Paleomagnetism of the Penatecaua magmatism: The CAMP intrusive rocks in the Amazonas Basin, northern Brazil

The Penatecaua magmatism (∼201 Ma) is part of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) and is represented by voluminous sills in the Amazonas Basin, north Brazil. The sills appear south of the Amazonas River, particularly in the Medicilandia, Placas, and Ruropolis cities. To the north of the river, near Monte Alegre and Alenquer, smaller sills and NNE-SSW dikes prevail. Paleomagnetic data from 28 sampling sites of sills and dikes from all areas gave consistent results of normal polarity. Despite the large area of occurrence, the VGPs show small dispersion, consistent with a very brief emplacement time, as indicated by the radiometric ages. However, some sites, mainly from Alenquer and the southern sills, gave anomalous directions that may represent the record of a transitional geomagnetic field. The calculated paleomagnetic pole includes former data from Guerreiro and Schult (1986) plotting at 260.1°E 77.5°S (N = 30; A95 = 3.8°; k = 48) and agrees with other high-quality CAMP poles for South America.