Glaciers, great sculptors and inspirers

Abstract

In the 19^th century, great glaciers inspired many artists and naturalists; Johann Moritz Rugendas painted them in the Chilean Andes; Louis Agassiz described geological processes resulting from the action of glaciers in Switzerland and illustrated them with beautiful lithographs. John Casper Branner, in the Elementary Geology book, disagreed with Louis Agassiz, who transposed knowledge obtained in Switzerland as supposedly valid geological evidence for Brazil. Aziz Nacib Ab’Sáber, in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, described the effects of glaciations on sea level changes and their consequences in the Amazon region, which was once a gigantic gulf open to the west. Ab’Sáber also described geological events in the Andean Amazon region, which contributed to the reversal of river flow and the shift of the Amazon River’s mouth into the current Atlantic Ocean. This article intends to offer teachers and students of all levels of education some basic elements on the subject, seeking to illustrate aspects of the evolution of geoscientific knowledge.