Análise paleoambiental da Formação Pirabas no litoral do Maranhão, Brasil

Abstract

The Pirabas Formation is a geological unit known for its abundant fossil content, which includes a large number of invertebrate and vertebrate groups. This unit is exposed in the north and northeast coast of Brazil, in the States of Para, Maranhão and Piaui. The majority of the studies focusing the fossils of the Pirabas Formation emphasized initially, invertebrates. However, studies using ichthyoliths have been increasingly emphasized in the last years, which is due to their resistance to dissolution, transportation and deposition. Moreover, the small size favors their continuous recovery along different stratigraphic levels, allowing their use as an additional tool in paleoenvironmental interpretations. This work aimed to prospect ichthyoliths of the Pirabas Formation exposed along the coast of the State of Maranhão, as well as their identification and integration with facies analysis. This study area is part of the São Luís Basin, which is filled with a 4,000 m-thick sedimentary succession represented mainly by Cretaceous rocks, with a thin Cenozoic cover, the latter represented by the Pirabas and Barreiras Formations deposited mostly in the Miocene. The exposures studied occur along various cliffs between the towns of Alcantara and Guimarães. Miocene carbonates with ichthyoliths record in this location are occasional, occurring as thin layers up to 2 m thick, which are laterally and vertically intergraded with siliciclastic deposits. These strata occur as three stratigraphic units, with the second one documenting fossiliferous carbonates related to the Pirabas Formation. The cliffs studied include the ones in the localities of Canelateua, Mamuna Grande, Peru and Base. We analyzed 16 thin sections sampled from these localities, which resulted in description of four carbonate microfacies, and one of mudstone. The samples provided 30 ichthyoliths, which were photographed, identified and described under a scanning electron microscope. In addition to the ichthyoliths, the petrographic study recorded the presence of other fossils, including bryozoans, foraminifera, gastropods, bivalves, algae, and echinoids. The integration of paleontological data and microfacies is consistent with deposition in carbonate paleoenvironments predominantly with low energy, reducing conditions and subjected to the frequent introduction of siliciclastic grains. These characteristics, added to the low fossil frequency in most of the samples, corroborate previous interpretations that the deposition of these strata occurred in paralic, probably estuarine palaeoenvironments. However, the abundance of marine fossils in some samples, associated with the presence of ichthyological elements common in environments with normal salinity, shows periodic introduction of saline inflows. Therefore, we can conclude that the strata analyzed were deposited in association with an estuarine system, but representing more distal facies of this system, representative environments more exposed to marine influence.