New Paleomagnetic Pole for the Northern Parana Igneous Province.

The Parana Igneous Province (PIP) preceded the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean during Early Cretaceous times. Presently, it occupies a large extend in southern Brazil, and neighbour countries, and, in a lesser extent, in Namibia (Africa). In this paper we present new paleomagnetic data from 54 sampling sites from the northern area of the PIP. A paleomagnetic pole based only on data from extrusive rocks differs slightly from the pole calculated for the sills intruding the paleozoic sedimentary sequence on the eastern border of the area. The new pole has confidence circle that intercepts the one for the southern PIP which is compatible with the ages differences reported so far for the two areas. However, the paleomagnetic pole for the sills in the northern area seems to represent a younger phase of the magmatic activity, similar to the dyke swarms bordering the Parana basin.