Upper Aptian mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sequences from Tucano basin, northeastern Brazil: implications for paleogeographic reconstructions following Gondwana break-up

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)The evolution of the Cretaceous basins of the Brazilian northeastern hinterland was associated with the Gondwana rifting and opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. The first marine ingression in northeastern Brazil occurred in the late Aptian and was recorded as the Santana Group of the Araripe Basin, which is currently an isolated basin, located hundreds of kilometers away from the Brazilian marginal basins. Bellow the first upper Aptian marine deposits, an important section of fossiliferous limestone (Lagerstatte) was deposited and preserved in the Crato Formation transitioning upward into evaporites of the Ipubi Formation. The direction of the marine ingression is controversial, with several possibilities being suggested, mainly due to the absence of other areas of upper Aptian marine sections within the hinterland. Serra do Tona is a sedimentary mesa with scarped edges where the upper part of the Marizal Formation crops out, displaying laminated limestones, litho-and chrono-correlated with those of the Crato Formation, is preserved. Therefore, this mixed upper Aptian section, at the North Tucano Basin (Serra do Tona), is a unique occurrence of utmost importance to the definition of sedimentary events and paleogeographical reconstruction of northeastern Brazil during the late Aptian. A detailed stratigraphic analysis allowed the definition and characterization of two upper Aptian depositional sequences bounded by regional disconformities. Both sequences are dominantly transgressive and carbonatesiliciclastic in composition. The lower sequence comprises the basal portion of the Marizal Formation and consists of a succession of fluvial sandstones, ending on a laterally continuous thin interval (