Pedra da Gávea is a

monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often made of very hard and solid igneous or metamorphic rock. Some monolit ...

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

Tijuca Forest The Tijuca National Park () is an urban national park in the mountains of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The park is part of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Preserve, and is administered by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conserva ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Composed of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

, its elevation is , making it one of the highest mountains in the world that ends directly in the ocean. Trails on the mountain were opened up by the local farming population in the early 19th century; today, the site is under the administration of the

Tijuca National Park The Tijuca National Park () is an urban national park in the mountains of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The park is part of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Preserve, and is administered by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservat ...

. The mountain's name translates as ''Rock of the Topsail'', and was given to it during the expedition of Captain

Gaspar de Lemos Gaspar de Lemos (15th century) was a Portuguese explorer and captain of the supply ship of Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet that arrived to Brazil. Gaspar de Lemos was sent back to Portugal with news of their discovery and was credited by the Viscou ...

, begun in 1501, and in which the Rio de Janeiro bay (today

Guanabara Bay Guanabara Bay (, , ) is an oceanic bay in Southeast Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro. On its western shore lie the cities of Rio de Janeiro (city), Rio de Janeiro and Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, Duque de Caxias, a ...

, but after which the city was named) also received its name. The mountain, one of the first in Brazil to be named in Portuguese, was named by the expedition's sailors, who compared its silhouette to that of the shape of a

topsail A topsail ("tops'l") is a sail set above another sail; on square-rigged vessels further sails may be set above topsails. Square rig On a square rigged vessel, a topsail is a typically trapezoidal shaped sail rigged above the course sail and ...

of a

carrack A carrack (; ; ) is a three- or four- masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for Europea ...

upon sighting it on January 1, 1502. That name in turn came to be given to the Gávea area of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Differential weathering on one side of the rock has created what is described as a stylized human face. Markings on another face of the rock have been described as an inscription. Geologists and scientists are nearly in agreement that the "inscription" is the result of erosion and that the "face" is a product of

pareidolia Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus (physiology), stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a specific bu ...

. Furthermore, the consensus of archaeologists and scholars in Brazil is that the mountain should not be viewed as an archaeological site.

Geology and ecology

Located in the Tijuca Range, Pedra da Gávea is 842 m (2,762 ft) tall, and is a granite dome. The flat top of the mountain is capped with a 150 m tall layer of granite, whereas underneath, the mound is made up of

. The former dates to around 450 million years ago, whereas the latter dates to 600 million years. The mountain, much like other stone outcroppings in and around the area, is the result of younger

Neoproterozoic The Neoproterozoic Era is the last of the three geologic eras of the Proterozoic geologic eon, eon, spanning from 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago, and is the last era of the Precambrian "supereon". It is preceded by the Mesoproterozoic era an ...

granitoid rocks and thin Cretaceous diabase dikes intruding the older Meso-Neoproterozoic high-grade metasedimentary rocks. Migoń (2010), p. 92. The contact zone between the upper granite and the lower gneiss is both sub-horizontal and semi-gradual, and the gneissic

xenolith A xenolith ("foreign rock") is a rock (geology), rock fragment (Country rock (geology), country rock) that becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification. In geology, the term ''xenolith'' is almost exclusi ...

s have a tabular form, which heavily suggests that they were captured from a

magma chamber A magma chamber is a large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth. The molten rock, or magma, in such a chamber is less dense than the surrounding country rock, which produces buoyant forces on the magma that tend to drive it u ...

's floor by thermal detachment. It has been suggested that Pedra da Gávea "correspond to the bottom of a granitic magma chamber and the original thickness of the granitic body was much larger than the present exposure." The granitic body of the Pedra da Gávea could also correspond to the eastern extension of the nearby Pedra Branca Granite Massif, according to Akihisa Motoki et al. Differential weathering incised the northern side of the mountain, producing cavities underneath the granite dome. Migoń (2010), p. 94. The abrupt dome itself is the result of the more durable granite having resisted the aforementioned weathering more so than the softer gneiss. Furthermore, erosion has worn etches into the mountain's sides. Note: To find the article, one must search for the term "Gávea". Turin (2005), p. 103. The mountain is covered in

lemon The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...

, orange,

breadfruit Breadfruit (''Artocarpus altilis'') is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family ( Moraceae) believed to have been selectively bred in Polynesia from the breadnut ('' Artocarpus camansi''). Breadfruit was spread into ...

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

, and

papaya The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus '' Carica'' of the family Caricaceae, and also the name of its fruit. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within ...

trees, as well as cannas and

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

Archaeological interest

There is a purported inscription carved into the rockface, which some claim is in Phoenician, a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

known to modern scholars only from inscriptions. According to Paul Herrmann in his book ''Conquests by Man'', the inscription on the mountain had been known for quite some time, but had merely been attributed to "some unknown prehistoric American people". Closer examination, however, led some researchers to believe it was of Phoenician origin. Herrmann (1954), p. 212. Today, however, most researchers suggest that the inscription and "face" are merely the results of erosion. Waggoner (2008), pp. 1–650. In the mid-1950s, the Brazilian Ministry of Education and Health denied that the site featured any writing, declaring "that examination by geologists had proved it to be nothing more than the effect of weather erosion which happened to look like an inscription." Herrmann (1954), p. 214. Brazilian archaeologists and scholars have adopted a negative attitude toward the treatment of the site, with Herrmann noting that "Brazilian archaeology denies altogether the existence of Phoenician inscription in any part of the country whatsoever."

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pedra da Gavea Mountains of Brazil Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact Pseudoarchaeology Geography of Rio de Janeiro (city) Hyperdiffusionism Landforms of Rio de Janeiro (state) National heritage sites of Rio de Janeiro (state)

Geology and ecology

Archaeological interest

See also

References

Bibliography