Pancas: The Kingdom of Bornhardts

Abstract

Underlain by Neoproterzoic granitic rocks, the region around the town of Pancas, located in the Espirito Santo State, eastern Brazil, comprises a spectacular landscape dominated by bornhardts of various shapes. Sugarloafs, turtlebacks, domes and pinnacles separated by long and rectilinear valleys occupy an area of ca. 17,400 ha, which was declared natural monument by the Brazilian government in 2008. The development of the bornhardt province seems to involve the following stages: (i) nucleation of a system of vertical and widely spaced joints in the granitic bedrock at sometime in the Late Neoproterozoic, (ii) intensive weathering along the joints probably during the Eocene and (iii) uplift and subsequent erosion between the Late Miocene and the Pliocene, thereby leading to the exhumation of the bornhardts.