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6 - Megafans of the Pantanal Basin, Brazil

from Part II - Regional Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2023

By
Maurício G. M. Santos ,
José C. Stevaux  and
Mario L. Assine
Edited by
Justin Wilkinson  and
Yanni Gunnell
Justin Wilkinson
Affiliation:
Texas State University, Jacobs JETS Contract, NASA Johnson Space Center
Yanni Gunnell
Affiliation:
Université Lumière Lyon 2
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Summary

The Pantanal Basin (west-central Brazil) is one of the largest alluvial wetlands in the world (> 150,000 km2) formed dominantly by coalescing Quaternary megafans. The Pantanal Basin is an efficient sediment trap: of 25 Mt yr–1 of suspended load that enters by the main river systems, only 10 Mt yr–1 is exported by the trunk river. Sediments are sourced by multiple rivers draining Precambrian lowlands and Paleozoic uplands. The eastern border displays tablelands of Paleozoic rocks of the Paraná Sedimentary Basin, with lowlands of Precambrian rocks on the northern, southern and western borders. The Taquari, Cuiabá, and São Lourenço megafans, tributaries to the Paraguay trunk-river system, are the largest fluvial fans in the Pantanal. The Paraguay River itself has produced two relatively small megafans. The megafans display four main landform assemblages: incised meander belts proximally, active aggradational lobes, abandoned degradational lobes, and mixed-process floodplains. Megafan surfaces display palaeodrainage networks ranging from braided channel planforms to the current meandering and anabranching planforms. Megafan areas seem to be a function of both feeder-basin area and catchment geology: those fed from sedimentary rock outcrops are larger, with more complex barform development than those supplied from Precambrian basement catchments.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fluvial Megafans on Earth and Mars , pp. 100 - 118
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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