IAG 1999 Regional Conference on Geomorphology
Gloria Hotel of Rio de Janerio, Brasil, July 17-22, 1999
Abstracts - Sandra Baptista da Cunha and Antonio Jose Teixeira Guerra (Eds.)

INTEGRATED STUDY OF LANDFORM MORPHOLOGY, SURFACE MATERIALS AND CURRENT EROSIVE DYNAMIC IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE GEOMORPHIC SYSTEM

Gimenes, A.C.W.

Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, ES, Brasil Universidade de Sao Paulo, SP, Brasil, anagimenes@hotmail.com.br


This study aims the interpretation of geomorphic system, starting from the comprehension of the spatial arrangement of the landform morphology, the unconsolidated superficial materials (elluvium, colluvium, alluvium) and current geomorphic/hydrodynamics process, supported in Ab'Saber's (1969) conceptual proposition, and according to the interpretation of system in Geomorphology presented by Carson e Kirkby (1972).

The area core ("Mestre Álvaro", Serra/Espírito Santo/Brazil) is a semicircular geomorphologic unity presenting an intrusive structure, a granite body, gneissed in the boards, with topographic amplitude above 800 metres, near the coast, with an annual average precipitation of 1.300 mm; presenting orographic effect upon the air mass, which produces a great pluviometric gradient that reaches the surface of the hillslopes at unbalanced concentration in the different faces of orientation, characteristic of a possible influence upon the dynamic of evolution of geomorphic processes.

The arised hypothesis is the one which shows the existence of observable differentiation in the characteristics presented by the superficial materials in different altitudinal positions and orientation of hillslopes, corresponding to the elements presenting 4th, 5th e 6th taxonomic order forms defined by Ross (1992), respectively, topomorphological areas all over the mountain, hillslope morphologies and the geomorphic/hydrodynamic processes.

Therefore, the study finds fundament in two main methodological propositions for the execution of an analysis related to the Geomorphology:

  1. Application of Minimum Feature Model (Colangelo, 1989) in the cartographation of integrated forms, materials and processes, which assuring the immediate visualization of the relationships established between the variables, besides the respective measurements.
  2. Use of semilogarithmic analysis of magnitude-frequency of the daily rainfall (Ahnert, 1987) in the identification and study of "the most effective" event and associated processes.

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