The Southern Coast of Brazil

Rio de Janeiro 

RDJ - it seems to me now -  is a place that I used to know. Back in the 1990s, I came here a lot and stayed a month or two at a time. That seems like a different life and I am a certainly a different person now. But the memories of this unique combination of a giant megapolis situated within and upon a stunning landscape still holds enchantment for me. That is, if you can ignore the sweetish-smell of rotting fruit permeating the air or the polluted water in the very restricted and closed basin that is Guanabara Bay (one of the original Seven Natural Wonders). Rio is essentially a mix between a city on a bay - like San Francisco - and a world-class landscape - like Yosemite Valley. What a place!

The magnificent landscape surrounding Guanabara Bay is perhaps most easily recognized near its entrance (upper left), where the Paõ de Açucar (Sugarloaf) monolith seems to rise up from beneath the sea. The rocks are between about 714 and 644  million years old (Ma), being emplaced during the Panafrican-Brasiliano orogeny (younger ages have been reported across the bay in Niteroi of 564 and 533 Ma, meaning that a precise age is elusive so far). This mountain building event is related to the amalgamation of the Gondwana supercontinent, that formed after the breakup of its predecessor, Rodinia. Crustal collisions caused metamorphism within the crust as well as the production of liquid magma. This occurred as various South American cratons came together - see the diagram below for a visual. (Cratons are the ancient cores of the continents and today's South America is made up of four, formerly disparate cratons). 

Another view to the south and east reveals more of this stunning landscape! The peak in the distance is Pedra da Gávea, rising some 2,769 feet (842 m) above the sea. Some say it is the highest coastal monolith in the world. Note it's relatively flat top that is a different and younger granite in contact with the metamorphic rocks below. While these monoliths appear to be original shapes of plutons, they are not. The shapes are the result of tropical weathering.

This is a close-up of the most widely used building stone in Rio de Janeiro. It is technically an augen-gneiss. Its abundance, durability, and textural beauty enhances its use throughout many of Rio's buildings and rock-lined walls. When it is polished, it is one of the most beautiful rocks I've ever seen and I fell in love with it while walking the promenades of a quiet neighborhood called Urca, located at the base of the Sugarloaf in photo 1.

The majority of the rocks in Rio's landscape formed as a result of continental convergence. Cratons shown in purple and light blue were microcontinents that collided to form larger land masses. Rio de Janeiro is located where the numeral 4 is depicted, in a collisional terrain called the Ribeira Belt, shown in light brown. Other mobile belts of a similar age are darker brown with the numbers representing different mobile belts; yellow stars are locations of ophiolite, slivers of ocean crust that was caught and crushed between two cratons. 

Note how some cratons overlap both Africa and South America (Amazonian with West Africa and Congo with Saõ Francisco (SFC). The two modern-day continents would not attain their present outlines until the opening of the Atlantic much further into the future in the Cretaceous (120 Ma). 

The diagram is from Figure 5 in: S. Oriolo, P. Oyhantçabal, K. Wemmer, S. Siegesmund; 2017, Contemporaneous assembly of Western Gondwana and final Rodinia break-up: Implications for the supercontinent cycle; in Geoscience Frontiers, Vol. 8, # 6, pp. 1431-1445, ISSN 1674-9871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2017.01.009.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987117300294).  

I could on and on about Rio. But I have to catch a ship - we're sailing south to other locations in Brazil! As we left the dock in Rio, the futuristic Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) was visible. This was constructed in advance of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. 

Ilha Grande

Ilha Gande (Big Island in Portuguese) was a green surprise! With the summertime temperature already in the high 80s at 10AM, the proximity to the water in the village of Abraão was welcoming.

Map of Ilha Grande. The island is a little less than 8 miles long and 4 miles wide. The location relative to the mainland can be seen in the upper left. Ferries to the mainland take only 1.5 hours. Brazil is slightly smaller than the continental USA. Image from Wikipedia by Rosso Robot. 

Approaching Abraão by the ship's tender, it did not look like much. About 4,000 people live in the village however.

This is not the main beach-fronting street but more of a look inland into the non-tourist area. The commercial center has palapa-like restaurants and curio shops. I was surprised that a medium-sized cruise ship like Splendor came to a place like this but it was well worth it.

A street mural.

A very calm day in the harbor. The temperature was hot and it was steamy.

Splendor at repose at Ilha Grande.

We walked a half a mile toward the ruins of the penitentiary...

...and there were some beautiful glimpses along the way of the tide zone, that included smooth, rounded boulders of the same granite and gneiss seen further north in Rio de Janeiro. The rounded shapes form by spheroidal weathering. See a description of this process in the next photo.

A small rockfall in 2023 had exposed a relatively fresh look into how the rounded granite boulders are formed. Note that the entire body of rock is massive to begin with. But as fractures and cracks develop within the granitic mass, water seeps into the cracks and begins to chemically weather the granite. The feldspars in the rock do not like humid conditions and turn to "mush" through time. Eventually a hard, unweathered core of rock remains surrounded by the crumbly weathered fracture zone. Voilà! Spheroidal weathering and the rounded boulders fall out and are washed to the shoreline..

On one of the rounded boulders, metate marks were seen. Human habitation has been here at least for 7,000 years.

There are many fresh-water springs that emanate from the landscape, providing domestic water and a cool swim.

We hiked up the hill to see an aqueduct that fed water to the penitentiary. Impressive!

Beach scene from the heart of Abraão. One of our local guides told me that he came here from Rio to surf when he was 16 years old. He fell in love with the island and its laid back way of life. He vowed to return. It took him a few more years but he has now lived on the island for 25 years. When he moved here, his mother was aghast - as a former penitentiary island, she was worried for his safety.

Santos and Brazilian (and Italian) Coffee Culture

São Paulo is the fourth largest city in the world with nearly 22 million people. About 50 miles from the coast its port is a city called Santos. This has been a major port in Brazil for centuries and when the coffee crop was introduced in the 1600s, this was a major export location.

The main street in Santos is being refurbished on the "Brazilian schedule". It's been underway for years.

The morning stop was Museu do Café - the Coffee Museum. This used to be where the buying and selling of the crop crop took place so it is an ideal location to learn about the long history of Brazilian coffee.

This is a view of the balsa or trading floor. It operated just like the New York Stock Exchange with buyers and sellers screaming prices from the chairs beneath the ornate stand glass above. A detail is below.

Detail of the stained glass on the ceiling of Bolsa do Café. To learn more about the buildings history, see this.

A special exhibit was in place concerning the making of espresso, something Brazilians learned to love beginning at the start of the 20th century. It arrived to these shores from Italy. See a description of this exhibit here.

Santos is also the home of the Pele Museum, since he began his career playing for Santos!

Everything Pele can be found here, from his humble rural upbringing, to the lessons in life and futebol from his father, to his signing a contract at the age of 15 with Santos and his illustrious career. I really enjoyed this museum. 

A Day at Sea Towards Uruguay 

As we left Brazilian waters we had a gloriously calm day at sea sailing toward Montevideo Uruguay. The weather was superb and seas calm as glass. Streaming to the south out of the north were the wispy tendrils of beautiful cirrus clouds. They were present in the sky for most of the afternoon. I love cirrus clouds! Awesome!

Sailing South Again!

 

For the next 42 days, this will be my home, the Regent's Seven Sea's Splendor. One of my old Antarctic colleagues has asked me to serve as lecturer and Expedition Leader on two cruises. Splendor can carry up to 750 passengers, definitely the biggest ship I have ever boarded and sailed on. 

Cruise #1 began in Rio de Janeiro (where the photo of Splendor at dock was taken), visiting three other ports in Brazil, two in Uruguay, Buenos Aires, the Falkland Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, then back to Tierra del Fuego at Ushuaia and Punta Arenas and through the southern Chilean fjords toward Puerto Montt and Valparaiso. Cruise #2 will be the same in reverse (excepting the Brazil portion). Follow along as we sail the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans!

Large Rock Fall in Grand Canyon on November 12 Captured

Dust cloud coming from the eastern rim of Grand Canyon near Carbon Creek Canyon. Temple Butte is
the high-standing pyramid left of the dust cloud and Carbon Creek Canyon is hidden in front of it.

On November 21, 2024 the National Park Service at Grand Canyon National Park reported a large rock fall that occurred on Tuesday, November 12 just downstream from the confluence from the Little Colorado River. National Park Service personnel were on a river trip stopped over on river left at River Mile 66 at Espejo Creek. They looked upstream and saw a huge dust cloud coming down the west-facing slope of the east rim of the canyon. 

The rock fall and dust cloud appeared to be opposite of Carbon Creek Canyon, a popular and often use campsite on Grand Canyon river trips. Any river runners camping there or passing by the spot in their rafts would have been affected by debris and dust from the rock fall. No reports of incidents involving river runners or of rocks entering the river channel have been reported. 

The NPS released a video of the latter portions of the event and it can be viewed here. Thanks to the NPS for reporting this geologic event!

A Fully Revised 2nd Edition of "Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau"

"Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau" was first published in 2008 and is now available in a fully revised and completely updated 2nd Edition! Published by the Grand Canyon Conservancy, it is being featured as a special Holiday offering here. The book will make a fantastic gift for your Earth-minded friends and family! (I recommend buying directly from the Conservancy as proceeds go directly to support Grand Canyon National Park. 

New cover of the 2nd Edition of "Ancient Landscapes"

We continually have to answer the age-old question, "So if I own the 1st Edition, why should I buy the new one?" Here are the main reasons:

1) All of the more than 70 paleogeographic maps are fully updated with new information included - Ron Blakey is continually updating his maps using the latest geologic information and more advanced computer tools. Additionally, we have enlarged the area covered in each map to include more of Nevada and California, areas that figure prominently in the geological history of the Colorado Plateau. 

A paleo-map from the 1st Edition (left) and the same map in the 2nd Edition. Note that much more landscape
is included to the west, north and south with better color renditions.

2) The paleo-maps have moved to their own dedicated Atlas section in the book, such that flipping through the maps yields an animation through time. And, each maps' explanation now resides adjacent to the map on the opposite side of the spread.  

Sample page of the Coconino Sandstone - all of the information shown on the map is described on
the opposite side of the spread including a photo of the deposit.

3) Most of the photographs throughout the book have been upgraded and replaced. The photos are of much better quality and at higher resolutions (the 1st Edition in 2008 relied heavily on photos scanned from film slides with the resolution being less than optimum). Two examples are shown here.

From Chapter 1 for the Precambrian

From Chapter 5 for the Triassic and Jurassic

"Ancient Landscapes" has had a tremendous run in its 16 years! It came out one month after the financial collapse of Lehman Bros. in October 2008. At $35 per copy, we fretted that it would fail commercially. Exactly the opposite happened and it has become a valuable tool for professional and avocational geologists. Expanded with 46 additional pages, the price has only gone to $38 per copy! Get your hands on this valuable resource here.

The Shetland Islands

Next stop on this trip was the Shetland Islands - the northernmost part of Scotland. We anchored off of the largest city, Lerwick. It has a population of about 7,000 but I did not experience it as I selected a trip that moved south along the east shore of the North Sea to an archaeological site called Jarlshof. Near there, we hiked a short distance to Sumburgh Head, a spectacular sheer cliff with a lighthouse that faces the Scottish mainland.

Map of the destinations on this 8-day trip - Glasgow, Fort William, Portree, Orkney's, Shetland's
and Sognefjord

Map of the Shetland Islands and Sumburgh Head

Coastal drive along the North Sea

The North Sea on a calm day south of Lerwick

Beaches such as this were used by Late Neolithic and Bronze Age people on the islands

Jarlshof

An aerial photo of Jarlshof, taken from an interpretive sign on site. South is at the top and the various occupation
periods are color coded to the timeline shown in the next photo. The oldest sites are to the right in pink and date to
2500 to 800 BCE (Before Common Era, or the former BC). Adjacent to this is the orange-outlined roundhouses dating
from 500 to 200 BCE, followed by the yellow-colored habitation at 100 BCE; dark-green wheelhouses from 0-500 CE
(Common Era or formerly AD); dark blue outline at the top is Viking age 850 to 1275 CE; the farmhouse in dark grey
upper right from 1300 to 1500 CE; and the large house outlined in white was occupied from the 1590s to about 1700 CE.
Over 4500 years of occupation are revealed at this site, first exposed by erosion in 1890.

The wheel of time at Jarlshof

The oldest roundhouses are from the Late Neolithic, perhaps as old as 2700 BCE.

From an interpretive sign, an artists impression of an early Bronze Age roundhouse

Ruins of the interior of a wheelhouse from about 0 to 500 CE

Artists rendition of the interior of an occupied wheelhouse

Looking down on an excavated wheelhouse

These are the remains of the Viking occupation from about 850 to 1275 BCE

Sumburgh Head

Out next destination of Sumburgh Head as viewed from Jarlshof

On our way to Sumburgh Head, the southernmost point on the Shetlands

This is a working lighthouse with included residence, historic diesel engines and coffee shop

The Old Red Sandstone makes up the tilted layers 

Many vessels have become shipwrecks at Sumburgh Head and one of the most famous was in January 1993 when
the oil tanker MV Braer ran aground in a violent storm 

I got some great exposures of Atlantic puffins and summer flowers

Looking north along the west coast of Shetland

The upturned sandstone beds are the result of the Caledonian Orogeny, when Laurentia (ancient North America) collided with Baltica (ancient Scandinavia) and Avalonia (ancient southern Great Britain. However, a rather obvious wave-cut(and uplifted) beach terrace provided a convenient parking place for the coach!

Sailing out of Lerwick on our way to Norway!

Oil platforms in the North Sea. I'll be posting spectacular images of Norwegian fjords next time and
there will be more about the Caledonian Orogeny which is well expressed there.