Sedimentary provenance and dispersion in the Ediacaran-Cambrian interval of the Southern Ribeira Belt: records of the Paranapanema-Curitiba suture

• Grant number: 24/23218-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Geology
• Principal Investigator: Frederico Meira Faleiros
• Grantee: Larissa da Rocha Santos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências (IGC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/16838-5 - Comparative tectonic analysis of fold-and-thrust belts, AP.R

Abstract

The Ribeira Belt is traditionally interpreted as a Neoproterozoic-Cambrian orogen that evolved from an accretionary to a collisional system. In its southern portion (south and southwest of Brazil), the Ribeira Belt encompasses units from distinct basin cycles within an orogenic stack formed during the Brasiliano-Pan African orogeny (630-540 Ma), in which several basement blocks were amalgamated in a continental collision setting.The main goal of this research project is developing a paleogeomorphological model of the syn- to post-collisional interval of the Southern Ribeira Belt, based on stratigraphic, geophysical, and provenance data. The primary hypothesis is that certain units within the belt have paleogeographic and paleotectonic connections that represent different stages of orogen evolution. This correlation has the potential to provide insights into the paleogeomorphology of the orogenic stack, highlighting the main sedimentary pathways during the formation of a suture between the Paranapanema and Curitiba-Angola continents.Understanding this paleogeomorphology is crucial because it influenced the onset of the Gondwanic basin-cycle, which currently represents a gap in our understanding of the geological evolution of the region. In this sense, the interval in question has the potential to shed light on the key paleogeomorphological and paleotectonic controls governing the basins that developed atop of the suture between these continents.