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The Aptian–Albian interval is characterized by significant paleoclimatic, paleoceanographic, and paleogeographic changes, which in turn affected the distribution and evolution of marine ecosystems. Despite the importance of such studies, there have been few correlations between Aptian–Albian sections of the Tethys Sea and those of the South Atlantic Ocean. This interval, including the Aptian–Albian transition, is preserved in the deposits of the Riachuelo Formation (Sergipe–Alagoas Basin, Brazil) located in the South Atlantic Ocean; therefore, this location was chosen for drilling four new cores. The goals of this paper are as follows: (1) to explain the drilling operation carried out in the deposits of the Riachuelo Formation and the methods used; (2) to present a brief lithostratigraphic characterization of the holes and the paleomagnetic data of core SER-03; and (3) to describe the high potential of the cores recovered for additional investigation in the future. The lithostratigraphic units of the SER-01 core consist mainly of coarse- to fine-grained sandstone, shales, marls, and mudstones; the SER-02 core was excluded due to low recovery; the SER-03 core is mainly composed of fine-grained sediments (shale, marls, and packstone) and bears some ammonite shells; the lithology of core SER-04 is mainly sandstones. Magnetic susceptibility values (χlf and χhf) and frequency-dependent susceptibility (χfd) data suggest that the section is located within the Cretaceous Normal Superchron. Future studies on these cores integrating micropaleontological, paleoichnological, geochemical, stratigraphic, and paleomagnetic (e.g., relative intensity) data will allow for a better understanding of paleoceanographic and paleogeographic events related to the early evolution of the South Atlantic Ocean and how these events correlate to similar events in Tethyan sections.

The Early Cretaceous was dominated by greenhouse conditions and increases in ocean crust production rate, with critical climate, geography and oceanography changes and abrupt shifts in redox conditions in the oceans. Prior to the Aptian, regarding the Earth’s magnetic field, a high rate of polarity reversals dominated. However, thereafter, a period of polarity stability, known as the Cretaceous Normal Polarity Superchron (CNPS), was established for 34 Myr. Although, there are debates on the causes and consequences of these extreme events. The exact behavior of the geomagnetic field in this period is still poorly understood, and data from volcanic and sedimentary rocks are conflicting. The biostratigraphy data from the sedimentary succession from the Aptian-Albian interval in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin (Brazil) are rare and correlations are weak with Tethyan realm. Since some of the major reservoirs of the terrestrial portion of the Sergipe-Alagoas basin are from Aptian-Albian ages the lack of age models brings difficulties to the oil industry. Magnetic parameters such as magnetic susceptibility, ARM, IRM, and magnetostratigraphy data were obtained with a resolution of 25 cm in the Core SER-03 from Sergipe-Alagoas Basin. The entire section varies 4 Myr, including the Aptian-Albian boundary. Here, we present preliminary environmental magnetism and magnetostratigraphic interpretation for this core. Therefore, these data will aid to develop an age model framework in order to assist this uncovered region and for future comparisons with Tethyan realm.