The Argentine Republic: Its Development and ProgressDenis, Pierre
History
The Argentine Republic: Its Development and Progress
Denis, Pierre
Agriculture -- Argentina; Argentina -- Description and travel; Argentina -- Economic conditions -- 1918-
[82] Many attempts have been made to classify the Pampean
lands, but the results cannot be regarded as final. Ameghino,
who is first and foremost a palaeontologist, has done a service
in showing the futility of these geological divisions based
upon the actual surface of the deposits (colour, fineness,
etc.). But even palaeontology gives rather uncertain results,
as it is impossible to recognize and follow step by step
the various stages of the movement of the fossils. All the
classifications of the Pampean are based upon a study of two
groups of sections. The first group comprises the cliff on
the right bank of the Parana from Rosario to Buenos Aires
and the coastal cliff which is a continuation of it, with a
break from Ensenada at Mar Chiquita to Bahia Blanca. Ameghino
has recognized there a thick series of aeolian deposits
separated by several discordances, the oldest elements of
which, at Bahia Blanca, belong to the Miocene. The second
group comprises the cliffs which enclose the valley of the Rio
Primero above and below Cordoba. Doering and Bodenbender in
this case describe two stages of aeolian loess, each covered by
torrential gravel.
From the study of these sections geologists have drawn
certain conclusions as to the movements which have affected
the soil of the Pampa and the changes which the climate has
experienced. These conclusions have in each case only a local
value, and they have not yet been co-ordinated. The majority
of the observers, from Doering to Bailey Willis and Rovereto,
seem not to have taken into account sufficiently the fact that
in the continental formations the most diverse deposits may
come next to each other in the same series, according to the
particular process of deposition, and that their alternation
does not imply a general change in the conditions of erosion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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