Guiana Shield

The Guiana Shield is an ancient Precambrian geological region of northeastern South America, made largely of crystalline basement rocks and underlying parts of six countries.

Precambrian: The span of geological time before the Cambrian Period, from Earth’s formation about 4.54 billion years ago to 539 million years ago. Most of the shield’s basement formed during this immense early interval.
Trans-Amazonian orogeny: A Paleoproterozoic mountain-building event that assembled and reworked crust in northern South America. It was a major episode in the consolidation of the shield’s basement.
Mount Roraima: A flat-topped mountain on the Venezuela–Guyana–Brazil border and one of the region’s best-known tepuis. Its summit exposes resistant Roraima Group rocks in a classic tepui form.
Guiana Shield biodiversity: The exceptionally diverse species and ecosystems found across the Guiana Shield and its surrounding landscapes. Ancient uplands and varied habitats support distinctive, often localized species.
Craton: A long-stable part of continental lithosphere with ancient crystalline basement. The shield is the exposed northern South American portion of a larger cratonic foundation.
Greenstone belt: A belt of metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary rocks, commonly associated with ancient mineral deposits. Greenstone belts record early crustal processes within parts of the shield.
Angel Falls: A waterfall in Venezuela’s Canaima National Park and the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall. It plunges from the Auyán-tepui escarpment within the shield highlands.
Iron-ore deposits: Natural concentrations of iron-bearing minerals that can be mined as ore. The shield hosts major iron formations, including deposits in Brazil and Venezuela.
Guiana Highlands: A mountainous region of northern South America, including the high plateaus and tablelands of the Guiana Shield. These highlands give the shield its most distinctive topography.
Granite-greenstone terrain: An ancient continental crustal assemblage of granite bodies surrounding or intruding greenstone belts. This architecture is widespread in the shield’s Precambrian basement.

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