Summary: | Mapping of coastal Quaternary deposits in the Primera Angostura area forms part of an ongoing comprehensive research programme, started in 1991, concerning the recent evolution of the Strait of Magellan. Two field campaigns were carried out on land within the framework of the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartid e (PNRA). The first , in 1991 concerned the sedimentology and geology of coastal Pleisto-Holocene deposits, while the second, carried out in 1994 once the cartographic and geomorphological data had been processed, was to check the maps of the old coastlines and postglacial, Quaternary and chiefly marine, deposits. The research also embraces two other projects , "International Geological Correlation Programme" TGCP 367 "Late Quaternary Coastal Records of Rapid Change" and "Coastal Geomorphology Laboratory at the Centro Austral Antartico" (RAS-PYS project) funded by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia within its "Developing Countries" programme. One of the objectives of the research is the publication of an Atlas of the mainly Holocene geological and geomorphological features of the Strait of Magellan coasts, which will be useful for formulating evolutionary hypothesis of the Strait in very recent times. The Atlas is currently being completed but its publication will depend on the retrieval of funds to print the maps in colour. The Atlas, that includes the colour map presented here (n. 5112) and three other published maps (De Muro el AI., 1996a; Di Grande et al., 1996; DeMuro et al., 1996b), will consist of 12 sections at the 1:50.000 scale of the east coast of the Strait of Magellan. It will not only contain thematic maps of the evolutionary characteristics of the Late Pleistocene-Holocene sea, but is also intended as a cartographic document of the geomorphologic and evolutionary features of the continental and transitional deposits underlying the marine deposits. Three general thematic maps 1:200.000 in scale of the eastern region of the Strait of Magellan have already been published ...
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