Coastal Oceanography of the Western South Atlantic Continental Shelf (33 S to 55 S) (5,W)

PERILLO, G. M. E.; PICCOLO, M.C.; MARCOVECCHIO, J.

The Sea. The Global Coastal Ocean. Interdisciplinary Regional Studies and Syntheses

Harvard University Press

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2006; p. 295 - 327

The continental shelf along the western border of the South Atlantic Ocean between 33 and 55∞ S (Fig. 9.1) represents a unique example of a wide, fully open shelf highly affected by two major western boundary currents (Malvinas (Falkland) and Brazil) and remarkably strong wind systems blowing from the continent. To the north of the Malvinas Plateau, it is also an excellent example of a passive or Atlantic continental margin having all basic the elements included in this classification.However, south of the plateau it becomes a convergence /translational margin. The area covered by the present article corresponds to the whole of Argentinean with some comments about the Uruguaian and the southernmost portion of the Brazilian shelves. Descriptions of the geomorphology and sedimentology, hydrography, and nutrients and biological distributions and their relation with the margin dynamics are presented as well.