The Santa Vitória Alloformation: an update on a Pleistocene fossil-rich unit in Southern Brazil

Renato Pereira Lopes, Sérgio Rebello Dillenburg, Jairo Francisco Savian, Jamil Corrêa Pereira
2021 Brazilian Journal of Geology  
The Santa Vitória Formation is a lithostratigraphic unit known for its fossil assemblage of Pleistocene mammals, established in 1973 from sediments exposed along the banks of Chuí Creek, in the southern coastal plain of the state of Rio Grande do Sul (CPRS), Brazil. The original description was presented in a Masters' dissertation and never formally described in a peer-reviewed publication. Moreover, surveys and fossil collecting efforts developed in the last decade have led to a better
more » ... nding of its origin and nature. An updated description of this unit is presented here, which outcrops in areas occupied by barrier-lagoon depositional systems originated by eustatic oscillations. The formation encompasses Middle-Upper Pleistocene fluvial and eolian depositional systems and paleosols formed chiefly of fine to medium quartz sand, with subordinate clay, concentrations of iron and manganese oxides, and caliche nodules of pedogenic origin. It conformably overlies upper shoreface-foreshore marine deposits, and is overlain by loess deposited during the last glacial period. Here is proposed to re-define it as Santa Vitória Alloformation, considering that the use of an allostratigraphic framework to characterize this unit has the practical purpose of grouping depositional systems genetically unrelated to the barrier-lagoon systems. : e2020065 mrsl: mean present-day relative sea-level. Source: modified from Villwock and Tomazelli (1995) , Tomazelli and Villwock (2005) , and Rosa (2012).
doi:10.1590/2317-4889202120200065 fatcat:h2rj7ltzkbdzno5s7chkbbrqga