The connection between crustal anatexis and magmatism is key to understanding the mechanisms that drive the evolution of the continental crust. Isotope geology and lithochemistry are important tools for reconstructing links between these processes, as field evidence of their connection is often obliterated by deformation in high-grade terrains. Thus, this study proposes new insights into the connection between the Mesoarchean regional metamorphism, crustal anatexis, and plutonism in the northern sector of the Carajás Province (i.e., Carajás Domain), in the Amazonian Craton, around 2.89 to 2.83 Ga. The widespread crustal anatexis in the Carajás Domain involved the water-fluxed melting of banded orthogneisses of the Xingu Complex and Xicrim-Cateté Orthogranulite (crystallization age at ca. 3.06–2.93 Ga), producing metatexites and diatexites with stromatic, net, schollen, and schlieren morphologies and coeval syntectonic leucosomes with composition similar to tonalites, trondhjemites, and granites. These leucosomes yielded crystallization ages of 2853 ± 5 Ma (MSWD: 0.61), 2862 ± 13 Ma (MSWD: 0.1), and 2867 ± 7 Ma (MSWD: 1.3). Their lithochemical data are similar to those of several diachronous Mesoarchean granitoids of the Carajás Domain in terms of major, minor, and trace elements and magmatic affinity. In addition, binary log–log vector diagrams (e.g., La vs. Yb; Rb vs. Yb), Sr/Y vs. Y, and Eu/Eu* vs. Yb plots indicate that plagioclase fractionation preceded melt extraction, establishing evolving source-to-sink trends between leucosomes and granites. These results show that the interplay between high-grade metamorphism, crustal anatexis, and magmatism may have shaped the evolution of the Mesoarchean continental crust in the Carajás Province, developing a petrotectonic assemblage associated with collisional orogens. The Mesoarchean geodynamic setting played a critical role in the development of coeval ca. 2.89 Ga magmatic–hydrothermal copper deposits in the Carajás Province, as well as Neoarchean world-class iron oxide–copper–gold deposits linked to post-orogenic extensional rebound.
Keywords: crustal evolution; Carajás Province; partial melting; granitoids
