Lower Cretaceous tholeiitic dyke swarms from the Ponta Grossa Arch (southeast Brazil): Petrology, Sr-Nd isotopes and genetic relationships with the Paraná flood volcanics

The Lower Cretaceous dykes of the Ponta Grossa Arch, the most important dyke swarms in Brazil, are associated with the flood basalts and rare acid flows of the northern Parana basin. The Ponta Grossa (PG) dykes are formed by two-pyroxene tholeiites and rare acid rocks. The basaltic dykes may be distinguished into two main groups: a dominant, high-TiO2 (> 2 wt.%; HTi) group and a subordinate, low-TiO2 (< 2 wt.%; LTi) group, characterized, for similar MgO content, by high and low incompatible-element contents, respectively. Most PG dykes do not show chemical and isotope evidence supporting important crustal contamination. PG dykes with (87Sr86Sr)0 < 0.7060 plot in the mantle array (ϵSr ≈ + 17…