Octávio Barbosa: Life and Work
Octávio Barbosa was born on April 29, 1907 in Ituverava, São Paulo state. At 17 years of age, he went to the Federal University of Ouro Preto, where he read Civil and Mine Engineering. At the beginning of the 1930s, he worked at the former Geological and Mineralogical Survey of Brazil - GMS, which was renamed the National Department of Mineral Production - DNPM in 1936.
When he was 32, he joined the São Paulo Polytechnic, where he lectured for 16 years, after which time he moved to PROSPEC to work as a consultant. In 1977, he joined Companhia de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais - CPRM, currently the Geological Survey of Brazil (GSB).
A resident of Petrópolis from the age of 32, Octavio Barbosa died on January 31, 1997, leaving behind a vast legacy of geological knowledge. The hundreds of publications, including reports, books and articles from periodicals are part of the GSB library collection in Rio de Janeiro.
Apart from these formal documents, the collection, which is all available to the public, contains some of Octavio Barbosa’s precious field notebooks dating back to the 1930s and 1950s. They bear the hallmark of his great intuition, adventurous spirit, vast knowledge and important passage through geology in Brazil.
Words can hardly express the great importance of this collection. So instead, we invite you now to set off on the trail blazed by the great Octávio Barbosa!
