South America consists of a major western mountain range, the Andes Cordillera, extending from Colombia southward through Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Patagonia, the broad plateau of southern Brazil, the uplands of Venezuela and the large river basins of the Amazon and the Parana (Psuty et al. 2005). The Andes are primarily the outcome of Alpine folding, while the plateaux of southern Brazil and the Venezuelan uplands are Pre-Cambrian shields.
Pacific Coast
In Ecuador and northern Peru the Andes mountains are bordered by coastal lowlands with hilly areas and deltaic plains. There are cliffs along hilly areas and bays excavated in less resistant outcrops. The coast is lined by beaches and dunes, and there are mangroves in estuaries and inlets. Further south the mountains run closer to the coast and there are many steep and cliffed sectors, with only minor, narrow coastal plains, generally at the mouths of river valleys. Earthquakes occur, and emerged beaches and shore terraces at...
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Reference
PsutyN, MizobeC (2005) South America, coastal geomorphology. In: Schwartz ML (ed) Encyclopedia of Coastal Science, Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, pp 905–909
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(2010). South America – EditorialIntroduction. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_30
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