, August 27th to 29th, 2007 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Coordinators: Roberto Iannuzzi (CIGO-UFRGS) Farid Chemale Jr. (IG-UFRGS) José Carlos Frantz (IG-UFRGS) Technical Support: Daiana Rockenbach Boardman (PPGeo-UFRGS) Cristina Félix (PPGeo-UFRGS) Graciela Pereira Tybusch (PPGeo-UFRGS) Treasurer: Farid Chemale Jr. (IG-UFRGS) Scientific Committee: Edison José Milani (CENPES/PETROBRAS) Victor Ramos (UBA, Argentina) Maarteen de Wit (UCT, África do Sul) Editors: Roberto Iannuzzi (CIGO-UFRGS) Daiana Rockenbach Boardman (PPGeo-UFRGS) SPONSORED BY Centro de Investigações do Gondwana (CIGO-UFRGS) Instituto de Geociências da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (IG-UFRGS) Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geociências (PPGeo-UFRGS) Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (PETROBRAS) I PROBLEMS IN WESTERN GONDWANA GEOLOGY - I Workshop - South America - Africa correlations: du Toit revisited Gramado-RS-Brazil, August 27th to 29th, 2007 PREFACE Early in the 20th Century, pioneering correlations between the Paleozoic- Mesozoic basins of South America and southern Africa were used by Alexander du Toit to support the initial concepts of continental drift and the proposal of a united Gondwana continent. Du Toit found the bio- and lithostratigraphy of the South American rock sequences of the Paraná Basin in Brazil and of the distant mountains of Sierra de la Ventana in Argentina to be remarkably similar to those that he had himself mapped out carefully for many years in the Cape-Karoo Basin and its flanking Cape Fold Belt mountains in southern Africa. Many geologists have remarked on the similarities since, often incrementally improving on the correlations synthesized by du Toit in his 1937 book Our Wandering Continents. Considering the 70th anniversary of du Toit’s seminal book, the Centro de Investigações do Gondwana (CIGO) da UFRGS (Gondwana Investigation Center of the Rio Grande do Sul Federal University) and RGEOTEC (Petrobras-Universities Network for Tectonic Studies) have organized a 3-day workshop devoted to discussions on SW Gondwana state-of-the-art correlations. The central idea is to promote a forum where du Toit’s stratigraphic and structural framework of Africa’s and South America’s pre-drift configuration will be discussed, pioneering ideas up-dated, and relevant new lines of international research explored. To make this challenging task possible, a selected group of experienced researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa were invited to participate in this workshop. As a result, this Workshop welcomes about 40 Gondwana specialists from many countries in the city of Gramado, at the Rio Grande do Sul State, in southern Brazil. This workshop had a famous precedent in the “Problems in Brazilian Gondwana Geology”, edited by J.J. Bigarella, R.D. Becker and I.D. Pinto in August 1967. That book represented a Brazilian contribution to the First Gondwana Symposium, held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and concerned entirely with Gondwana Geology exposed in Brazil, containing the articles of many contributors. It was the first time that a synthesis of geological knowledge produced by Brazilian specialists on Gondwana’s rocks was presented in the international scenario. In that occasion, the CNPq (Brazilian Research Council), the Geology Institute of Paraná Federal University, Commission for the Geological Chart of Paraná and the CIGO-UFRGS sponsored the publication. For this reason, the current workshop is also celebrating the forty years of the “Problems in Brazilian Gondwana Geology”. The present 3-day workshop is dedicated to summary presentations on the 3 major topics of Africa-South America correlations, to be covered in detail during the event: a) Precambrian provinces and geochronology; b) Paleozoic - Mesozoic (up until break-up) basins sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology and magmatism; c) Cape-la Ventana mountain system. By the end of this workshop, the organizers II expected that a summary of key points emerged from these discussions: what we know, what we do not know, and what might be the best strategies for new investigation to improve cross-Atlantic correlations and greater understanding of the processes that shaped Gondwana and then tore it apart. In this way, we will be building on the shoulders of Alex du Toit. The 1st Workshop on “Problems in Western Gondwana Geology” is promoted by the Centro de Investigações do Gondwana (CIGO-UFRGS), Instituto de Geociências da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (IG-UFRGS), Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geociências (PPGeo-UFRGS), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and mainly funded by Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) through the RGEOTEC – Rede de Estudos Geotectônicos. Edison José Milani Roberto Iannuzzi Farid Chemale Jr. José Carlos Frantz III RGEOTEC - Rede de Estudos Geotectônicos Tectonic Studies Network According to the New Brazilian Law on petroleum issues (1997), the companies operating in the Country have to invest in Research & Development a certain percentage of their gross income from production of giant fields. Petrobras, with a long tradition of partnership with Brazilian universities, took advantage of this favorable environment to implement a new concept of relationship. Instead of individually contracting thousands of projects, the decision was to group them in a thematic way: 37 agreements were signed, creating networks of specific knowledge in areas considered of strategic importance for the oil industry. For the Geosciences, it includes the Tectonics, Sedimentology & Stratigraphy, Geophysics and Organic Geochemistrty networks. The implementation of this new concept of relationship includes the total investment by Petrobras of about US$500 million in the period 2006-2008, supported by a growing national oil and gas production (close to 2 million barrels/day in 2007) and certainly favored by the high prices of petroleum in the international market these times. For the total investments, the Geosciences networks alone are responsible for about US$60 million. The RGEOTEC – Tectonic Studies Network started to work in 2005, and includes the following Brazilian universities and research institutions: UFRGS, UFPR, USP, UNICAMP, UNESP, INPE, UFRJ, UFF, UERJ, UnB, ON, UFRN, UFOP and UFMG. Initial investments were mostly on creating/complementing universities’ infrastructure on geochronology equipment. Centered in the ON (National Observatory), a US$7 million pool of geophysical equipment (seismic refraction, magnetotelluric and gravimetry) is being established to become available for tectonic studies by early 2008. Promoting the growing of scientific knowledge is one of the main objectives of the RGEOTEC, and the du Toit workshop stands exactly in the focus of action of this network concept. Thru this new policy, Petrobras reinforces its strong compromise with the making of science applied to oil industry and with the Coutry’s sustainable development. IV V PROBLEMS IN WESTERN GONDWANA GEOLOGY - I Workshop - South America - Africa correlations: du Toit revisited Gramado-RS-Brazil, August 27th to 29th, 2007 EXTENDED ABSTRACTS Biostratigraphic correlations in the Western Gondwana Paleozoic- Mesozoic; an holistic overview 1 J.M. Anderson A summary of the geochronology and Precambrian crustal architecture of southern Africa, and possibilities for correlations with South America 3 R. Armstrong Precambrian tectonic domains of São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina States, South Brazil: identification of major neoproterozoic suture zones 9 M.A.S. Basei, O. Siga Jr., C.R. Passarelli Some structural and stratigraphic enigmas of the eastern Cape Fold Belt, South Africa 15 P. Booth Tectonic evolution of Neoproterozoic to Eopaleozoic belts in the Southern Brazil and Southern Africa 22 F. Chemale Late Carboniferous to Permian sequence stratigraphy in the main Karoo Basin of South Africa and its application in Southwestern Gondwanaland 26 D.I. Cole Chrono-, chemical-, seismic- , electrical- and tectono-stratigraphy across parts of the Cape Fold Belt – Karoo Basin of South Africa: New foundations for correlations across the South Atlantic 34 M. de Wit Tectonic and climatic induced changes in depositional styles of the Mesozoic sedimentary record of southern Paraná Basin, Brazil 42 U. Faccini Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Late Paleozoic Glacial Record of the Paraná Basin: Brazil 46 A.B. França and F.F. Vesely Correlation of Neoproterozoic terranes between SE-Brazil and Africa: comparative tectonic evolution and open questions) 55 M. Heilbron, C.M. Valeriano, C.C.G. Tassinari, J. Almeida, M. Tupinambá, O. Siga Jr. VI Examples of climatic, tectonic and eustatic controls on the stratigraphic signatures of the Early Permian succession in the Paraná Basin 62 M. Holz, J. Küchle, P.D. Reis, J. Casagrande Biostratigraphic versus Chronologic frameworks in the Early Permian from Paraná Basin: looking forward a possible consensus. 72 R. Iannuzzi The Late Paleozoic Gondwanide Orogen: the Sierra de la Ventana Transpressional Foldbelt 78 M.S. Japas Paleoenvironmental evolution and biostratigraphy of Late Paleozoic Andean Gondwana basins 86