Abstract

QUATTROCCHIO, Mirta E. et al. Geology of the area of Bahía Blanca, Darwin's view and the presentknowledge: a story of 10 million years. Rev. Asoc. Geol. Argent. [online]. 2009, vol.64, n.1, pp.137-146. ISSN 0004-4822.

Theaim of this paper is to give an updated outlook of the scenery described byCharles Darwin when he visited Bahía Blanca and surrounding areas, following the itinerary during hisvoyage on board HMS Beagle. Such an outlook is a state of the art of thecurrent understanding of the Late Miocene-Holocene history in the southwestern Pampas (Argentina). Multidisciplinaryresults were integrated in a chronosequence chart synthesizing the suggestedspace-time correlation of the recognized events. Some of the studied localitiescovering the whole time interval represented in the area were arranged in thischart in a hypothetical E-W line crossing the Río Sauce Grande basin and thesurrounding highlands. This line is also approximately the one followed in partby Darwin when riding from Bahía Blanca to Tapalqué (Tapalguen)as he crossed the region toward the Río Sauce. Paleoenviromental andpaleoclimatic inferences for the last 10m.y. are also given. Paleontologicalstudies included vertebrates, ostracods and palynomorphs. Many of the resultsof these investigations are the answers to Darwin's question when he first visitedthe area.

Keywords : Pampas; Tapalqué; PampeanFormation; Punta Alta; Red earth cliffs.

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