Rising Rio Grande is a huge tropical island near Brazil, study says

A team of scientists from the University of São Paulo (USP) published a new study stating that: The Rio Grande Rise was once a huge tropical island covered with vegetation and minerals. The article, published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, suggests that this event took place approximately 45 to 40 million years ago, as evidenced by the sediments of the formation.

In the statement published by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (FAPESP), scientists explain that they collected data for 10 years to better understand the geological formation of the region.

The Rio Grande Rise is an undersea plateau located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 1200 kilometers from Brazil, where ores such as cobalt, platinum, and nickel are found, among others.

After analyzing seafloor sediments at a depth of 650 meters, the researchers were able to characterize the mineralogical and geochemical properties of the area. They discovered that the area consists mostly of red clay and minerals from volcanic rocks such as magnetite, hematite, kaolinite, among others.

“The research allowed us to fully define the existence of the island, and the issue under discussion today is whether this area can be included in the Brazilian continental shelf. Geologically, we were able to establish that the clays were formed after the last recorded volcanic activity 45 million years ago, meaning the formation was 30 to 40 million years ago.” “And it must have formed as a result of tropical conditions,” Luigi Jovane, a professor at the University of São Paulo Oceanographic Institute (IO-USP) who supervised the study, told FAPESP.

Rio Grande Rising

Following the discoveries made during a cruise that included British and Brazilian researchers passing through the region in 2018, Evidence has already been found that the area may have been an island; area is equivalent to the territory of Spain.

Therefore, the new study used an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the National Oceanography Center (NOC) to collect new samples and validate the data.

The research states: The ‘red soil’, which was analyzed after samples were collected in the Atlantic Ocean, is also present in parts of São Paulo state. Despite the Rio Grande Rise’s proximity to Brazil, the area is in international waters and is managed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

“It is crucial to understand the ecosystem services and natural processes that are influential in the Rio Grande Rise. Only knowing these can we carry out an environmental impact assessment and calculate these impacts, thus making a complete study of the environmental protection of the area, including mitigation and compensation for the possible use of part of the area,” adds Jovane.

Did you like the content? Therefore, follow the latest studies on the geology of our country at TecMundo. If you want, take the opportunity to find out if there is a volcano in Brazil or if there was one in the past.