BRAZIL 309

dispersal of western Gondwana. A closer examination
of the cratons and Neoproterozoic orogenic belts
reveals, however, a long and diverse pre-Gondwana
history, as well as a whole series of post-Gondwana
features. Thus, in addition to the Brasiliano and South
Atlantic events, other events of the same significance
and extent are recorded in different ways in the South
American platform and its cover. The most important
of these events, together with their ages, areas of
occurrence, and geotectonic significance, are shown
in Table 1.

Regional Structures and Topography
of Brazil
The topography of Brazil to a large extent reflects the
constitution of the South American platform discussed in the previous section. The cratons underlie
the low areas, hosting the main river basins; the

highlands, on the other hand, have the Neoproterozoic orogenic domains as their substrata (Figure 4).
Each of the large-scale topographical highs and
lows of the Brazilian territory is the expression of a
particular regional tectonic structure. Some of these
structures had already nucleated by the Palaeozoic.
The majority, however, were initiated in the Mesozoic and underwent significant reactivation during
the Cenozoic. The most prominent structural and
topographical lows correspond to the Parana´ , Sa˜ o
Francisco, Parnaı´ba, and Amazonas basins. The
Borborema Plateau, the Serra do Mar Uplift, and
the Alto Paranaı´ba Arch are the largest structural

and topographical highs (Figure 4).

Cratons
The cratons of the South American platform,
consisting of Archaean crust with substantial

Figure 4 Correlation between the large scale tectonic structures and the topographical relief of Brazil. Relief map compiled by JBL
Franc¸olim based on EROS GTOPO 30 dataset; reproduced with the permission of the author.