Made available in DSpace on 2015-02-24T19:48:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AlexFA_ate_Cap4.pdf: 3915510 bytes, checksum: 709e53f554fdeeeefb4020512e95ef8b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-07-26 / The Xar?u Oil Field, located in the center-southern portion of the Munda? Sub-Basin (eastern portion of the Cear? Basin), is characterized by a main Iramework of NW-trending and NE-dipping faults. The faults in the Xar?u Oil Field, among which the Xar?u Fautt stands out, are arranged according to an extensional-listriclan, rooted on a detachment surface corresponding to the Munda? Fault, the border fautt of Munda? Sub-Basin. During the tectonic-structural evolution of the Xar?u Oil Field and the Munda? Sub-Basin, the Munda? Fault played a crucial role on the control of the geometry of both compartments. The main carbonatic unit in the Xar?u Oil Field, named the Trair? Member(Paracuru Formation of Late Aptian to Early Albian age), contains the largest oil volume in the field, concentrated in structurally-controlled accumulations. The Trair? Member is composed by a variety of carbonatic rocks (massive, bedded or laminated calcilutites, ostracodites, calcarenites and carbonatic rudites, all of them presenting variable degrees of dolomitization). The carbonatic rocks are interbedded into thick packages of black shales and marls, besides local beds of siliciclastic conglomerates, sandstones, siltnes and argillites. From the spatial association and the genetic relationships between the carbonatic and siliciclastic units, it is possible to group them in three lithofacies associations (Marginal Plain, Ramp and Lacustrine Interior) that, together, were developed in a lacustrine system associated to a marginal sabkha. Structural studies based on drill coresthat sample the Trair? Member in the Xar?u Oil Field allowed to characterize two generations of meso- to microscale structures: the D1 group presents a typical hydroplastic character, being characterized by intra/interstratal to oblique-bedding shear zones. The hydroplastic character related to these structures allowed to infer their development at an early-lithilication stage of the Trair? Member, leading to infer an Early Cretaceous age to them. The second group of structures identified in the drill cores, nominated D2 and ascribed to a Neogene age, presents a strictly brttle character, being typilied by normal faults and slickenfibers of re-crystallized clayminerals, ali olthem displaying variable orientations. Although the present faults in the Xar?u Oil Field (and, consequently, in the Munda? Sub-Basin) were classically relerred as struetures of essentially normal displacement, the kinematics analysis of the meso-to microscaie D1 struetures in the drill cores led to deline oblique displacements (normal with a clockwise strike-slip component) to these faults, indicating a main tectonic transport to ENE. These oblique movements would be responsible for the installation of a transtensive context in the Munda? Sub-Basin, as part of the transcurrent to translormant opening of the Atlantic Equatorial Margin. The balancing of four struetural cross-sections ofthe Xar?u Oil Field indicates that the Munda? Fault was responsible for more than 50% of the total stretching (? factor) registered during the Early Aptian. At the initial stages of the "rifting", during Early Aptianuntil the Holocene, the Munda? Sub-Basin (and consequently the Xar?u Oil Fleld) accumulated a total stretching between 1.21 and 1.23; in other words, the crust in this segment of the Atlantic Equatorial Margin was subjeeted to an elongation of about 20%. From estimates of oblique displacements related to the faults, it ws possible to construct diagrams that allow the determination of stretching factors related to these displacements. Using these diagrams and assuming the sense 01 dominant teetonictransport towards ENE, it was possible to calculate the real stretching lactors related to the oblique movement 0 of the faults in the Munda? Sub-Basin. which reached actual values between 1.28 and 1.42. ln addnion to the tectonic-structural studies in the Xar?u Oil Field, the interpretation of remote sensing products, coupled wnh characterization of terrain analogues in seleeted areas along the northern Cear? State (continental margins of the Cear? and Potiguar basins), provided addnional data and constraints about the teetonic-structural evolution of the oil lield. The work at the analogue sites was particularly effective in the recognition and mapping, in semidetail scale, several generations of struetures originated under a brittle regime. Ali the obtained information (from the Xar?u Oil Field, the remote sensor data and the terrain analogues) were jointly interpreted, culminating with the proposnion of an evolutionary model lor this segment of the Atlantic Equatorial Margin; this model that can be applied to the whole Margin, as well. This segmentof the Atlantic Equatorial Margin was delormedin an early E-W (when considered lhe present-day position of the South American Plate) transcurrent to transform regime with dextral kinematics, started Irom, at least, the Early Aptian, which left its record in several outcrops along the continental margin of the Cear? State and specilically in the Xar?u off Field. The continuous operation of the regime, through the Albian and later periods, led to the definitive separation between the South American and African plates, with the formation of oceanic lithosphere between the two continental blocks, due to the emplacement off spreading centers. This process involved the subsequent transition of the transcurrent to a translorm dextral regime, creating lhe Equatorial Atlantic Oceano With the separation between the South American and African plates already completed and the increasing separation between lhe continental masses, other tecton ic mechanisms began to act during the Cenozoic (even though the Cretaceous tectonic regime lasted until the Neogene), like an E-W compressive stress l?eld (related to the spreading olthe oceanic floor along lhe M id-Atlantic Ridge and to the compression of the Andean Chain) effective Irom the Late Cretaceous, and a state of general extension olthe horizontal surface (due to the thermal uplift ofthe central portion of Borborema Province), effective during the Neogene. The overlap of these mechanisms during the Cenozoic led to the imprint of a complex tectonic framework, which apparently influenced the migration and entrapment 01 hydrocarbon in the Cear? Basin