The mineral resources of the Borborema Province in Northeastern Brazil and its sedimentary cover: a review

The geotectonic Borborema Province in Northeast Brazil includes several NE-trending Proterozoic metamorphic belts which amalgamate some small older massifs. It has been known since the Second World War for the skarn-hosted scheelite mineralization and the TaLiBeSn-bearing pegmatites of the Seridó Region. With the drastic drop of the international tungsten prices, three mines were closed in the last decade and only the state-owned Bodó Mine remains working. Since 1961, when Brazilian universities begun to graduate geologists, several dozen mineral deposits were discovered and older prospects were reevaluated. These include the copper deposits of Aurora-State of Ceará (CE) and Serrote da Lage-State of Alagoas (AL), the nickel deposits of S. João do Piauí-State of Piauí (PI), the uranium deposits of Itataia-CE, a dozen gold prospects, the ilmenite deposit of Floresta-State of Pernambuco (PE), the vermiculite mine of Paulistana-PI, and the export quality granite at Bom Jardim-PE and Sumé-Congo-State of Paraíba (PB). In the mostly Cretaceous or Cainozoic sedimentary cover, the discovery includes two important oil and gas fields ((Carmópolis-State of Sergipe (SE) and Mossoró-Macau-State of Rio Grande do Norte (RN)); deposits of sulphur (Castanhal-SE), of KNaMg, salts (Carmópolis-SE, Sto. Antônio-AL), of phosphate (Olinda-PE and João Pessoa-PB), of gypsum (Araripe-PE/CE), of bentonite (Boa Vista-PB) and the Ti placers at Mataraca-PB. In the following pages the current knowledge about these deposits is summarized.