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The basement of the Punta del Este Terrane (Uruguay): an African Mesoproterozoic fragment at the eastern border of the South American Río de La Plata craton

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Abstract

The Punta del Este Terrane (eastern Uruguay) lies in a complex Neoproterozoic (Brasiliano/Pan-African) orogenic zone considered to contain a suture between South American terranes to the west of Major Gercino–Sierra Ballena Suture Zone and eastern African affinities terranes. Zircon cores from Punta del Este Terrane basement orthogneisses have U–Pb ages of ca. 1,000 Ma, which indicate an lineage with the Namaqua Belt in Southwestern Africa. U–Pb zircon ages also provide the following information on the Punta del Este terrane: the orthogneisses containing the ca. 1,000 Ma inheritance formed at ca. 750 Ma; in contrast to the related terranes now in Africa, reworking of the Punta del Este Terrane during Brasiliano/Pan-African orogenesis was very intense, reaching granulite facies at ca. 640 Ma. The termination of the Brasiliano/Pan-African orogeny is marked by formation of acid volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks at ca. 570 Ma (Sierra de Aguirre Formation), formation of late sedimentary basins (San Carlos Formation) and then intrusion at ca. 535 Ma of post-tectonic granitoids (Santa Teresa and José Ignacio batholiths). The Punta del Este Terrane and unrelated western terranes represented by the Dom Feliciano Belt and the Río de La Plata Craton were in their present positions by ca. 535 Ma.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) for the financing support (process No 05/58688-1) which covered part of the costs with fieldwork and isotopic analyses. Several grants Consejo Sectorial de Investigación Científica (CSIC) and Facultad de Ciencias (Uruguay) permitted to carry out these studies. EP thanks CAPES for granting a PhD. Scholarship. We express our sincere thanks to P. Oyhantçabal for his comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Dr. Klaus Wemmer and two anonymous referees for their critical review and comments to the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Miguel A. S. Basei & Elena Peel

  2. Departamento de Geología, Instituto de Geología y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay, Iguá 4225, Malvin Norte, 11400, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Elena Peel & Leda Sánchez Bettucci

  3. Dirección Nacional de Minería y Geología, Hervidero 2861, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Fernando Preciozzi

  4. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Allen P. Nutman

  5. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Allen P. Nutman

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  1. Miguel A. S. Basei
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Correspondence to Leda Sánchez Bettucci.

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Basei, M.A.S., Peel, E., Sánchez Bettucci, L. et al. The basement of the Punta del Este Terrane (Uruguay): an African Mesoproterozoic fragment at the eastern border of the South American Río de La Plata craton. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 100, 289–304 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-010-0623-1

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