The Brasilia Massif, also known as the Brazilian Massif or the Brazilian Plateau, is a geographical region located in the Federative Republic of Brazil, a country belonging to South America. As its name indicates, it is a large expanse of land, mostly flat, that spans much of Brazil.
This geographical region is known in the Portuguese language as Planalto Brasileiro. The Brasilia massif occupies practically half of the territory of Brazil. Especially, this region is located in the South, Southeast and Center-West regions of the country, which in turn are the ones with the most populated centers.
Image via: emaze.com
The area that this region occupies amounts to approximately five million square kilometers. Most of the Brazilian population lives in the mountains of the region or in the coastal zone, with cities such as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. In addition to having a large population, these regions are at the forefront of technological and industrial development in Brazil.
This region decreases ending in other ecosystems of neighboring countries, such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, as well as the Atlantic Ocean. It limits to the north with the plain that precedes the Amazon jungle and to the south with the Pampean zone. To the east, on the contrary, it borders the pantanal of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, which is a plain that feeds on rainwater and is the largest wetland in the world.
The Brasilia massif is not the only one on the American continent. Next to it are the Guiana Massif, which occupies the entire Guianas region in Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, France and of course, Brazil. Also in South America is the Patagonian massif in the southern part. Both the Brasilia massif and the Guiana massif are among the oldest land formations on the planet.
The Brasilia massif has a very ancient origin, with rocks that constitute a basalt layer, a product of lava. This stone is eroded by the amount of years it has been in the area. At present, the shield prevents the formation of earthquakes of great magnitude and also lacks volcanic activity.
Location
The surface area of the Brazilian plateau is greater than that of most countries on the globe. With approximately five million square kilometers, it is more than half the territory of Brazil, which measures 8,515,770 square kilometers.
The massif has territory in several states of the Brazilian federation. These are: Santa Catarina, Paraná, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Sergipe, Pernambuco, Paraiba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará and Piauí.
The massif draws its borders with the appearance of the river basins of the Amazon River and the Río de la Plata. In the east, the border is visible with the appearance of coastal areas surrounded by hills, as can be seen in the city of Rio de Janeiro, shielded by Cerro Corcovado and Pan de Azúcar (Nùñez, 1994).
This coastal border can also be seen in cities like Fortaleza and Bahía. To the south, the massif has as its geographical border the Trifinio point where Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay border the Iguazú Falls. (Nùñez, 1994).
To the east, the border is delimited when the massif decreases to the level of reaching the Pantanal located in the state of Mato Grosso, which receives rainwater and is flooded most of the year. This region constitutes the largest wetland on planet Earth.
Origin
To understand the origin of the Brasilia massif, it is necessary to go back to the Proterozoic eon, in which the first eukaryotic cells emerged.
Its origin, however, is no earlier than that of the Guiana shield, where rocks from the Archaic eon can be found. During the Paleozoic, the shield was firmly established on the continent of Gondwana, product of the partition of Pangea (Borsdoff, Dávila, Hoffert and Tinoco, s / f).
Composition
The Brasilia massif is mainly composed of a layer of crystalline clothes that are constituted as a mantle of basalt stones. This plateau can be considered a basalt plateau.
Metamorphic rocks such as mica-schists, quartzites and gneisses predominate in it. The massif, made up of extrusive rocks, is made up of staggered strata that sometimes overlap (Borsdoff, Dávila, Hoffert and Tinoco, s / f).
After the emergence of the Atlantic coast in the Mesozoic, the massif was formed with young sediments, which are also found on the western slope that borders it. The massif is characterized by having a type of landscape with a stepped stratum, which is why dry soils are formed as a consequence of the rocks that have been eroded violently (Borsdoff, Dávila, Hoffert and Tinoco, s / f).
Topography and relief
With regard to the altitude of the massif, it varies according to the place where it is located. She can range between 305 and 915 meters above sea level. In the region valleys and a specific type of biome called closed, especially in the Central-West region, which are plains full of forests.
In the massif a series of elevations of considerable magnitude can be elucidated. One of the most important mountain groups is the Sierra del Mar (Serra do Mar) that stretches for 1200 kilometers from the state of Bahia to Santa Catarina. The highest point is the Pico Mayor de Freiburgo, with 2310 meters above sea level (Cordeiro, do Nascimento, Salamuni, 2016).
Another important mountain range in the region is the Mantiqueira mountain range, which spans the states of the Southeast region: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. The mountainous formation dates from the archaic and is formed by crystalline rocks (Buckup and Ingenito, 2007). The highest point of this mountain range is the Piedra de la Mina (Pedra da Mina) with 2798.39 meters above sea level.
This mountain range is commonly visited by tourists who are attracted by its rock formations, as well as by the different animal and plant species that come from the Brazilian Atlantic coast.
References
- Borsdoff, A., Dávila C., Hoffert H. and Tinoco, C. (s / f). Natural areas of Latin America: From Tierra del Fuego to the Caribbean. Institut für Geographie der Universität Innsbruck.
- Buckup, P. and Ingenito, L. (2007). The Serra da Mantiqueira, south-eastern Brazil, as a biogeographical barrier for fishes. Journal Of Biogeography, 34 (7), 1173-1182. doi: 10.1111 / j.1365-2699.2007.01686.
- Cordeiro, L., do Nascimento, E. and Salamuni, E. (2016). Morphostructure of the Serra Do Mar, Paraná State, Brazil. Journal Of Maps, 1263-70. doi: 10.1080 / 17445647.2016.1158130.
- Dowdle, J. (2009). How do you survive being stranded in the middle of the Brazilian highlands ?. Texas Magazine, 21.
- Hoffmann, D., Martins, R. and Vasconcelos, M. (2015). How climate change can affect the distribution range and conservation status of an endemic bird from the highlands of eastern Brazil: the case of the Gray-backed Tachuri, Polystictus superciliaris (Aves, Tyrannidae). Biota Neotropica, 15 (2), e20130075. Recovered from dx.doi.org.
- Núñez, A. (1994). A world apart: an approach to the history of Latin America and the Caribbean. Madrid: Editions of the Tower.
- Tourism of Mines (September 8, 2016). Serra da Mantiqueira: 7 charmosas cidadezinhas for you to tan the region. Mines Tourism. Recovered from blog.turismodeminas.com.br.