Relief Macroforms of South America

Abstract

The South American relief represented by this Map of Macroforms can be understood from the geological and geomorphological processes post gondwanico with wich they are related by the opening of the Atlantic Ocean and the formation of the Andean Orogenic Chain. The tectonics through the meso-cenozoic epirogenesis affected the eastern central part of the continent and started the erosion processes and established the division of the relief. Macroforms are associated with the mega-structures of the Cratons, Orogenic Belts and Sedimentary Basins inherited from Gondwana, produced by the pre- and post-Cretaceous erosive phases. In the west of the continent the orogeny and in the center-east epirogenia with archings and faults that created uneven of old surfaces of erosion, accompanied by erosive and depositional processes Tertiary and Quaternary, associated to the glacial and interglacial periods that in the tropical world were manifested through the climates dry and slightly colder followed by hot and humid that alternated along the Pleistocene / Holocene. Thus, all the forms interpreted and analyzed in this research are due to exogenous processes on the materials that sustain the relief of South America.