The establishment of large carbonate platforms worldwide linked to the sudden increase in global temperature after the last Cryogenian glaciation (~ 635 Ma) was concomitant with the ice-melting and transgressive events. In Brazil, one of the best examples of these post-glacial transgressive Ediacaran deposits is the Guia Formation, the calcareous unit of Araras Group, exposed for hundreds of kilometers in the North Paraguay Belt and Southern Amazon Craton. The Guia Formation consists predominantly of limestone and bituminous shale, more than
400 m thick. It was investigated in open pits of quarries in the Cáceres, Nobres and Cuiabá region, southwestern of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. The facies and stratigraphic analysis of the Guia Formation allowed recognizing of three facies associations (FA) representative of a retrogradational platform succession: FA1- lower shoreface influenced by storms, FA2- proximal offshore and FA3- distal offshore with slope facies. The association FA1 up to ~ 150 m thick, and includes marl and grey terrigenous-rich fine-grained limestone with megaripple bedding, wavy bedding and hummocky cross-stratification, produced by oscillatory and
combined flow related to fairweather and storms wave in the shoreface zone. The association FA2 corresponds to the thickest deposits of the Guia Formation, reaching almost 200 m in thickness and consists of grey to black organic-rich ribbon limestone interbedded with shale. The remarkable lateral monotonous continuity of these deposits, extensive by hundreds of kilometers, suggests low energy conditions, below the storm wave base, related to the offshore zone. The large amount of organic material accumulated in these deposits associated with pyrite crystals implies stagnant and anoxic deep waters. Palynomorphs in these facies include a few species of leiosphaerids, indeterminate sphaeromorph acritarchs and probable algae fragments. The brown colour of amorphous organic material and acritarchs indicates moderate degree of maturation. The rarity of preserved organic forms and the large amount of amorphous organic matter indicate moderate degree of degradation. The association AF3 has 70 m thick and consists of limestone breccias with tabular clasts and slump features interbedded with fine-grained limestone. The intraformational breccias were formed by gravity flows generated during instability of carbonates in the distal offshore zone. These
episodic gravity flows alternated with cyclic hemipelagic sedimentation (forming lime and terrigenous mud). Three aspects were considered to define the morphology of the platform: 1) the transition from shallow to deep deposits without an abrupt facies change; 2) the absence of brittle sinsedimentary deformation; and 3) the lateral continuity of these deposits over hundreds of kilometers, suggesting sedimentation in a homocline ramp. The existence of a wide carbonate ramp in the margin at the Amazon Craton during the Ediacaran, site of organic matter-rich lime mud deposition, opens perspectives for prospection of source rocks of a probable Neoproterozoic petroliferous system developed in the Central Brazil region.
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