The Late Cretaceous Impact of the Trindade Mantle Plume: Evidence from Large-volume, Mafic, Potassic Magmatism in SE Brazil

When the subcontinental lithospheric mantle undergoes heatingand/or extension, some of the earliest mafic melts to be generatedare those rich in volatUes and potassium. In some cases, e.g.when a plume impinges on thick cratonic lithosphere or whenthe amount of extension is very small, K-rich mafic igneousrocks may be the only surface expression of mantle melting.The Alto Paranaiba Igneous Province, in SE Brazil, is one ofthe world's most voluminous mafic potassic provinces (>15000km³),which until recently was relatively unknown. The magmas wereemplaced into a narrow Proterozoic mobile belt close to thesurface margin of the Sao Francisco craton, and it is one ofseveral Cretaceous alkaline igneous provinces that are locatedaround the margin of the Parana sedimentary basin in Braziland Paraguay.Detailed geochemical analyses of samples from throughoutthe Alto Paranaiba Igneous Province show that it is composedof a relatively diverse suite of ultrapotassic-potassic, ultramaficmqfic,silica-undersaturated lavas and hypabyssal intrusions, i.e.kimberlites, madupitic olivine lamproites and kamafugitic rocks.These all have very high concentrations of incompatible traceelements and are all strongly enriched in light rare earth relativeto heavy rare earth elements (e.g. La/Yb=50-230). Wide variationsin major element ratios, which are unrelated to the effectsof crystal fractionation in these magmas (e.g. CaO/Al₂O₃), suggestthat the mafic potassic rocks were derived from a heterogeneousmantle source. They show relatively restricted ranges of initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr (070436-070588) and Nd₂₅ values of -4 to -8, intermediatebetween Group I and II South African kimberlites. T_DM Nd isotopemodel ages of 900 Ma suggest that the magmas were derived bythe remobilization of subcontinental lithospheric mantle thathad been enriched by small-volume K-rich melt fractions sincethe Late Proterozoic.New K/Ar ages for mica separates show thatthe kimberlites, madupitic olivine lamproites and kamafugiticrocks were emplaced together with large carbonatite-bearingplutonic complexes at 85 Ma. Reconstructions of plate motionsshow that, at this time, the location of the Alto ParanaibaIgneous Province coincided with the postulated position of thepresent-day Trindade(or Martin Vaz) plume. We propose that thewidespread Late Cretaceous alkaline magmatism in SE Brazil mayhave been caused by impingement of this plume on the base ofthe subcontinental lithosphere. Heat penetrating the lithosphere,both by conduction and advection by asthenospheric-source decompressionmelts, may have caused melting of the readily fusible partsof the lithospheric mantle and the genesis of mafic potassicand (after fractionation) carbonatite magmas. The Proterozoicmobile belt (the Brasilia Belt) appears to have acted as a Hhinspofrelative to the adjacent Sao Francisco craton, allowing greaterupwelling and melting of the asthenosphere. Subsequently, asthe craton passed over the plume, volcanism was switched off'until the Early Tertiary when the plume reemerged from beneaththe westward drifting South America continent and was the magmasource for oceanic-islands and seamounts of the Trindade-Vitriachain. Corresponding author