Résumé
The association of shear zones and magmatism is usually regarded as indicating that partial melting and/or melt transport and emplacement was favored by pre-existing shear zones. However, a detailed examination of a set of examples from Neoproterozoic belts of Brazil allows us to suggest that this interpretation is not unequivocal. In some cases, for instance dyke-swarms, dyke-like plutons and small elongated plutons, a large body of evidence supports shear zone-assisted melt emplacement. In other instances, and especially for large-scale plutons, demonstrative criteria for shear zones predating magma emplacement are lacking, or even support magma emplacement predating shear zone development. Either pluton-enhanced strain localization and shear zone nucleation, or coeval growth of shear zone and granite emplacement, may represent alternative processes resulting in a close association of shear zones and plutons.