North-Gondwana assembly, break-up and paleogeography: U–Pb isotope evidence from detrital and igneous zircons of Ediacaran and Cambrian rocks of SW Iberia

Abstract

The Estremoz Anticline in the Ossa-Morena Zone (SW Iberia) includes upper Ediacaran detrital rocks uncon- formably overlain by lower Cambrian detrital and carbonate rocks. The spectra of detrital zircon U–Pb ages dominated by Cryogenian and Ediacaran ages (with a typical gap in Mesoproterozoic ages) of the upper Edi- acaran greywackes and lower Cambrian arkosic sandstones indicate provenance from sources placed near or at the North-Gondwana margin. These late Ediacaran and early Cambrian basins developed in a paleoposition close to the West African Craton and related to a long-lived Neoproterozoic magmatism (c. 850–700 Ma — Pan-African suture; c. 700–635 Ma — early Cadomian arc; and c. 635–545 Ma — late Cadomian arc). The rhyolites of the Volcanic–Sedimentary Complex of Estremoz whose stratigraphic position so far has been a controversy, yielded an upper Cambrian age (Furongian) at about 499 Ma indicating that carbonate produc- tion was episodic in SW Iberia during the Cambrian. This new evidence should be taken into account in the reshaping of paleogeographic reconstruction models that have erroneously insisted on placing Iberia at southerly cold water higher latitudes (>60°S) during the Furongian.