Implications of the dominant LP–HT deformation in the Guanhães Block for the Araçuaí West-Congo Orogen evolution

The Araçuaí-West Congo Orogen is the result of convergence between the São Francisco and Congo cratons during the assembly of West Gondwana. Within this orogen, the Araçuaí Belt in SE Brazil reflects the western external domain. The Araçuaí Belt is characterized by major east-dipping structures and high- to medium pressure metamorphic rocks developed during crustal thickening at ca. 585–560 Ma and are juxtaposed along crustal-scale structures to the crystalline core of the orogen.

The Guanhães Block in the southern Araçuaí Belt is characterized by higher metamorphic grade and dominantly shallowly west-dipping structures compared to the neighboring tectonic domains. While several studies have focused on the evolution of the axial crystalline core of the Araçuaí orogen and on the early collisional stages in the Araçuaí Belt, little attention has been given to the structural and metamorphic history of the poorly studied Guanhães Block.

The supracrustal rocks in the central Guanhães Block record two tectono-metamorphic stages: D2/M2 and D3 /M3, with potential D1/M1 relicts rarely preserved within D2/M2 low-strain domains. The D2/M2 overprinting stage is associated with the development of a dominant, shallow axial planar foliation (S2) of isoclinal F2 folds under low-pressure and high-temperature (LP–HT) conditions (ca. 6 kbar and 750 °C). During this D2/M2 stage continuous segregation of syn-kinematic partial melting and generation of granitoid rocks occurred. The 530 Ma, syn- D2/M2 granitoid has negative εHf(i) at ca. −32 which indicates the source of magma from melting of older, isotopically evolved, Archaean or Paleoproterozoic crust.

U–Pb geochronology on monazite, titanite and hydrothermal zircon constrain the retrograde D3/M3 event at ca. 510 Ma. The Guanhães Block uniquely records dominant deformation under LP–HT metamorphic conditions during the late-orogenic stages and its evolution could have important tectonic implications for the concurrent models suggested for the late Neoproterozoic Araçuaí-West Congo Orogen.