science

Santa Maria Formation

Santa Maria Formation is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Santa Maria Formation rather than just read about it. In short: The Santa Maria Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It is primarily Carnian in age (Late Triassic), and is notable for its fossils of cynodonts, "rauisuchian" pseudosuchians, and early dinosaurs and other dinosauromorphs, including the herrerasaurid Staurikosaurus, the basal sauropodomorphs Buriolestes and Saturnalia, and the lagerpetid Ixalerpeton.

Key takeaways

Santa Maria Formation belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Santa Maria Formation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Santa Maria Formation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Santa Maria Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It is primarily Carnian in age (Late Triassic), and is notable for its fossils of cynodonts, "rauisuchian" pseudosuchians, and early dinosaurs and other dinosauromorphs, including the herrerasaurid Staurikosaurus, the basal sauropodomorphs Buriolestes and Saturnalia, and the lagerpetid Ixalerpeton. The formation is named after the city of Santa Maria in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul, where outcrops were first studied. The Santa Maria Formation makes up the majority of the Santa Maria Supersequence, which extends through the entire Late Triassic. The Santa Maria Supersequence is divided into four geological sequences, separated from each other by short unconformities. The first two of these sequences (Pinheiros-Chiniquá and Santa Cruz sequences) lie entirely within the Santa Maria Formation, while the third (the Candelária sequence) is shared with the overlying Norian-age Caturrita Formation. The fourth and youngest sequence (the Mata sequence) is equivalent to the Rhaetian-age Mata Sandstone. The oldest sequence in the formation is the Pinheiros-Chiniquá Sequence (latest Ladinian-earliest Carnian, ~237 Ma), which is biostratigraphically equivalent to the Dinodontosaurus Assemblage Zone. It is followed by the shorter Santa Cruz Sequence (early Carnian-middle Carnian, ~236 Ma), biostratigraphically equivalent to the Santacruzodon Assemblage Zone. The final sequence, which is only partially present within the formation, is the Candelária Sequence (middle Carnian-latest Carnian, ~233-228 Ma). The lower portion of this sequence, coinciding with the upper part of the Santa Maria Formation, is equivalent to the Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone.The Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone is itself subdivided into Hyperodapedon Acme Zone (most of the zone, where the rhynchosaur Hyperodapedon is widely reported) and Exaeretodon Zone (restricted to about three known and sampled localities, where rhynchosaurs are almost completely absent, but the traversodontid cynodont Exaeretodon is widely reported). These subdivisions are also known as Lower and Upper Hyperodapedon Assemblage Zone, respectively. U-Pb radiometric dating of Cerro da Alemoa (the type locality of Saturnalia tupiniquim) in the Upper portion of the Santa Maria Formation found an estimated age of 233.23±0.73 million years ago, putting that locality 1.5 million years older than the Ischigualasto Formation and younger than Los Chañares Formation. The Santa Maria and Ischigualasto formations are approximately equal as having the earliest dinosaur localities.

Vertebrate paleofauna Most of the information below was included on a revision of the Triassic faunal successions of the Paraná Basin, southern Brazil by Schultz et al. (2020).

Temnospondyls

Fish

Synapsids

Dicynodonts

Cynognathians

Probainognathians

Reptiles

Pseudosuchians

Avemetatarsalians

Other reptiles

Formations

See also Caturrita Formation Sanga do Cabral Formation List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Santa Maria Formation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Santa Maria Formation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Santa Maria Formation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Santa Maria Formation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Santa Maria Formation

In research: Santa Maria Formation appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Santa Maria Formation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Santa Maria Formation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Paleontology in Brazil, Santa Maria Formation, Triassic System of South America, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Santa Maria Formation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Santa Maria Formation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Santa Maria Formation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Santa Maria Formation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Santa Maria Formation in simple terms?

Why does Santa Maria Formation matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Santa Maria Formation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Santa Maria Formation.