“Como se a geologia acabasse à beira-mar”: escalas temporais e espaciais das ilhas brasileiras

Abstract

Places of passage, diplomatic disputes, meetings and separations, myths and tragedies, the islands of the South Atlantic, now in Brazilian posses- sion, have been—as in many other places around the world—strategic and unusual nodes for the circulation of people, animals, plants, rock fragments, publications, and research networks far beyond local or regional scales. The landscape, the occupation, the fragments of rocks such as those from the islands of Trindade, Fernando de Noronha, the Rocks of São Pedro and São Paulo have unraveled over the centuries the geological theories of those who have ventured onto them. This article inserts these islands into the discussions about the geological formation of oceanic islands and the ocean itself. It covers periods ranging from before Darwin’s distant observa- tions of Fernando de Noronha in a single day to the mid-twentieth century, when small pieces of rock from the small island of Trindade transformed it into an extensive chain of underwater mountains and established the non- volcanic nature of the rocks of São Pedro and São Paulo. It concludes by pointing out the importance of temporal and spatial scales in Geology for approaching the production of scientific knowledge in its interconnections in different geopolitical, social, and cultural contexts.