L’embouchure de l'Amazone, macro-frontière géomorphologique : enseignements de 30 années de recherches franco-brésiliennes sur les systèmes côtiers amazoniens

• Main Authors: M. T. R. C. Prost, J-F. Faure, C. Charron, H.V. Vargas, V. F. Santos, A.C. Mendes, A. Gardel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Confins 2018-01-01
• Series: Confins
• Subjects: geomorphology; amazonian coastal fringe; quaternary trends; remote sensing.
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/confins/12568

The Mouth of the Amazon River, considered to be the largest river on Earth, is a geomorphological macro-frontier between two coastal blocks : the Guiana Shield coastal fringe (from Amapa to Venezuela) and the Para/Maranhao block (North Brazil). It also constitutes a vast geological domain that links the Amapa Platform, the Marajo Basin and the Para/Maranhao Platform. This Paper brings a synthetic view on this coastal compartment. It refers to a large number of multidisciplinary scientific results, and to remote sensing breakthroughs in environmental monitoring. The main purpose of the Paper is to enlight the role of the Mouth as a threshold in regional and local dinamics and processes. The geomorphological analysis relies on a taxonomy of facts and on dialectics between types and individuals. Final considerations are focused on environmental indicators and on current trends in coastal evolution in the Amazon. Warning : this text constitutes the first Part of the Paper. The second Part of the Paper will be published in the next volume of CONFINS.