Seismites in continental sand sea deposits of the Late Cretaceous Caiuá Desert, Bauru Basin, Brazil

Two large-scale sediment deformation structures, minor fold occurrences in cross-bedded sand dune deposits and complex convolute folds, are observed in red sandstones, in a zone about 1.5 km long in floodway cuts at the Sérgio Motta/Porto Primavera dam, São Paulo state, Brazil. The most important structures are confined to planar zones, up to 10 m thick, in undeformed dune foreset strata were they can be traced laterally for about 50–60 m. The sandstones are part of the Rio Paraná Formation, Caiuá Group, which accumulated in a great sand sea of about 100,000 km 2. The Caiuá Desert developed during the Late Cretaceous in the southern part of the Bauru Basin, an intracontinental subsiding area in the central-southern part of the South-American Platform. The basin was filled by a sandy sequence about 300 m thick. The sand sea deposits correspond to the Caiuá Group and comprise: a) deposits of dry sand sheets (Santo Anastácio Formation), b) deposits of medium-sized dunes and humid interdunes of the sand sea peripheral zones (Goio Erê Formation), and c) deposits of large-sized complex aeolian dunes and draas, that correspond to the central part of the inland sand sea (Rio Paraná Formation). The deformations in the sediments are attributed to the effects of fluidization, liquefaction and shear stress, which are interpreted as being earthquake-induced structures, mainly because: (1) the deformed horizons are confined between undeformed cross-bedded strata, (2) the complex convolute folds sometimes include nappe-like structures that overlie foreset facies, (3) during the Bauru Basin infilling there was tectonic activity associated with alkaline volcanism on the borders of the basin and related silicification in the central-southern part. The main silicification zones are aligned to regional lineaments that cross the area near the large-scale sedimentary deformation structures.