Ground-penetrating Radar Profiles of Two Holocene Regressive Barriers in Southern Brazil

The Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) allowed the collection of high quality records of subsurface deposits of coastal environments. GPR records substantially increase the capacity of analysis and definition of depositional geometries of coastal strataforms, and the establishment of their evolutionary models. This abstract summarizes the results of a comparison between the morphology and stratigraphy of two regressive barriers of southern Brazil. GPR records (70 and 200 MHz), along shoreline transverse profiles were obtained for the subsurface of both barriers. Curumim barrier has an internal reflection configuration of the type parallel oblique progradational clinoforms, and Pinheira barrier has a complex sigmoid-oblique progradational pattern. While Pinheira has a classic morphology of a foredune ridge plain, Curumim had its foredune ridge plain recovered by transgressive dunefields, which have defined the formation of precipitation ridges. These distinct morphologies are a product of local factor differences such as, coastline geometry, climate and oceanic.