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Microreliefs are present in several terrestrial ecosystems, including on other planets, such as Mars. These can be indicators of environments with a greater presence of humidity (such as in semi-arid regions), they can be indicators of the presence of expansive clays (2:1), bioturbation or the occurrence of permafrost (in periglacial environments). In the national literature there is a large gap regarding the gilgal microreliefs of the Brazilian semi-arid region. The objective of this study was to analyze the genesis, morphology and features associated with microreliefs, in different terrestrial environments, with an emphasis on gilgais in semi-arid environments based on a bibliographic review study. In areas with microreliefs, soil disturbance occurs in a widespread manner, being associated with freezing, bioturbation, or clay disturbance. In this way, the opening of preferential paths for water percolation (through cracks or channels) is remarkable. In semi-arid tropical environments, the primordial process for the genesis of gilgais is associated with the presence of expansive clays with high activity and accumulation models with a greater occurrence of wetting and drying cycles. Landscapes with microreliefs have in common a complexity of pedological and geomorphological processes, which in order to better discover interscalar relationships, from macro to micro and vice-versa.
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Lira et al. (2024) studied this question.
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