ABSTRACT This study promotes a comprehensive geophysical mapping of the Potiguar Basin Precambrian basement with unprecedented detail, using thermomechanical analysis of the lithosphere, advanced anomaly enhancement techniques, an unsupervised semi‐automatic mapping method (SOM) and 2D/3D joint magnetic‐gravity modelling constrained by seismic and well data. This Early Cretaceous multiphase marginal basin, located at the northeastern end of the Brazilian transform margin of the Equatorial Atlantic, conceals in its onshore portion an aborted rift overlain by thin post‐rift deposition. The combined analysis of Curie‐Point Depth, Effective Elastic Thickness and Moho relief reveals six distinct crustal domains, providing a refined understanding of the lithospheric structure and its response to the plate‐driven motion that caused the crustal thinning and rifting. Analysis of magnetic and gravity patterns, lineaments and SOM populations integrated with magnetic susceptibility‐density models and key geophysical transects over the study area demonstrates the complex Precambrian basement grain dominated by intensively deformed shear zones and sets of grabens and horsts within the rifted zone. Our results highlight that the Potiguar Rift intricate internal architecture preserves evidence of the strong structural control exerted by the pre‐existing structural framework on the nucleation and evolution of this intracratonic rift, and its subsequent abandonment. This geological setting emphasizes the Potiguar Basin as a key case study of tectonic inheritance role at the lithospheric, continental, basinal, and fault‐scales.
Castro et al. (Sun,) studied this question.