Vestiges of a continental margin ophiolite type in the Novo Oriente region, Borborema Province, NE Brazil

Abstract The Novo Oriente Group is a restricted well-preserved metasedimentary sequence, composed of two tectonic-stratigraphic sequences in the southwestern portion of the Ceara Central Domain, NE Brazil. The Bonsucesso Formation comprises mainly quartzite and metamafic rocks and the Caraubas Formation is dominantly metapelitic, with chemical sedimentary contribution, metamafic and metaultramafic rocks. New integrated field, geochemical data and Sm-Nd isotopes of the metaultramafic and metamafic rocks of the two formations have been investigated in order to determine their tectonic setting. The metaultramafic rocks are dominantly composed of deformed and undeformed serpentinites, chloritites, actinolitites, talc-chlorite schists, serpentine-talc schists, talc-rich siliceous rocks and subordinated listwanites. Geochemical data indicate that the serpentinites correspond to rocks resulting from the alteration of dunites depleted in HREE, similar to the pattern presented by subduction-zone serpentinites generated from exhumed sub-continental peridotites and hydrated during ocean-continent transition (OCT) rifting. The metamafic rocks, represented by metagabbros, hornblende metagabbros and metabasalts, consist of basic rocks of basaltic and tholeiitic affinity with signatures between E- and N-MORB and variable contamination by crustal components similar to the rocks formed from the interaction between mantle plumes and heavily thinned continental crust. Isotopic analysis indicates crustal assimilation with negative ɛNd and Paleoproterozoic T DM ages. The data suggest that metaultramafic and metamafic rocks correspond, respectively, to continental sub-lithospheric mantle exhumed in an area of ocean-continent transition (OCT), and mafic magmatism associated with the development of a magma-poor passive margin generated by the break-up of the Rodinia Supercontinent, which was later dismembered by the Brasiliano/Pan-African Orogeny collisional phase and preserved as a Continental Margin Ophiolite type.