The Igarapé Azul Mn Mine is geologically situated along the Carajás Fault trace, in the central portion of the Carajás Strike-slip System. The Mn ore deposit is related to politic sedimentary rocks of the Azul Member on the basal portion of the Águas Claras Formation (Archaean). This unit overlain unconformably the Grão Pará Group (Nogueira et al., 1995). At present day three explotation pits are opened in the mine: (1) Main Mine (Mine 1); (2) Mine 2 and (3) Mine 3. In these locations excellent outcrops of siltstones intercalated with finegrained mudstones, sandstones and Mn-layers are exposed. These rocks are organized in folds and normal/reverse faults sets under heterogeneous deformation, partitioned in different scales. The geologic sections exposed in the mines show the dominance of siltstones intercalated with mudstones in contact with pelitic manganesiferous rocks and ore (Mn bioxide). Primary structures such as hummocky stratification, cross stratification and parallel laminations are common in these rocks. Bedding with thickness of centimeters to a few meters (30-50 cm) represents the main primary structure, used as the main deformation marker observed in rocks. The Igarapé Azul Mn Mine is divided into two blocks separated by normal fault with displacements of tens of meters, where the north block is up in relation to the south one. The south block is poorly deformed, with irregularities in bedding which dips at shallow angles towards south, subsequently positioning the ore layer in deeper levels at S direction. In the north block bedding shows heterogeneous behavior. Deformation is more expressive in this region, with the ore deformed by folds and reverse faults. Faults show vertical along-dipping kinematics with dextral conjugated displacements of oblique character. This region can be defined as a major strain corridor. The kilometer-scale corridor observed at the north block follows the NW-SE trend, in concordance with the main domains separated by the faults described above, characterized as curvilinear asymmetric folds with NW and SE shallow plunge axes (10º-25º). These folds are sectioned by sinuous NW-SE and/or E-W normal faults with shallow dips (10º-30º) associated with dextral strike-slip faults, which generate drag folds. Straight or sinuous NW-SE reverse faults and sub-vertical fault zones are observed. The individual folds in this area are flexural reverse structures with en echelon geometry and similar orientation to the curvilinear folds: shallow SE plunging axes. The features described above drawn a gentle kilometer-scale antiform, which results from bedding accommodation in response to the faulting deformation. The parallelism of the features observed in the Igarapé Azul Mn Mine and the main lineaments which drawn the Carajás Fault suggest a close relation between important deformational episodes occurred during the tectonic history of the Carajás Fault. Faults with normal kinematics associated to directional dextral component of displacement are the major exposures in the area and are related to the dextral transtensional episode responsible for installation of the Carajás Fault prior to 2.6 Ga (Pinheiro, 1997). Folds, thrust faults and subvertical fault zones would be related to deformation under sinistral transpressional regime; a second event responsible for the reactivation and tectonic inversion of most of the primary structures near the Carajás Fault zone (Pinheiro, 1997; Pinheiro e Holdsworth, 2000; Lima, 2002).
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