Gondwana landscapes in southern South America. Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil / Ландшафты Гондваны на юге Южной Америки. Аргентина, Уругвай и южная Бразилия

When we started the edition of this volume, we thought that it could serve as a milestone in South American geomorphology, particularly in those topics concerning long-term landscape evolution. We also hoped that it would make a valuable contribution to the geomorphology of the Southern Hemisphere and, even perhaps, to global geomorphology. We do not know if our goals have been fulfilled, but we have tried our best. Firstly, we must express our deepest gratitude to a large group of distinguished colleagues from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Without their participation and much appreciated efforts, our task would have been impossible.

This volume presents extensive and new information on the geomorphology of cratonic areas of southern South America, most of which has never been published before, sometimes with innovative insights into the interpretation of ancient landscapes. It also includes valuable data relating to recurrent controversies in general geomorphology beyond the boundaries of South America. The great need to integrate many different aspects of geomorphology in regional studies is clearly revealed in the varied topics presented in this volume.

Geomorphology sometimes seems to be a rather schizophrenic science. It is studied mainly by geologists and geographers but also by engineers, soil scientists, hydrologists and others, all with rather different points of view. Worse perhaps, sometimes, we have the sad feeling that those specialists do not even listen to each other. Geographers often tend to prepare descriptive accounts of the landscape, often on a short time scale: at the present time, process studies seem to predominate <...>