The study of surficial deposits in Brazil

Abstract

Two main tendencies have been expressed in our country in the study of surficial deposits, not always convergent but searching first to define their autochthony or allochthony: for soils because they represent the original materiais, for reliefs because they are related to testimonies of the processes responsible for their genesis and evolution. We shall present here a synthesis of ideas on the origin and directions explored by such tendencies, showing their principal results and ending with the perspectives opened by the use of structural analysis of pedological cover procedure in two ways: the possibility to defime more correctly the autochthony or the allochthony of these materiais and, at the same time, to evaluate the significance of the biogeodynamic processes to the relief features.