Landscape and Climate Changes in Southeastern Amazonia from Quaternary Records of Upland Lakes
José Tasso Felix Guimarães,
Prafulla Kumar Sahoo,
Pedro Walfir Martins e Souza-Filho,
Marcio Sousa da Silva,
Tarcísio Magevski Rodrigues,
Edilson Freitas da Silva,
Luiza Santos Reis,
Mariana Maha Jana Costa de Figueiredo,
Karen da Silva Lopes,
Aline Mamede Moraes,
Alessandro Sabá Leite,
Renato Oliveira da Silva Júnior,
Gabriel Negreiros Salomão,
Roberto Dall’Agnol
Affiliations
José Tasso Felix Guimarães
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Prafulla Kumar Sahoo
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Pedro Walfir Martins e Souza-Filho
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Marcio Sousa da Silva
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Tarcísio Magevski Rodrigues
Environment Management—Carajás Iron Ore Mining, North Ferrous Department, Estrada Raymundo Mascarenhas, S/N Mina de N4, Parauapebas 68516-000, PA, Brazil
Edilson Freitas da Silva
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Luiza Santos Reis
Micropaleontology Laboratory, University of São Paulo, Rua do Lago, 562—Cidade Universitária, São Paulo 05508-080, SP, Brazil
Mariana Maha Jana Costa de Figueiredo
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Karen da Silva Lopes
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Aline Mamede Moraes
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Alessandro Sabá Leite
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Renato Oliveira da Silva Júnior
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Gabriel Negreiros Salomão
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
Roberto Dall’Agnol
Vale Institute of Technology, Rua Boaventura da Silva 955, Nazaré, Belém 66055-090, PA, Brazil
The upland lakes (ULs) in Carajás, southeastern Amazonia, have been extensively studied with respect to their high-resolution structural geology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, multielement and isotope geochemistry, palynology and limnology. These studies have generated large multiproxy datasets, which were integrated in this review to explain the formation and evolution of the ULs. These ULs evolved during the Pliocene–Pleistocene periods through several episodes of a subsidence of the lateritic crust (canga) promoted by fault reactivation. The resulting ULs were filled under wet/dry and warm/cool paleoclimatic conditions during the Pleistocene period. The multielement geochemical signature indicates that the detrital sediments of these ULs were predominantly derived from weathered canga and ferruginous soils, while the sedimentary organic matter came from autochthonous (siliceous sponge spicules, algae, macrophytes) and allochthonous (C3/C4 canga and forest plants and freshwater dissolved organic carbon) sources. Modern pollen rain suggests that even small ULs can record both the influence of canga vegetation and forest signals; thus, they can serve as reliable sites to provide a record of vegetation history. The integrated data from the sedimentary cores indicate that the active ULs have never dried up during the last 50 ka cal BP. However, subaerial exposure occurred in filled ULs, such as the Tarzan mountain range during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Bocaína and S11 mountain ranges in the mid-Holocene period, due to the drier conditions. Considering the organic proxies, the expansion of C4 plants has been observed in the S11 and Tarzan ULs during dry events. Extensive precipitation of siderite in UL deposits during the LGM indicated drier paleoenvironmental conditions, interrupting the predominantly wet conditions. However, there is no evidence of widespread forest replacement by savanna in the Carajás plateau of southeastern Amazonia during the late Pleistocene and Holocene.
