Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87

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Tectonophysics

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Curie surface of Borborema Province, Brazil

Raphael T. Correa a,b,⁎,1, Roberta M. Vidotti a, Erdinc Oksum c
a
Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil
b
Brazilian Geological Survey (CPRM), Brasília, Brazil
c
Istanbul University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Geophysical Engineering, Avcılar, 34320 Istanbul, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Curie surface interpreted from magnetic data through spatial frequency domain techniques is used to pro-
Received 18 November 2015 vide information on the thermal structure of Borborema Province. The Borborema Province is part of the
Received in revised form 13 April 2016 neoproterozoic collision of an orogenic system situated between the São Francisco-Congo and São Luís-West
Accepted 22 April 2016
Africa cratons, which formed the Gondwana Supercontinent. The Curie surface of Borborema Province varies
Available online 27 April 2016
from 18 to 59 km, which reveals the complexity in the crustal composition of the study area. The thermal struc-
Keywords:
ture shows different crustal blocks separated by the main shear zones, which corroborates the evolution model of
Borborema Province allochthonous terranes. The Curie surface signature for the west portion of Pernambuco Shear Zone may indicate
Spectral analysis processes of mantle serpentinization, once the Curie isotherm is deeper than Mohorovic discontinuity. In this re-
Curie depth gion, the amplitude of Bouguer anomaly decreases, which corroborates long wavelength anomaly observed in
Crustal thermal structure the magnetic anomaly. We interpreted this pattern as evidence of the Brasiliano-Pan-Africano's subduction/col-
lision event. Earthquakes in the region are concentrated mainly in shallow Curie surface regions (less resistant
crust) and in transition zones between warm and cold blocks. We calculated the horizontal gradient of the
Curie depth to emphasize the signature of contact between the thermal blocks. These regions mark possible
crustal discontinuities, and have high correlation with orogenic gold occurrence in the study area.
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Raising the temperature of a magnetic material, the spontaneous
magnetization disappears at Curie temperature (Lowrie, 2007). The
crust Curie depth refers to the isotherm of 580 °C, which is the
demagnetizing point of magnetite (Frost and Shive, 1986). Thus, the
depth associated with this temperature is an indicator of the extent of
magnetic signal.
The rheology of solids is controlled mainly by temperature, thereby
to understand the mechanical behavior of crust and lithosphere is nec-
essary to know its thermal structures (Turcotte and Schubert, 2002).
Processes such as volcanism, intrusion, earthquakes, mountains uplift
and metamorphism are controlled by the generation and heat transfer
inside Earth (Fowler, 2005).
In general, the crust thermal structure is investigated by heat flow
measurements. However, such data are scarce and can be contaminated
with shallow anomalies of the local geological environment (Siler and
Kennedy, 2016; Blackwell, 1983). This may occur in Borborema
⁎ Corresponding author at: Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de Brasília, Campus
Darcy Ribeiro ICC, Ala Central CEP 70.910-900, Brasília/DF, Brazil.
E-mail address: raphael.correa@cprm.gov.br (R.T. Correa).
1
Brazilian Geological Survey (CPRM), Setor Bancário Norte - SBN, Quadra 02, Bloco H -
Edifício Central Brasília, Asa Norte, CEP70040-904, Brasília, Brazil.
province due to the presence of heat flow data up to 259 mW/m2
(Hamza et al., 2005), which may be influenced by shallow geothermal
circulation. Thus, the Curie surface interpreted from magnetic data
through spatial frequency domain techniques is an alternative to under-
stand the crust thermal structure (Ross et al. 2006).
Curie depth studies calculate the depth to the bottom of magnetiza-
tion (DBM), which is used to infer the Curie temperature depth. Thus,
the biggest challenge is to interpret what the DBM means. There may
be regions where the DBM is equivalent to Mohorovic discontinuity
(Moho), where it is a magnetic boundary (Wasilewski et al., 1979);
long wavelength variations in DBM may be due to the Curie isotherm
which in turn may be in some areas the same surface as Moho (Salem
et al., 2014). Finally, there are rare situations where the Curie isotherm
is deeper than Moho, which calls for a serpentinized mantle (Bucher
and frey, 1994; Guimarães et al., 2014; Blakely et al., 2005). All these
possibilities are discussed in this study.
Although the technique has some limitations as the need of large
windows to sample the DBM, uncorrelated sources and difficulty to in-
terpret the geological mean, it has been successfully applied in Blakely
(1988), Tanaka and Ishikawa (2005), Trifonova et al. (2009), Aydin
and Oksum (2010), Aydin and Oksum (2012), Aydin and Oksum
(2012), Manea and Manea (2010).
The Borborema province was defined by Almeida et al. (1977) as a
geological-structural domain located in northeastern Brazil which oc-
cupies an area of approximately 450,000 km2 (Fig. 1). There are several

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2016.04.037
0040-1951/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
74 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87

Fig. 1. Borborema Province Chronostratigraphic map (adapted from Bizzi et al., 2003). Abbreviations for Setentrional domain: TBL — Transbrasiliano Lineament, MCS — Médio Coreaú
subdomain, CCS — Ceará Central subdomain, TTM — Tróia Tauá massive, RGNS — Rio Grande do Norte subdomain, OJB — Orós Jaguaribe belt, RPT — Rio Piranhas terrane, SB — Seridó
belt, SJCT — São José do Campestre terrane; Central domain: ARPS — Araripina subdomain, PABS — Piancó Alto Brígida subdomain, APS — Alto Pajeau subdomain, AMS — Alto Moxotó
subdomain, RCS — Rio Capibaribe subdomain; Meridional domain: PAM -Pernambuco Alagoas massive, SB — Sergipana belt, RPB — Riacho Pontal belt. Shear zones proposed by
Oliveira (2008). Inset highlights the location of the study area in South America. Limits of the province based on Bizzi et al. (2003).

theories related to its development, but the most accepted one claims
that the province is composed of an assemblage of allochthonous ter-
ranes, with at least two orogenic events related to its history (Jardim
de Sá et al., 1992; Santos, 2000).
Knowledge of the thermal structure of the Borborema province can
help on understanding the crustal evolution of tectonostratigraphic ter-
ranes, since there are indications (Lima et al., 2014) that the major shear
zones are crustal scale, thereby it is expected a variation in the thermal
field of the different subdomains. We analyze if these major crustal scale
breaks may be important conduits for mineralizing fluids to reach the
upper crust (Korschv and Doublier, 2015). The causes of the Borborema
plateau uplift are one of the most controversial issues in the Borborema
Province (Luz et al., 2015), once receiver function data reveals crustal
thickening around 5 km, which may disturb the thermal structure.
Futhermore, it is tested if high heat flow regions let the crust susceptible
to earthquakes generation.
2. Geology
The Borborema Province is part of the Neoproterozoic collision be-
tween the São Francisco–Congo and Luís–West Africa cratons, which
formed the supercontinent Gondwana (Van Schmus et al., 1995; Brito
Neves et al., 2000). According to Santos (2000), the province consists
of three main domains: Setentrional, Central or Transversal Zone and
Meridional or Extremo sul (Fig. 1). There is no consensus on some limits,
and this work adopts the limits proposed by Santos et al. (2000) and
Brito Neves et al. (2000). Table 1 resumes the geological context of
each subdomain related to the main orogenic systems.
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87 75

Table 1
Resumed geological context. Addapted from Santos (2000) and Van Schmus et al. (2011).

Setentrional domain Central domain Meridional domain

Orogenic Brasiliano MCS: extensional transcurrent; CCS: extensional Trancurrent Extensional contractional (transport
system contractional(transport to W/SW); RGNS: Transpressive. S/SW to São Francisco craton)
Cariris Contractional Contractional (transport to W/NW)
Velho
Geological Comprises paleoproterozoic basement with Archean Nuclei, and It's characterized mainly by Ne–SW Tectonic collage of various blocks
context overlying Neoproterozoic supracrustal rocks and Brasiliano plutonic to E–W trending transcurrent faults ranging in age from Archean to
rocks Neoproterozoic

The Setentrional domain is located at north of the Patos shear zone,
it includes the Médio Coreaú, Ceará Central and Rio Grande do Norte
subdomains. The Médio Coreaú subdomain consists of low-grade meta-
morphic basement (2.35 Ga), consisting of tonalite-trondhjemite-
granodiorite (TTG) gneisses, migmatites, ortoderivate and paraderivate
granulites. Throughout some of the shear zones systems, it is possible to
conclude that Cambro-Ordovician basins evolved from rifts (Brito Neves
et al., 2000; Brito Neves et al., 1999).
The Ceará Central subdomain consists of Archean terranes, granite-
greenstone and granite-gneiss types, derived from the Paleoproterozoic
orogenic collage, and of the complex of Neoproterozoic
metasedimentary rocks (Arthaud et al., 2008; Fetter et al., 2000). The
Rio Grande do Norte subdomain includes Rio Piranhas, Granjeiro and
São José do Campeste terranes and Orós Jaguaribe and Seridó belts.
The São José do Campestre terrane includes TTG associations and Arche-
an orthogneiss (Dantas et al., 2004). The Rio Piranhas terrane consists of
Paleoproterozoic calc-alkaline orthogneiss and rare supracrustal
metasedimentary rocks. The Granjeiro terrane is a tectonic compart-
ment of Archean-Paleoproterozoic age. The Orós-Jaguaribe belt consists
of Statherian rift including volcanosedimentary basins and anorogenic
granitic rocks. The Seridó belt comprises Ediacaran metasedimentary
rocks, including metavolcano-sedimentary units: platform meta-
pelitic-carbonate, quartzites and meta-conglomerates and schists of
turbiditic nature (Santos et al., 2014).
The Central domain is located between the Patos and Pernambuco
shear zones, with subdomains Alto Moxotó, Rio Capibaribe Araripina,
Piancó Alto Brígida and Alto Pajeaú. The Alto Moxotó subdomain con-
sists of high-grade gneisses and Paleoproterozoic mafic intrusions. The
Rio Capibaribe subdomain consists of Mesoproterozoic and
Neoproterozoic belts including siliciclastic sediments, and intermediate
to mafic metavolcanic sequences. The Araripina subdomain consists of
gneiss-migmatitic rocks, and the Pianco Alto Brígida subdomain consists
of siliciclastic meta-sedimentary, meta-turbidites and Neoproterozoic
metaconglomerates. The Alto Pajeaú subdomain consists of
metavolcanosedimentary and granitic rocks. There is no consensus
about its forming environment if magmatic arc or rift (Santos and
Medeiros, 1999; Santos et al., 2014).
The Meridional domain is located between Pernambuco shear zone
at south and São Francisco craton at north. It is a Neoproterozoic con-
tractional metavolcano-sedimentary belt developed between the
north-central portion of the Borborema province and the São Francisco
craton. It comprises the Pernambuco-Alagoas massive and Sergipana
and Riacho Pontal belts. They are formed by various contractional al-
lochthonous stacked from north to south of the northern boundary of

Fig. 2. A) Magnetic anomaly of Borborema province. Abbreviations for Setentrional domain: TBL — Transbrasiliano Lineament, MCS — Médio Coreaú subdomain; CCS — Ceará Central
subdomain, RGNS — Rio Grande do Norte subdomain; Central domain: ARPS — Araripina subdomain, PABS — Piancó Alto Brígida subdomain, APS — Alto Pajeau subdomain, AMS —
Alto Moxotó subdomain, RCS — Rio Capibaribe subdomain; Meridional domain: PAM — Pernambuco Alagoas massive, SB — Sergipana belt, RPB — Riacho Pontal belt. B) Magnetic
anomaly in the west portion of Setentrional domain. The black squares indicate the size of the windows that were used in the tests. It began with a 50 × 50 km2 window that was
increased from 50 to 50 km to reach the 200 km window. Crustal thickness data according to Pavão (2014).
76 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87

São Francisco craton. The Pernambuco-Alagoas massive consists of of prisms with constant magnetization (Okubo et al., 1985; Tanaka et al.,
granite-migmatitic rocks with Brasiliano plutons intrusions (Santos 1999). It is assumed that the depth to the top is small compared to the
et al., 2014). lateral dimensions of the magnetic sources, and that the of x and y.
According to Blakely (1995), the power density spectrum of the
3. Material and methods magnetic anomaly is given by:




3.1. Aeromagnetic data φΔT kx ; ky ¼ φM kx ; ky : F kx ; ky ð1Þ

The aeromagnetic data were provided by the Geological Survey of where φM(kx, ky) is the power density spectrum of magnetization and
Brazil (CPRM). The study area is covered by 11 surveys. The data were F(kx, ky) = 4π²e−2| k| Zt(1 − e−Δz| k|)C²mΘ²mΘ²f, | k | is the wavenumber
acquired between 2005 and 2010 as part of the geological program of module in rad/km, Zt is the average depth to the top of magnetic bodies,
Brazil. The flight lines for all datasets have NS direction with 500 m spac- Δz is the average thickness of the magnetic bodies, C²m is a proportion-
ing and 100 m flight height. ality constant, Θm and Θ²f are factors of magnetization and magnetic
Each dataset was processed separately before integration. The pro- field directions, respectively. Whereas all terms, except Θ²m e Θ²f are ra-
cessing performed in this work consists of: i) analyze the level of dially symmetrical, the radial average of Θ²m and Θ²fis constant. Since
noise by the fourth difference filter (Geosoft, 2013); ii) removal of the the magnetization is random and not correlated, φM becomes constant.
International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) in Oasis Montaj Thus, the radial average is given by the following equation:
8.0.1 software; iii) bi-directional interpolation with 125 m cell size
 
(Reeves, 2005). The grids were integrated according to Johnson et al.
φΔT ðjkjÞ ¼ Ae−2jkjZt 1− e−jkjðZb −ZtÞ 2; ð2Þ
(1999) technique (Fig. 2).
The aeromagnetic compilation described is limited inside the study
area. Thus, window size dimension limits the results in a smaller area. where A is a constant and Zb is the average depth of the magnetic base.
To recover all over the Borborema province with results, the data Adjusting the terms involving Zt and Zb in a hyperbolic sine function,
were complemented with the AEROMAG BRAZIL compilation, which plus a centroid factor. For the long wavelengths, the hyperbolic sine
covers the adjacent sedimentary basins and the São Francisco craton. function tends to one, leaving only the term Z0, which contains the cen-
This compilation has cell size of 1 × 1 km2 and 1000 m elevation; it in- ter. Eq. 2 becomes:
cludes aero surveys since the decade of 80. The grids were individually
 Ce−kZ0 Δzk:
1=2
adjusted to minimize the artifacts of long wavelength due to the time φΔT ðjkjÞ ð3Þ
difference between the surveys (Costa et al., 2011).
The Curie depth was calculated for each of the two databases using Then taking the logarithm, the equation becomes:
the same sampled area to check the databases compatibility. Both spec-
tra, for each sampled area, show the same shape, and the calculated " #
1=2
φΔT ðjkjÞ
DBM estimates has, approximately, 2 km difference, which is within ln ¼ lnD−jkjz0 : ð4Þ
jkj
the error of the method.

3.2. Centroid method Thus, by adjusting a straight line in the small wavenumbers, depth of
the center is obtained by the slope.
The centroid method is based on the spectral analysis, the model is For wavelengths shorter than twice the thickness of the magnetic
centered on collections of random samples from a uniform distribution layer, Eq. (2) can be approximated. Analogous to the first consideration

Fig. 3. Spectral analysis. Calculation example of the top and centroid depths for the study area.
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
(Eq. (3)), applying the log generates the following expression:
h i
1=2
ln φΔT ðjkjÞ ¼ lnB−jkjZt :
Then fitting a straight line in large wavenumbers, depth to the top is
obtained from the slope (Fig. 3).
The depth to the base is estimated by the following equation:
Zb ¼ 2Z0 −ZT :
3.2.1. Window size
A peak in the spectrum in a superior position than k f ¼ 2π
L , where
kf is the fundamental wavenumber and L is the window size, is one in-
dicator that the window size is able to sample the DBM (Shuey et al.,
L
1977; Ross et al., 2006). The spectrum has information until the 2π
L
depths, thereby the sources deeper than 2π show a peak in an inferior
position than kf and may not be solved by a window with L dimension.
However, sources with horizontal dimensions in the order of the win-
dow size may cause a shift in the peak position (Connard et al., 1983).
The need of large windows size to sample the DBM is one of the main
method limitations, since it is not sensitive to local geological effects, be-
sides spectral analysis can lead to scattered power spectra where there
are complex geological structures (Okubo and Matsunaga, 1994).
To choose the best size of the window sampling, a region in Ceará
Central subdomain was selected. Windows with dimensions of 50,
100, 150 and 200 km were centralized (Fig. 2b). Although the windows
have the same center, there is contamination in the spectrum from
other geological environments as the window increases. The depths to
the top Zt and base Zb obtained are shown in Table 2.
It is noted a small variation in the depth to the top estimates, howev-
er, the magnetic base is influenced by the window size, which agrees to
Shuey et al. (1977) relationship. The smallest variation of the depth to
the base is between 150 and 200 km windows size, which indicates
the stability of the solutions. We chose the window size of 150 km in
order to minimize spectrum contamination and enhance spatial resolu-
tion, though the maximum depth estimate will be limited. Furthermore,
except in rare situations (high heat flow or hydrated mantle), curie sur-
face tends to be close to Moho (Wasilewski et al., 1979; Guimarães et al.,
2014; Salem et al., 2014). In this region, the crust averages 30.8 km thick
(Assumpção et al., 2013, Pavão, 2014), which is close to DBM.
4. Results
The magnetic grid was sampled into 150 × 150 km2 windows with
50 km increment towards X and Y directions, totaling 189 windows.
The results of the depth to the top and bottom were interpolated by
the minimum curvature method (Briggs, 1974) with cell size of
10 × 10 km2 (Figs. 4a and 5).
The error estimative is calculated from the Z0 wavenumber range,
since the error is higher at lower wavenumbers (Fig. 4b). According
Okubo and Matsunaga (1994), the error estimative requires the calcula-
tion of the standard deviation between the spectrum and the straight
line. For the spectrum of Fig. 3, the standard deviation is 0.069,
Table 2
Depth to the top and base according to the window sizes presenting in Fig. 2b.
Window dimension (km) Topo depth (Zt; km) Base depth (Zb; km)
50 0.93 14.1
100 1.6 20.4
150 0.8 28.6
200 1.39 32.0
77
wavenumber range is 0.007–0.040 rad/km, thereby the error is
± 2.1 km. As expected, the error is bigger the larger are the DBM
estimates.
ð5Þ
Both maps (Figs. 4a and 5) show hundred kilometer wavelength
structures, sampled by more than three windows, which indicates
that the features correspond to real geophysical signals.
The depths to the top show differentiation between the Borborema
province, San Francisco craton and adjacent sedimentary basins. In gen-
eral, the craton and the sedimentary basins have depths greater than
ð6Þ 2 km. The Borborema Province, in turn, has a heterogeneity of shallow
and deep sources according to the geological domains, highlighting
the consistency of the results (Fig. 5).
The DBM of Borborema province ranges from 18 to 59 km, which re-
veals different lithologic changes in depth or variations in the thermal
field between Borborema Province and the São Francisco Cráton
(Fig. 4a).
5. Discussion
The methodology objective is to calculate the depth for the longest
wavelength representing the DBM, which can be interpreted as the
length of the magnetic crust. However, large variations in Curie surface
wavelength may have different meanings: i) Moho may be a magnetic
boundary (Wasilewski et al., 1979); ii) variations in Curie isotherm
due to crustal composition and thickness, which in turn both surfaces
may coincide (Bouligand et al., 2009; Bucher and Frey, 1994; Salem
et al., 2014) and iii) in rare cases where mantle may be hydrated
which makes the Curie depth deeper than Moho (Ravat et al., 2007,
Guimarães et al., 2014). Thus, the DBM is compared with crustal thick-
ness (Pavão, 2014) and heat flow data (Hamza et al. 2005) to check if
these depths reflect lithologic changes or the thermal field of
Borborema province.
5.1. DBM versus Mohorovic discontinuity
We used crustal thickness data from Assumpção et al. (2013) and
Pavão (2014), which was interpolated with cell size of 16.45 km using
the Kriging method following Pavão (2014; Fig. 6).
Although crustal thickness data has less resolution than our DBM es-
timates, both surfaces show relatively the same pattern with bigger
values in the SW portion of the study area, and tend to decrease towards
the continental margin. In general, the DBM is smaller than Mohorovic
discontinuity and tends to be close in some areas (Figs. 4a and 6).
In the Setentrional domain, it is observed that Moho is close to DBM
with differences around 4 km which is within the uncertainties, except
in the Médio Coreaú subdomain where the DBM is at least 10 km small-
er. In the central domain, Moho is close to DBM in the eastern portion,
however, towards the Parnaíba basin, the DBM tends to be deeper. It
is observed the same relationship in the Meridional domain as in
Parnaiba basin. Thus, the DBM is most reflecting the thermal field of
Borborema Province, though both surfaces exhibits large scale correla-
tions, which show that lithologic changes (the most important is
Moho discontinuity) in lower crust or upper mantle level may be related
to rheologic discontinuities (Condit, 2011).
The DBM deeper than Moho suggests a magnetic upper mantle
(serpentinized). The mantle can be hydrated in three main ways:
i) fluids crossing the Moho due to deep faults or shear zones; ii)
ophiolite complex where serpentinization is associated with ocean
floor metamorphism; and iii) subduction zones and in the crust during
the formation of collisional belts (Bucher and Frey, 1994; Blakely et al.,
2005).
In subduction zones, oceanic crust metabasalts are transformed into
eclogites in a lithospheric level around 45 km. This process releases
fluids that hydrate the upper mantle of continental crust producing
serpentinized minerals which have high magnetization and low density
(Blakely et al., 2005). Thus, there is a magnetic anomaly of 200 km
78 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 4. A) Curie surface of Borborema Province on the digital elevation model. The black dots represent the centers of the windows of 150 × 150 km2. Blue squares locate heat flow
measurements used to calculate geotherms. The NW profile (black line) is deep seismic refraction data used to calculate the seismic model (Lima et al., 2014). B) Error estimative for z0.
wavelength with DBM up to 59 km near Brasiliana suture where there is
a decrease in the amplitude of the Bouguer anomaly with long wave-
length and high amplitude magnetic anomaly in the western portion
of the Pernambuco shear zone (Figs. 2a, 4a and 7). It is possible that
these signatures are a record of the mantle serpentinization during
Brasiliana Pan-African subduction/collision. It is not observed the
same anomaly in eastern portion of the suture zone, possibly due to
the opening of the South Atlantic ocean during the Cretaceous, since
this process increases the Moho temperatures exceeding 850 °C,
demagnetizing the mantle (Bucher and Frey, 1994). One may think
that serpentinized minerals preserved for such a long time (around
540 Ma) is not intuitive, however Robertson et al. (2015) found evi-
dences from magnetotteluric data for the Dalamerian Orogen (515–
500 Ma), showing conductive bodies, which they associated with
serpentinized minerals. Padilha et al. (2016) show conductivity anoma-
lies for Borborema Province which they interpret as interconnected
mineral phases along grain boundaries, such as graphite, sulfides, or
iron oxides.
5.2. Curie depth from heat flow data
The heat flow data in the region are scarce. They were provided by
the Geothermal Laboratory of the National Observatory (Hamza et al.,
2005). The heat flow varies of 25–259 mW/m2 with an average of
67 mW/m2. High heat flow regions may be influenced by shallow hy-
drothermal fluids (Siler and Kennedy, 2016), thereby to avoid compare
data influenced by fluid flow, we analyze only heat flow data below
100 mW/m2, which represents more than 90% of the original database.
There are high correlations between the large wavelength variation
of DBM and heat flow data. There are high heat flows above 80 mW/m2
in Ceará Central subdomain which corroborates the low values of the
DBM, as well as in São José do Campestre terrane and Pernambuco Ala-
goas massive where the DBM is deeper and heat flow less than 50 mW/
m2 is common.
The Curie depth can also be obtained from heat flow data, since the
thermal conductivity and radiogenic heat production in the crust and
mantle can be estimated. This research proposes a multilayer geother-
mal model based on seismic information to compare with the results
obtained by magnetic inversion.
The model assumes that the heat transfer is by steady-state conduc-
tion in the lithosphere and in the vertical, which means, the heat trans-
fer rate does not change with time (Hasterok and Chapman, 2011).
Thus, the heat transfer equation has the following form:
2
∂ T A
¼− ð7Þ
∂z2 k
2
Where ∂∂zT2 is the second derivative of temperature by depth change
rate temperature with depth, A is the radiogenic heat production in
μW/m3 and k is the thermal conductivity in W/m°C.
It was considered a three-layer model in accordance with the seis-
mic refraction model proposed by Lima et al. (2014). The radiogenic
heat decreases with depth and the thermal conductivity remains con-
stant. Eq. (7) is solved for each layer combining temperatures and tem-
perature gradients on the layers contacts. The temperature and heat
flow of the top of each layer were used as boundary conditions
(Fowler, 2005).
Due to the scarcity of radiogenic heat data, It was adopted parame-
ters described in the literature for the seismic model layers (Table 3).
We calculated the average thermal conductivity of the Geothermal Lab
National Observatory database.
There are no heat flow data close to the seismic model. Thus, it was
assumed that the mechanical properties have continuity along each
subdomain. Thus, the geotherms were calculated using the closest
heat flow data to the seismic model position in the portions where
there is greater density of Curie points. The obtained depths were com-
pared with the average Curie depths within blue boxes (Fig. 4a). The
heat flow in Alto Moxotó subdomain is 75 mW/m2 and using the
Table 3 data to solve the Eq. (7), the temperature of 580 °C is at
25.8 km, which is close to the 26.3 km obtained from magnetic data.
The heat flow in Potiguar Basin is 68 mW/m2 resulting in a Curie
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 5. Average depth to the top of magnetic sources on the digital elevation model. Note the presence of anomalies of hundreds of kilometers (principally of shallow Zt depth), greater than
the sampling window, which corroborates the presence of real geophysical signals.
depth of 33.5 km, the inversion of magnetic data obtained depths
around 28.1 km close to this site. The Rio Piranhas terrane heat flow is
75 mW/m2, resulting in Curie depth of approximately 28.0 km, the esti-
mative from magnetic data is 30.0 km (Fig. 8).
In general, the Curie depths calculated with both methods are close,
therefore high correlation between the two methodologies increases
the reliability on that the magnetic inversion estimation can be used
as a proxy for Curie isotherm in this region. Thus, the DBM will be,
from now on, be considered to represent the Curie Surface for
Borborema Province.
5.3. Comparison of results with aeromagnetic data
Bouligand et al. (2009) propose comparing Curie depth results with
magnetic anomaly data, since the depths calculated in spectral analysis
are influenced by the wavelengths of the magnetic bodies. Thus, regions
where the Curie depth is shallow, it is expected that magnetic anomalies
are predominantly high frequency, while low-frequency magnetic re-
gions are possibly marked by deep Curie depths.
79
In general, regions of short wavelength have shallow Curie surface as
in the Médio Coreaú subdomain, western portion of the Rio Piranhas
and Granjeiro terranes; Alto Moxotó and Rio Capibaribe subdomains;
and in the Pernambuco Alagoas massive. Deeper Curie surface is corrob-
orated by predominantly low frequency anomalies present in Orós
Jaguaribe and Seridó belts and in the São José do Campestre terrane;
Piancó Alto Brígida and Araripina subdomains; and in the Riacho Pontal
e Sergipana Belts (Figs. 2a and 4a).
The Borborema Province evolution model based on
tectonstratigraphic terranes suggests the presence of crustal scale
shear zones related to sutures that led to the progressive increase of
Borborema Province area in the Precambrian. Thus, the regional scale
lineaments (Fig. 2a) that separate geological domains are possible su-
tures, and may reflect changes in Curie surface signature due to blocks
agglutination with different geothermal properties.
Fig. 2a shows high correlation between the boundaries of the do-
mains and the magnetic anomalies signatures. Patos and Pernambuco
shear zones separate magnetic domains with differences in amplitude,
frequency and direction of magnetic features. In Setentrional domain,
80 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 6. Borborema Province Crustal thickness. The stars, dots and squares represent receiver function, deep seismic refraction, gravity data, respectively.
the boundary between the Médio Coreaú and Central Ceará subdomains
(Pedrosa Junior et al., 2015) separates regions with different magnetic
patterns, although the boundary between the subdomains Central
Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte is not so evident. In Central Domain,
there is high correlation between the directions of subdomains with
the magnetic anomalies, mainly in the southern edge of Alto Moxotó
subdomain where Congo shear zone separates the magnetic pattern of
Rio Capibaribe subdomain. In Meridional Domain, although the magnet-
ic signature is influenced due to the presence of Phanerozoic cover
(Figs. 1 and 2a), it is not possible to observe regional scale lineaments
that separate domains with different magnetic signatures. A detailed
description of the geophysical architecture of the Borborema Province
can be found in Oliveira (2008).
The Curie depth show different crustal blocks separated by most of
the main shear zones (principally Patos, Congo shear zones and
Transbrasiliano Lineament), which corroborates the allochthonous ter-
ranes evolution model (Fig. 4a). The next section presents a detailed de-
scription of Borborema Province crustal thermal structure.
6. Geothermal constraints for the Borborema's domains
The heat flow and gravity data are sensitive to crustal composition
and thickness (Cheng et al., 2002), such that integration of these
datasets with the Curie surface can generate information about radioel-
ements enrichment or depletion in the crust, thereby featuring the ther-
mal state of crust. Thus, the combination of signatures of the different
methods may help to understand the crustal evolution of geological do-
mains. In this sense, we compared the responses obtained with heat
flow; and residual Bouguer anomaly (Oliveira, 2008) for each geological
domain (Figs. 4a and 7).
6.1. Setentrional domain
The Setentrional domain covers Médio Coreaú, Ceará Central and Rio
Grande do Norte subdomains (Fig. 9). The thermal structure is con-
trolled at south by the Patos shear zone. The thermal structure has
two principal subdomains limited by Cariri Potiguar NE trending and
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 7. Residual Bouguer anomaly. Adapted from Oliveira (2008).
the Portalegre shear zone. At west of this structure, the Curie surface is
shallower and the crust covers paleoproterozoic supracrustal rocks. At
east, the Curie surface is deeper and the crust comprises supracrustal
and Archean to Paleoproterozoic gneisses (Oliveira, 2008).
The Médio Coreaú subdomain exhibits Curie surface b 24 km. The
thermal structure is bounded by the Transbrasiliano lineament, suggest-
ing that this discontinuity is crustal scale (Fig. 9). In general, it has pos-
itive residual Bouguer anomaly (Fig. 7). According to Pavão (2014),
there is no significant crustal thinning in this region compared to the
rest of the province. Thus, the shallow Curie surface suggests enrich-
ment in radioelements at deeper levels in the crust. This pattern is con-
firmed by magnetotelluric data, since the Médio Coreaú subdomain has
Table 3
Geothermal properties of the proposed model.
Composition
Layer 1 Upper crust (granitic gneissic)
Layer 2 Lower crust (granulitic-facies)
Layer 3 Mantle
81
high resistivity (higher temperature), while the electrical conductivity
increases towards the Ceará Central subdomain (Pedrosa, 2015).
In Ceará Central subdomain, the Curie depth varies from 23 to 36 km,
which this order of variation in the thermal field indicates differences in
crustal compositions (Rolandone et al., 2002), and confirms the heat
flow variation of 56–94 mW/m (Figs. 4a and 9). It was noted a Curie
NE-trending with depth around 25 km along the Senador Pompeu
shear zone (Fig. 9). There are two deep Curie signatures (35 km) orthog-
onal to this zone with wavelengths greater than 100 km. It is observed
the same pattern in residual Bouguer anomaly (Fig. 7), the extremities
of Senator Pompeu shear zone have high gravity and the center is sec-
tioned orthogonally by gravity lows.
A (μW/m3) K (W/m.°C)
1.8 (Fowler, 2005) 2.56
0.55 (Salem et al., 2014) 2.56
0 3.2 (Hyndman and Drury, 1977)
82 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 8. Geotherms calculated from heat flow data inside blue squares of Fig. 4a. Curie isotherm line shows its depth associated for each geotherm.
The Rio Grande do Norte subdomain has variation in Curie depth
from 20 to 40 km. The thermal structure is controlled by Patos, Jaguaribe
and Portalegre shear zones (Fig 9). In Jaguaribe belt, the central region
has deep Curie signature around 37 km associated with low gravity.
The extreme portions, in this subdomain, have Curie depths around
24 km associated with high gravity anomaly (Fig. 7), suggesting that
the central portion exhibits depleted radioelements rocks in the lower
crust and/or crustal thickening. In the central portion of the Jaguaribe
belt (deep Curie surface), there is a high electrical conductivity anomaly
(lower temperature), which confirms that there is a decrease in the
thermal gradient (Padilha et al., 2013). The western portion of the
Senador Pompeu shear zone has mostly crust and upper mantle more
resistive, except for the massive Troia-Taua which has high electrical
conductivity lithosphere. The Rio Piranhas terrane has shallow Curie
surface and positive residual Bouguer anomaly at west Portalegre
shear zone (Figs. 7 and 9). This combination of signatures suggests ra-
dioelements enrichment in the upper crust. At eastern Portalegre
shear zone, the Curie surface is deeper, though there are hot cores of
shorter wavelength suggesting thermal anomalies in the mantle,
which according to Gonçalves (2009) indicates variation in the intra-
plate stress field, once thermal gradients greater than 23 °C/km (Curie
surface around 25 km) lead to thermal effects more significant than
elastic effects for the stress field (Turcotte and Schubert, 2002). Howev-
er, this pattern is not observed in São José do Campestre terrane. The
Seridó belt and the São José do Campestre terrane have Curie surface
around 32 km, which confirms the low thermal gradient according to
Vieira and Hamza (2009). However, it is one of the regions with younger
volcanism in Brazil (Knesel et al., 2011), which was expected to produce
shallow Curie surface. Therefore, the low heat flow of that portion is
possibly due to the low thermal conductivity of the basement, which
acts as a thermal insulator.
6.2. Central domain
The thermal structure is controlled at north by Patos shear zone. It
shows a NE–EW trending structure according to the Congo and Serra
do Caboclo shear zones, however, it is not observed correlation with
the Pernambuco shear zone (Fig. 9). The Curie depth of Central domain
ranges from 21 to 52 km, showing high complexity in its crustal
composition. Hundreds of kilometers features control the main domain
structures (Fig. 9).
The heat flow in the region is scarce, however, the data varies from
53 to 108 mW/m2, which shows differences in the thickness and com-
position of the domain (although possible shallow hydrothermal circu-
lation may occur), supporting the upper range to 30 km in the Curie
surface (Fig. 9).
The Alto Moxotó subdomain has shallow Curie depth associated
with positive residual Bouguer anomaly, suggesting that there is radio-
elements enrichment in the crust (Figs. 7 and 9).
Rio Capibaribe subdomain has deep Curie surface associated with
positive residual Bouguer anomaly, suggesting that there is an increase
of depleted radioactive elements rocks in the lower crust (Figs. 7 and 9).
The Alto Pajeaú subdomain has Curie depths greater than 40 km and
a low gravity associated, which confirms that there is crustal thickening
and increased presence of depleted radioactive elements rocks in the
lower crust (Figs. 7 and 9).
The Curie surface of Piancó Alto Brígida and Araripina subdomains
have close signatures, and it is not observed clear differentiation in re-
sidual Bouguer anomaly (Figs. 7 and 9). Thus, the lower heat flow in
this region is due to the low concentration of radioactive elements in
the crust associated with a relative crustal thickening.
6.3. Meridional domain
The thermal structure of this domain has two main patterns. The
eastern portion comprising the Pernambuco-Alagoas massive and
Sergipana belt features wide variation in Curie surface indicating com-
positional differences in the crust. The western region has Curie surface
greater than 37 km (Fig. 9). It was not observed any correlation with the
Pernambuco shear zone. In general, the Curie depth increases towards
the São Francisco craton.
The Curie surface variation in Pernambuco Alagoas massive indicates
differences in the crustal composition (Figs 7. and 9). The western por-
tion has shallow Curie surface associated with positive residual Bouguer
anomaly, which may indicate radioelements enrichment in the upper
crust. The eastern portion has deeper Curie surface associated with
low gravity, which shows that the crust is more depleted in radioele-
ments, since the Curie surface should be shallower as crustal thinning
occurs towards the continental margin.
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 9. . Curie surface on the digital elevation model. Note that thermal structure of the Borborema Province is controlled by the main shear zones (ZC, black lines). Borborema Plateau in
white. Shear zones proposed by Oliveira (2008).
The deep Curie surface in Sergipana and especially Riacho Pontal
belts corroborates that there was overthrust of Meridional domain
over the São Francisco plate depleted in radioelements (Oliveira,
2008), which is confirmed by the low heat flow (Fig. 9).
7. Large scale implications
7.1. Intraplate seismicity associated to the thermal structure of crust
There are several hypotheses attempting to explain the causes of in-
traplate seismicity. It is argued that the earthquakes are concentrated in
weaknesses zones of the crust or that they are located in regions with
stress concentrations (Hinze et al., 1988; Stuart and Hildenbrand,
1994). Liu and Zoback (1997) proposed a model in which the intraplate
seismicity is related to the cumulative reduction efforts in the lower
crust and upper mantle due to temperature anomalies.
The Borborema Province is one of the regions with the highest con-
centration of seismicity studies of South America platform. It has earth-
quakes records since the nineteenth century. The seismic activity in the
83
region has three main standards: (i) faults that reactivated ductile shear
zones; (ii) faults that coincide with regional foliation and quartz veins;
and (iii) faults that cross-cut pre-existing structures (Bezerra et al.,
2011).
Fig. 10 shows the Curie surface with some extrapolated points for
the oceanic crust. In the Setentrional domain, there is high correlation
of earthquakes and the portions with Curie depth less than 28 km in
Médio Coreaú and Ceará Central subdomains. It is observed the same
correlation in Jaguaribe belt and in the western portion of the Rio Pira-
nhas terrane. Although the São José do Campestre terrane has deep
Curie surface (relatively stronger crust), there is high concentration of
earthquakes in the northern portion. However, these earthquakes are
in the transition zone to the oceanic crust that has shallow Curie surface.
The Central domain has low concentration of earthquakes, perhaps
by having the deeper Curie surface for Borborema Province, which re-
veals a stronger crust.
The Meridional domain has lower correlation of earthquakes with
the regions with shallow Curie surface. However, it is noted that the
earthquakes are concentrated in the transition regions between hot
84 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
Fig. 10. Curie surface on the digital elevation model. Note the lack of earthquakes in the central-west portion which is the coolest area (stronger crust).
and cold blocks, suggesting that these portions of abrupt change in crust
thermal structure function as a secondary mechanism for generation of
earthquakes.
7.2. Crustal thermal structure of Borborema Plateau
The Borborema plateau has elliptical shape whose major axis has
NE–SW direction for 470 km, and a width varying from 70 to 330 km
(Fig. 9). It consists of batholiths of granites and complexes gneissic-
migmatitic rocks, and locally present residuals supracrustal
metasedimentary rocks (Oliveira, 2008).
The presence of sediments of Serra dos Martins formation covering
several mesas at high altitude (400–900 m) in the plateau is seen as ev-
idence for the uplift in Cenozoic, since these sediments have deposition-
al age until the later Paleogene. However, this assumption is
controversial, since there are no fossils in the sediments, and the strati-
graphic age is inferred from analysis of apatite fission track and indirect
relations with volcanic rocks (Morais Neto et al., 2009).
Most of the models proposed to explain the Borborema plateau up-
lift are based on assumptions of episodes of magmatism and simulta-
neous uplift and involve mafic underplate. It Includes thermal
anomalies related to the mantle upwelling, small scale convection on
the edge of the continental crust and crustal thickening after the exten-
sion of the crust due to the depth of the continental lithosphere in Me-
sozoic (Luz et al., 2015).
In general, the Curie depth is deeper than 38 km in Borborema pla-
teau, which indicates crustal thickening and depleted rocks in radioele-
ments, which are more resistant to deformation (Fig. 9). However, there
is a Curie feature of less than 28 km with approximately the same direc-
tion of the main axis of the plateau suggesting high thermal gradient.
Thus, this pattern supports the hypothesis of Lima et al. (2014), in
which, after the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, the Central domain
maintained its crustal roots. The juxtaposition between different rheol-
ogies of crustal roots caused thermal imbalance, so that the base of the
lithosphere below the plateau sank in the asthenosphere and caused
the uplift of the plateau to reach lithospheric isostatic equilibrium. The
 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
high heat flow corroborates the positive free air anomaly (Oliveira,
2008), suggesting that the uplift is ongoing.
7.3. Curie surface as a tool to mineral system
The formation of mineral deposits results from the influence of var-
ious geological factors of hundred kilometers of extension. Understand-
ing the critical factors in this scale is increasingly necessary for the
discovery of new deposits (Huston et al., 2010). In this regard, the im-
portance of knowing the factors that control the generation and preser-
vation of mineral deposits, with emphasis on transport processes of the
source and ore accumulation in more concentrated forms and its preser-
vation according to subsequent tectonic events, made emerge the con-
cept of mineral system (Wyborn et al., 1994).
The Curie surface can assist on identifying the main thermal discon-
tinuities that may be potential areas for mineral deposits. The main min-
eral deposits, in the study area, are concentrated mainly in Seridó belt
where gold and tungsten mineralized pegmatites in tantalite, columbite
and beryl occur (Dardenne and Schobbenhaus, 2003).
Fig. 11. Horizontal gradient of Curie surface (dimensionless). The main gold mineralization concentrate in regions of high thermal horizontal gradient.
85
Filoniano gold deposits are found mainly in Neoproterozoic Seridó
and Piancó Alto Brígida subdomains, and in reworked portions of
paleoproterozoic crust. The prevailing geodynamic environment is
Brasiliano orogeny and the occurrences are controlled by strike-slip
shear system (Santos et al., 2014).The Curie surface shows that the
Seridó belt is in the region of high horizontal gradient in the transition
between the Rio Piranhas and the São José do Campestre terranes.
Thus, we calculated the horizontal gradient of the Curie surface to high-
light this signature. Fig. 11 shows the results compared with the known
gold occurrences in CPRM database (Bizzi et al., 2003). It is noted that
the limits of the main thermal blocks follows most shear zones. There
is a positive correlation between the gold occurrences and Curie high
horizontal gradient in Granjeiro terrane, Seridó Belt, Central Ceará
subdomain near the lineament Transbrasiliano and in the contact be-
tween Alto Pajeaú and Piancó Alto Brígida subdomains. However,
there are gold occurrences in Rio Piranhas terrane with low horizontal
gradient regions. Because sampling interval is around 50 km, it is possi-
ble that increasing the resolution of Curie points, smoother gradients
can be detected.
86 R.T. Correa et al. / Tectonophysics 679 (2016) 73–87
The Curie surface calculated in this work does not represent the
thermal state of the crust during the formation of deposits. All correla-
tion between the thermal discontinuities and mineralization is based
on structural arguments.
It is noted the presence of N–NW trending structures in the central-
western portion of the study area. It is not observed structures with this
direction in Bouguer anomaly and magnetic anomaly (Figs. 2a and 7).
However, it is a potential area that should be further studied, and it is
suggested to carry out geophysical exploration for the acquisition of
magnetotelluric and deep seismic refraction data.
The deep Curie anomaly in the western portion of the Pernambuco
shear zone related to the mantle serpentinization possibly highlights
the presence of single mineralogical assembly in Borborema province.
Although it is not the focus of the present study, in this region there
are a number of gold and iron occurrences controlled by splays that
branch off the Pernambuco shear zone (Santos et al., 2014). Thus, it is
suggested to increase the sampling of gravity data and acquisition
magnetotelluric data and deep seismic refraction perpendicular to
these structures.
8. Conclusions
The Curie surface of Borborema Province varies from 18 to 59 km,
which reveals the complexity in the crustal composition of the study
area. The thermal structure shows different crustal blocks separated
by the main shear zones, which corroborates the evolution model of al-
lochthonous terranes. This work generated constraints about the thick-
ness and crustal composition for the Borborema's domains.
The Curie surface signature for the west portion of Pernambuco
Shear Zone indicates mantle serpentinization (low density and highly
magnetic), once the Curie isotherm is deeper than Mohorovic disconti-
nuity, which corroborates the decreasing in residual Bouguer amplitude
and high intensity and long wavelenght magnetic anomaly signatures.
The Borborema province earthquakes are concentrated mainly in re-
gions of shallow Curie points (less resistant crust) and in transition
zones between hot and cold blocks, where there are high temperature
contrasts elevating the thermal stress contribution to the stress field
(Manea et al., 2006). We calculated the horizontal gradient of the
Curie isotherm to emphasize the signature of the limits between the
thermal blocks. The regions marked by high horizontal gradient are pos-
sibly related to crustal discontinuities, and has high correlation with the
orogenic gold occurrence of the study area.
Although It was followed the same criteria to choose the wavenum-
ber ranges and calculate the depths of the top and base, the centroid
method is dependent on the user, which highlights the need for inde-
pendent information that can validate the model. In addition, the meth-
od considers that the magnetization in the crust is constantly vertical
and has no fractal behavior. Thus, the presence of peaks which is essen-
tial for choosing the intervals of the linear regressions is dependent of
the magnetic character of the sources and it is not a variable that can
be controlled in the inversion. It is recommended that further studies
use the methods proposed by Bouligand et al. (2009), Bansal et al.
(2011) and Salem et al. (2014) who consider more realistic models
and decreases user dependency.
The advancement of knowledge of the thermal structure of
Borborema province depends on studies of radiogenic heat production,
thermal conductivity, heat flow, and crustal thickness. The model pro-
posed in this paper can serve as a guide to choose the key regions in
order to optimize the process.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Geological Survey of Brazil for providing the aeromag-
netic data, and infrastructure for this research. We are grateful to Dr.
Valiya Hamza for kindly release the heat flow data. A thanks is due to
Dr. Roberto Gusmao Oliveira for granting gravity data. We also thank
Dr. Cesar Pavão for providing crustal thickness data. Thanks also go to
Dr. Marcelo P. Rocha for providing earthquakes data. We are particularly
grateful to professors Dr. Eder Molina and Dr. Elton Dantas for their sug-
gestions and reviews, as part of the first author's M. Sc. dissertation de-
fense. We thank Vlad Manea and Robert N. Harris for their suggestions,
which was able to improve the original manuscript.
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