Serra Da Miaba, Povoado Curituba E Vale Dos Mestres (Se), Como Evidências Geológicas De Períodos Glaciais E Interglaciais Do Passado Sergipano

Abstract

The Miaba mountain range, located in the central-west region of Sergipe and Vale dos Mestres, in the extreme northwest, make up important tourist attractions in the State of Sergipe. Each site represents a small part of a geological domain with different ages, but which preserves geological sites of similar contexts. Each environmental modification preserved in the rock record is of great relevance for the understanding of large-scale climate changes, not only in the geological history of Sergipe, but on a global scale. However, despite the matter has been largely debated by the scientific community, it is poorly understood by the general public and tourists. In this sense, the present contribution comprises the first, among others, which aims to expand the reach of the dissemination of the geological history of the State through the elaboration of documents that serve as a starting point for the construction of didactic materials for training courses for conductors of local trails and tourism companies, people who are daily in direct contact to the general public. The results were separated by theme, and in this contribution, they are illustrated by evidences of ancient sedimentary environments, representing mostly colder and milder climates on the planet, known as glacial and interglacial periods. The rocks of the Tacaratu Formation, located in the Vale dos Mestres, represent sedimentary products of ancestral rivers of the São Francisco River, capable of carrying sediments through an extensive capture basin from Sergipe to Ceará, in the Ordovician-Silurian, 410 million years ago, where vegetation had just begun to colonize the continents. In the surroundings of the valley, close to the Curituba village, but of younger age (Permo-Carboniferous - 250 Ma ago), there are striated surfaces and groove marks that attest the abrasion and deformation by glaciers that moved to the northwest. Evidence of the deepest glacial event in geological time was left along the Neoproterozoic (about 800 Ma ago) in the rocks of the Ribeirópolis formations, located in Serra da Miaba. This stratigraphic record includes Sergipe, as well as Bahia, Minas and Mato Grosso, as one of the areas influenced by glacial processes of greater proportions known in the history of the planet.