Geology of Brazil

Brazil Travel / Geology - The Cenozoic Era was initiated with the devastating impact of an enormous meteor which probably led to the extinction of the dinosaurs that ruled the Earth during the Mesozoic.

This theory is supported either by the 1990 discovery of the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico as by the 65 Ma old so - called Tombstone layer which contains exceptionally large quantities of iridium, an element rare on Earth but common in meteors.

Brazil is one of the few places in the World where this layer is openly exposed in form of the Gramame and Faria Marinha Formation in the Pernambuco - Paraíba basin (Northeast Region).

Most of the world's famous high mountain chains, such as the South American Andes, the European Alps or the Himalaya have been formed by the collision of continental plates during the late Cenozoic. About 2 million years ago (Quaternary), when ancestors of modern humans had begun to spread out of Africa, overflowing volcanoes in Panama created the land bridge between North and South America. The resulting change of global ocean currents initiated the beginning of the ice ages which gave Earth its final shape.

When you travel through southeast Brazil, you find evidences of the Cenozoic Era in form of the Continental Southeast Rift and the adjacent mountain chains Serra do Mar and Mantiqueira. The formation of these fantastic landforms is the result of an important tectonic event, probably initiated by alkaline magmatism at the end of the Mesozoic.