Arcabouço geofísico, isostasia e causas do magmatismo cenozóico da província Borborema e de sua margem continental (Nordeste do Brasil)

The Borborema Province (BP) is a geologic domain located in Northeastern Brazil. The BP is limited at the south by the São Francisco craton, at the west by the Parnaíba basin, and both at the north and east by coastal sedimentary basins. Nonetheless the BP surface geology is well known, several key aspects of its evolution are still open, notably: i)its tectonic compartmentalization established after the Brasiliano orogenesis, ii) the architecture of its cretaceous continental margin, iii) the elastic properties of its lithosphere, and iv) the causes of magmatism and uplifting which occurred in the Cenozoic. In this thesis, a regional coverage of geophysical data (elevation, gravity, magnetic, geoid height, and surface wave global tomography) were integrated with surface geologic information aiming to attain a better understanding of the above questions. In the Riacho do Pontal belt and in the western sector of the Sergipano belt, the neoproterozoic suture of the collision of the Sul domain of the BP with the Sanfranciscana plate (SFP) is correlated with an expressive dipolar gravity anomaly. The positive lobule of this anomaly is due to the BP lower continental crust uplifting whilst the negative lobule is due to the supracrustal nappes overthrusting the SFP. In the eastern sector of the Sergipano belt, this dipolar gravity anomaly does not exist. However the suture still can be identified at the southern sector of the Marancó complex arc, alongside of the Porto da Folha shear zone, where the SFP N-S geophysical alignments are truncated. The boundary associated to the collision of the Ceará domain of the BP with the West African craton is also correlated with a dipolar gravity anomaly. The positive lobule of this anomaly coincides with the Sobral-Pedro II shear zone whilst the negative lobule is associated with the Santa Quitéria magmatic arc. Judging by their geophysical signatures, the major BP internal boundaries are: i)the western sector of the Pernambuco shear zone and the eastern continuation of this shear zone as the Congo shear zone, ii) the Patos shear zone, and iii) the Jaguaribe shear zone and its southwestern continuation as the Tatajuba shear zone. These boundaries divide the BP in five tectonic domains in the geophysical criteria: Sul, Transversal, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, and Médio Coreaú. The Sul domain is characterized by geophysical signatures associated with the BP and SFP collision. The fact that Congo shear zone is now proposed as part of the Transversal domain boundary implies an important change in the original definition of this domain. The Rio Grande do Norte domain presents a highly magnetized crust resulted from the superposition of precambrian and phanerozoic events. The Ceará domain is divided by the Senador Pompeu shear zone in two subdomains: the eastern one corresponds to the Orós-Jaguaribe belt and the western one to the Ceará-Central subdomain. The latter subdomain exhibits a positive ENE-W SW gravity anomaly which was associated to a crustal discontinuity. This discontinuity would have acted as a rampart against to the N-S Brasiliano orogenic nappes. The Médio Coreaú domain also presents a dipolar gravity anomaly. Its positive lobule is due to granulitic rocks whereas the negative one is caused by supracrustal rocks. The boundary between Médio Coreaú and Ceará domains can be traced below the Parnaíba basin sediments by its geophysical signature. The joint analysis of free air anomalies, free air admittances, and effective elastic thickness estimates (Te) revealed that the Brazilian East and Equatorial continental margins have quite different elastic properties. In the first one 10 km < Te < 20 km whereas in the second one Te ≤ 10 km. The weakness of the Equatorial margin lithosphere was caused by the cenozoic magmatism. The BP continental margin presents segmentations; some of them have inheritance from precambrian structures and domains. The segmentations conform markedly with some sedimentary basin features which are below described from south to north. The limit between Sergipe and Alagoas subbasins coincides with the suture between BP and SFP. Te estimates indicates concordantly that in Sergipe subbasin Te is around 20 km while Alagoas subbasin has Te around 10 km, thus revealing that the lithosphere in the Sergipe subbasin has a greater rigidity than the lithosphere in the Alagoas subbasin. Additionally inside the crust beneath Sergipe subbasin occurs a very dense body (underplating or crustal heritage?) which is not present in the crust beneath Alagoas subbasin. The continental margin of the Pernambuco basin (15 < Te < 25 km) presents a very distinct free air edge effect displaying two anomalies. This fact indicates the existence in the Pernambuco plateau of a relatively thick crust. In the Paraíba basin the free air edge effect is quite uniform, Te ≈ 15 km, and the lower crust is abnormally dense probably due to its alteration by a magmatic underplating in the Cenozoic. The Potiguar basin segmentation in three parts was corroborated by the Te estimates: in the Potiguar rift Te ≅ 5 km, in the Aracati platform Te ≅ 25 km, and in the Touros platform Te ≅ 10 km. The observed weakness of the lithosphere in the Potiguar rift segment is due to the high heat flux while the relatively high strength of the lithosphere in the Touros platform may be due to the existence of an archaean crust. The Ceará basin, in the region of Mundaú and Icaraí subbasins, presents a quite uniform free air edge effect and Te ranges from 10 to 15 km. The analysis of the Bouguer admittance revealed that isostasy in BP can be explained with an isostatic model where combined surface and buried loadings are present. The estimated ratio of the buried loading relative to the surface loading is equal to 15. In addition, the lower crust in BP is abnormally dense. These affirmations are particularly adequate to the northern portion of BP where adherence of the observed data to the isostatic model is quite good. Using the same above described isostatic model to calculate the coherence function, it was obtained that a single Te estimate for the entire BP must be lower than 60 km; in addition, the BP north portion has Te around 20 km. Using the conventional elastic flexural model to isostasy, an inversion of crust thickness was performed. It was identified two regions in BP where the crust is thickened: one below the Borborema plateau (associated to an uplifting in the Cenozoic) and the other one in the Ceará domain beneath the Santa Quitéria magmatic arc (a residue associated to the Brasiliano orogenesis). On the other hand, along the Cariri-Potiguar trend, the crust is thinned due to an aborted rifting in the Cretaceous. Based on the interpretation of free air anomalies, it was inferred the existence of a large magmatism in the oceanic crust surrounding the BP, in contrast with the incipient magmatism in the continent as shown by surface geology. In BP a quite important positive geoid anomaly exists. This anomaly is spatially correlated with the Borborema plateau and the Macaú-Queimadas volcanic lineament. The integrated interpretation of geoid height anomaly data, global shear velocity model, and geologic data allow to propose that and Edge Driven Convection (EDC) may have caused the Cenozoic magmatism. The EDC is an instability that presumably occurs at the boundary between thick stable lithosphere and oceanic thin lithosphere. In the BP lithosphere, the EDC mechanism would have dragged the cold lithospheric mantle into the hot asthenospheric mantle thus causing a positive density contrast that would have generated the main component of the geoid height anomaly. In addition, the compatibility of the gravity data with the isostatic model, where combined surface and buried loadings are present, together with the temporal correlation between the Cenozoic magmatism and the Borborema plateau uplifting allow to propose that this uplifting would have been caused by the buoyancy effect of a crustal root generated by a magmatic underplating in the Cenozoic

Histerese térmica de sistemas magnéticos nanoestruturados

We report a theoretical investigation of thermal hysteresis in magnetic nanoelements. Thermal hysteresis originates in the existence of meta-stable states in temperature intervals which may be tuned by small values of the external magnetic field, and are controlled by the systems geometric dimensions as well as the composition. Two systems have been investigated. The first system is a trilayer consisting of one antiferromagnetic MnF2 film, exchange coupled with two Fe lms. At low temperatures the ferromagnetic layers are oriented in opposite directions. By heating in the presence of an external magnetic field, the Zeeman energy induces a gradual orientation of the ferromagnets with the external field and the nucleation of spin- op-like states in the antiferromagnetic layer, leading eventually, in temperatures close to the Neel temperature, to full alignment of the ferromagnetic films and the formation of frustrated exchange bonds in the center of the antiferromagnetic layer. By cooling down to low temperatures, the system follows a different sequence of states, due to the anisotropy barriers of both materials. The width of the thermal hysteresis loop depends on the thicknesses of the FM and AFM layers as well as on the strength of the external field. The second system consists in Fe and Permalloy ferromagnetic nanoelements exchange coupled to a NiO uncompensated substrate. In this case the thermal hysteresis originates in the modifications of the intrinsic magnetic

PEWS-RT, um sistema de tempo de execução para a linguagem PEWS

Web services are loosely coupled applications that use XML documents as a way of integrating distinct systems on the internet. Such documents are used by in standards such as SOAP, WSDL and UDDI which establish, respectively, integrated patterns for the representation of messages, description, and publication of services, thus facilitating the interoperability between heterogeneous systems. Often one single service does not meet the users needs, therefore new systems can be designed from the composition of two or more services. This which is the design goal behind the of the Service Oriented Architecture. Parallel to this scenario, we have the PEWS (Predicate Path-Expressions for Web Services) language, which speci es behavioural speci cations of composite web service interfaces.. The development of the PEWS language is divided into two parts: front-end and back-end. From a PEWS program, the front-end performs the lexical analysis, syntactic and semantic compositions and nally generate XML code. The function of the back-end is to execute the composition PEWS. This master's dissertation work aims to: (i) reformulate the proposed architecture for the runtime system of the language, (ii) Implement the back-end for PEWS by using .NET Framework tools to execute PEWS programs using the Windows Work ow Foundation

Anisotropia sísmica crustal na região de Cascavel - CE

This dissertation presents a study on crustal seismic anisotropy in Cascavel - CE. The earthquake data employed here are from the Seismological Laboratory at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) and were colected from 29 September 1997 to 05 march 1998 using six three-component digital seismographic stations. In general, the cause of the observed seismic anisotropy in many regions of the world is interpreted in terms of fluid-filled stress aligned microcracks in the rockmass (EDA). In other words, the polarisation direction of the faster shear-wave splitting is parallel to SHmax. However, other researches on seismic anisotropy carried out in NE Brazil have shown a remarkable consistency of the faster shear-wave polarisation direction with the direction of the Precambrian fabric. The present work is another case study that is used to investigate this issue. In order to map the Precambrian fabric we used aeromagnetic data, since the study area is mostly covered with sediments (up to 50m thick) and in-situ field mapping would be very difficult to be carried out. According to the results from the present research, the observations of the faster shear-wave polarisation directions in two seismographic stations in Cascavel region are best explained in the framework of EDA. For the remaining two stations, the observed anisotropy may have two interpretions: (i) - 90_ flips of the direction of polarisation of the faster shear-wave, since that the event-to-station ray path would be through the fracture zone and hence would travel under a higher pore pressure and (ii) - the observed seismic anisotropy would agree with the direction on the ductile Precambrian fabric

Estimativa de espessura crustal na Província Borborema (NE/Brasil) através de função do recpetor

Crustal thickness and VP/VS estimates are essential to the studies of subsurface geological structures and also to the understanding of the regional tectonic evolution of a given area. In this dissertation, we use the Langston´s (1979) Receiver Function Method using teleseismic events reaching the seismographic station with angles close to the vertical. In this method, the information of the geologic structures close to the station is isolated so that effects related to the instrument response and source mechanics are not present. The resulting time series obtained after the deconvolution between horizontal components contains the larger amplitude referring to the P arrival, followed by smaller arrival caused by the reverberation and conversion of the P-wave at the base of the crust. We also used the HK-Stacking after Zhu & Kanamori (2000) to obtain crustal thickness and Vp/VS estimates. This method works stacking receiver functions so that the best estimates of crustal thickness and Vp/VS are found when the direct P, the Ps wave and the first multiple are coherently stacked. We used five broadband seismographic stations distributed over the Borborema Province, NE Brazil. Crustal thickness and Vp/VS estimates are consistent with the crust-mantle interface obtained using gravity data. We also identified crutal thickening in the NW portion of the province, close to Sobral/CE. Towards the center-north portion of the province, there is an evident crustal thinning which coincides with a geological feature consisting of an alignment of sedimentary basins known as the Cariris-Potiguar trend. Towards the NE portion of the province, in Solânea/PB and Agrestina/PE regions, occurs a crustal thickening and a systematic increase in the VP/VS values which suggest the presence of mafic rocks in the lower crust also consistent with the hypothesis of underplating in the region

Petrologia dos granitóides brasilianos associados à zona de cisalhamento Remígio-Pocinhos(PB)

The Brasiliano Cycle in the Seridó Belt (NE Brazil) is regarded mostly as a crustal reworking event, characterized by transcurrent or transpressional shear zones which operated under high temperature and low pressure conditions. In the eastern domain of this belt- the so-called São José de Campestre Massif (SJCM), a transtensional deformation regime is evidenced by extensional components or structures associated to the strikeslip shear zones. The emplacement of the Neoproterozoic Brasiliano granitoids is strongly controled by these discontinuities. Located in the southern border of the SJCM, the Remígio-Pocinhos shear zone (RPSZ) displays, in its northern half, top to the SW extensional movement which progressively grade, towards its southern half, to a dextral strike-slip kinematics, defining a negative semi-flower structure. This shear zone is overprinted upon allocthonous metasediments of the Seridó Group and an older gneiss-migmatite complex, both of which containing metamorphic parageneses from high amphibolite to granulite facies (the latter restricted to the strike-slip zone), defining the peak conditions of deformation. Several granitoid plutons are found along this structure, emplaced coeval with the shearing event. Individually, such bodies do not exceed 30 km2 in outcropping area and are essentially parallel to the trend of the shear zone. Petrographic, textural and geochemical data allow to recognize five different granitoid suites along the RPSZ: porphyritic granites (Serra da Boa Vista and Jandaíra), alkaline granites (Serra do Algodão and Serra do Boqueirão) and medium to coarse-grained granites (Olivedos) as major plutons, while microgranite and aluminous leucogranite sheets occur as minor intrusions. The porphyritic granites are surrounded by metasediments and present sigmoidal or en cornue shapes parallel to the trend of the RPSZ, corroborating the dextral kinematics. Basic to intermediate igneous enclaves are commonly associated to these bodies, frequently displaying mingling textures with the host granitoids. Compositionally these plutons are made up by titanite-biotite monzogranites bearing amphibole and magnetite; they are peraluminous and show affinities to the monzonitic, subalkaline series. Peraluminous, ilmenite-bearing biotite monzogranites and titanite-biotite monzogranites correspond, respectivally, to the Olivedos pluton and the microgranites. The Olivedos body is hosted by metasediments, while the microgranites intrude the gneiss-migmatite complex. Being highly evolved rocks, samples from these granites plot in the crustal melt fields in discrimination diagrams. Nevertheless, their subtle alignment also looks consistent with a monzonitic, subalkaline affinity. These chemical parameters make them closer to the I-type granites. Alkaline, clearly syntectonic granites are also recognized along the RPSZ. The Serra do Algodão and Serra do Boqueirão bodies display elongated shapes parallel to the mylonite belt which runs between the northern, extensional domain and the southern strike-slip zone. The Serra do Algodão pluton shows a characteristic isoclinal fold shape structure. Compositionally they encompass aegirine-augite alkali-feldspar granites and quartz-bearing alkaline syenite bearing garnet (andradite) and magnetite plus ilmenite as opaque phases. These rocks vary from meta to peraluminous, being correlated to the A-type granites. Aluminous leucogranites bearing biotite + muscovite ± sillimanite ± garnet (S-type granites) are frequent but not volumetrically important along the RPSZ. These sheet-like bodies may be folded or boudinaged, representing partial melts extracted from the metasediments during the shear zone development. Whole-rock Rb-Sr isotope studies point to a minimum 554��10 Ma age for the crystalization of the porphyritic granites. The alkaline granites and the Olivedos granite produced ca. 530 Ma isochrons which look too young; such values probably represent the closure of the Rb-Sr radiometric clock after crystallization and deformation of the plutons, at least 575 Ma ago (Souza et al. 1998). The porphyritic and the alkaline granites crystallized under high oxygen fugacity conditions, as shown by the presence of both magnetite and hematite in these rocks. The presence of ilmenite in the Olivedos pluton suggests less oxidizing conditions. Amphibole and amphibole-plagioclase thermobarometers point to minimum conditions, around 750°C and 6 Kbars, for the crystallization of the porphyritic granites. The zirconium geothermometer indicates higher temperatures, in the order of 800°C, for the porphyritic granites, and 780°C for the Olivedos pluton. Such values agree with the thermobarometric data optained for the country rocks (5,7 Kbar and 765°C; Souza et al. 1998). The geochemical and isotope data set point to a lower crustal source for the porphyritic and the alkaline granites. Granulite facies quartz diorite to tonalite gneisses, belonging or akin to the gneiss-migmatite complex, probably dominate in the source regions. In the case of the alkaline rocks, subordinate contributions of mantle material may be present either as a mixing magma or as a previously added component to the source region. Tonalite to granodiorite gneisses, with some metasedimentary contribution, may be envisaged for the Olivedos granite. The diversity of granitoid rocks along the RPSZ is explained by its lithospheric dimension, allowing magma extraction at different levels, from the middle to lower crust down to the mantle. The presence of basic to intermediate enclaves, associated to the porphyritic granites, confirm the participation of mantle components in the magma extraction system along the RPSZ. This mega-structure is part of the network of Brasiliano-age shear zones, activated by continental collision and terrane welding processes at the end of the Neoproterozoic

Petrologia do plúton Serra da Macambira, neoproterozóico da faixa seridó, província Borborema (NE do Brasil)

The final stage of Brasiliano/Pan-African orogeny in the Borborema Province is marked by widespread plutonic magmatism. The Serra da Macambira Pluton is an example of such plutonism in Seridó Belt, northeastern Borborema Province, and it is here subject of geological, petrographic, textural, geochemical and petrogenetic studies. The pluton is located in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, intrusive into Paleoproterozoic orthogneisses of the Caicó Complex and Neoproterozoic metassupracrustal rocks of the Seridó Group. Based upon intrusion/inclusion field relationships, mineralogy and texture, the rocks are classified as follows: intermediate enclaves (quartz-bearing monzonite and biotite-bearing tonalite), porphyritic monzogranite, equigranular syenogranite to monzogranite, and late granite and pegmatite dykes. Porphyritic granites and quartz-bearing monzonites represent mingling formed by the injection of an intermediate magma into a granitic one, which had already started crystallization. Both rocks are slightly older than the equigranular granites. Quartz-bearing monzonite has K-feldspar, plagioclase, biotite, hornblende and few quartz, meanwhile biotite-bearing tonalite are rich in quartz, poor in K-feldspar and hornblende is absent. Porphyritic and equigranular granites display mainly biotite and rare hornblende, myrmekite and pertitic textures, and zoned plagioclase pointing out to the relevance of fractional crystallization during magma evolution. Such granites have Rare Earth Elements (REE) pattern with negative Eu anomaly and light REE enrichment when compared to heavy REE. They are slight metaluminous to slight peraluminous, following a high-K calc-alkaline path. Petrogenesis started with 27,5% partial melting of Paleoproterozoic continental crust, generating an acid hydrous liquid, leaving a granulitic residue with orthopyroxene, plagioclase (An40-50), K-feldspar, quartz, epidote, magnetite, ilmenite, apatite and zircon. The liquid evolved mainly by fractional crystallization (10-25%) of plagioclase (An20), biotite and hornblende during the first stages of magmatic evolution. Granitic dykes are hololeucocratic with granophyric texture, indicating hypabissal crystallization and REE patterns similar to A-Type granites. Preserved igneous textures, absence or weak imprint of ductile tectonics, association with mafic to intermediate enclaves and alignment of samples according to monzonitic (high-K calcalkaline) series all indicate post-collisional to post-orogenic complexes as described in the literature. Such interpretation is supported by trace element discrimination diagrams that place the Serra da Macambira pluton as late-orogenic, probably reflecting the vanishing stages of the exhumation and collapse of the Brasiliano/Pan-African orogen.

Caracterização geomorfológica e modelagem de dados espaciais na plataforma continental rasa do RN nos limites da folha Touros

This work focuses the geomorphological characterization and spatial data modeling in the shallow continental shelf within the Folha Touros limits (SB-25-CV-II), based on bathymetric data analysis and remote sensing products interpretation. The Rio Grande do Norte state is located in northeastern Brazil and the work area is located at the transition region between the eastern and northern portions of their coast. The bathymetric surveys were conduced between march and may 2009, using a 10 meters long vessel and 0.70 meters draught, equipped with global positioning system and echo sounder (dual beam, 200KHz , 14°). The fieldwork resulted in 44 bathymetric profiles espaced 1.5 km and 30 km average length. The bathymetric data amount were 111,200 points and were navigated 1395.7 km within na area about 1,850 km2. The bathymetric data were corrected for the tide level, vessel draught and were subsequently entered into a geographic information system for further processing. Analysis of remote sensing products was carried out using Landsat 7/ETM + band 1, from november 1999. The image was used for visualization and mapping submerged features. The results showed the presence of geomorphological features within the study area. Were observed, from the analysis of local bathymetry and satellite image, seven types of geomorphological features. The channels, with two longitudinals channels (e. g. San Roque and Cioba channels) and other perpendicular to the coast (e. g. Touros, Pititinga and Barretas). Coastal reef formations (Maracajaú, Rio do Fogo and Cioba). Longitudinal waves, described in the literature as longitudinal dunes. The occurrence of a transverse dune field. Another feature observed was the oceanic reefs, an rock alignment parallel to the coast. Were identified four riscas , from north to south: risca do Liso, Gameleira, Zumbi, Pititinga (the latter being described for the first time). Finally, an oceanic terrace was observed in the deepest area of study. Image interpretation corroborated with the in situ results, enabling visualization and description for all features in the region. The results were analysed in an integrating method (using the diferent methodologies applied in this work) and it was essential to describe all features in the area. This method allowed us to evaluate which methods generated better results to describe certain features. From these results was possible to prove the existence of submerged features in the eastern shallow continental shelf of Rio Grande do Norte. In this way, the conclusions was (1) this study contributed to the provision of new information about the area in question, particularly with regard to data collection in situ depths, (2) the method of data collection and interpretation proves to be effective because, through this, it was possible to visualize and interpret the features present in the study area and (3) the interpretation and discussion of results in an integrated method, using different methodologies, can provide better results