São Francisco Craton

The Sao Francisco Craton is an ancient craton in eastern South America, cropping out in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais and Bahia, comprising a number of blocks of Archean basement separated by orogenic belts that carry sedimentary basins, passive continental margins and granite intrusions. Its current configuration of orogenic belts formed in the Paleoproterozoic, roughly 2.5 to 2.0 billion years ago; around 1 billion years ago it lay in the south of the supercontinent Rodinia, and after Rodinia broke apart roughly 700 million years ago it became part of the supercontinent Gondwana, remaining as the Sao Francisco block in South America once the Atlantic Ocean opened with Gondwana's own breakup around 180 million years ago. Its Paleoproterozoic orogenic belts hold economically important iron deposits, including the Iron Quadrangle, and gold, both major contributors to Brazil's mining industry.