CHAPTER IV 
Rio Tubaraéo Series 
These beds, designated from the river of that name which drains 
the principal coal region of the state of Santa Catharina, consist of sev- 
eral different members, the lowest one resting upon the granite, and 
looking very unlike the higher beds lithologically. These lower sand- 
stones and shales near Minas, Santa Catharina, present a weathered 
aspect, the sandstones having arusty yellow cast while the shales above 
are dark bluish. The contact of these lowest rocks with the underlying 
granite is visible in acut along the Dona Thereza Christina railway, 
3 kilometers below Minas, and they extend along the railway and the 
bed of Rio Tubaraéo from there to near Minas where they dip under water 
level. 
The lower portion is a hard, yellowish sandstone, and above it come 
dark rusty and bluish shales, upon which rest yellowish sandstones 
holding indeterminable plant fragments, and these extend up tothe 
Orleans conglomerate, the whole having a thickness of only 27 meters 
as determined by the boring made through them near Minas to the 
granite. 
On the road to Lages from Florianopolis, some hard sandstone, and 
bluish-black shales occupy this interval between the Orleans conglome- 
rate and the granite, the whole having a thickness of 150-160 meters, 
in which no fossils were observed except what is possibly the trail of a 
crustacean. This horizon is one which is seldom clearly exposed except 
in artificial cuttings along highways, but wherever these beds are vi- 
sible along the road from Florianopolis to Lages, and between Lages 
and Blumenau, there appears a very hard fine-grained grayish white 
whetstone grit in layers 8 to 20 centimeters thick. These layers gave 
the name, Navalha, tothe village on the Lages road near which they 
were once quarried for whetstones. Strata of the same character a 
few meters in thickness, rest on the granite, near Suspiro in Rio 
Grande do Sul, where the erosion, which accompanied the deposi- 
tion of the Orleans conglomerate, has spared these older rocks. 
5569 vi 
