Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:51:33.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Holocene Environmental Changes from the Rio Curuá Record in the Caxiuanã Region, Eastern Amazon Basin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Hermann Behling  and
Marcondes Lima da Costa
Hermann Behling
Affiliation:
Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Fahrenheitstrasse 1, 28359 Bremen, Germany, E-mail: [email protected]
Marcondes Lima da Costa
Affiliation:
Department of Geochemistry and Petrology, Geosciences Center—Federal University of Pará, Campus of Guamá, P.O. Box 1611, 66075-110 Belém/Pará, Brazil, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Holocene environments have been reconstructed by multiproxy studies of an 850-cm-long core from Rio Curuá dating to >8000 14C yr B.P. The low-energy river lies in the eastern Amazon rain forest in the Caxiuanã National Forest Reserve, 350 km west of Belem in northern Brazil. Sedimentological, mineralogical, and geochemical dates demonstrate that the deposits correspond to two different environments, sediments of an active river before 8000 14C yr B.P. and later a passive river system. The pollen analytical results indicate four different local and regional Holocene paleoenvironmental periods: (1) a transition to a passive fluvial system and a well-drained terra firme (unflooded upland) Amazon rain forest with very limited development of inundated forests (várzea and igapó) (>7990–7030 14C yr B.P.); (2) a sluggish river with a local Mauritia palm-swamp and similar regional vegetation, as before (7030–5970 14C yr B.P.); (3) a passive river, forming shallow lake conditions and with still-abundant terra firme forest in the study region (5970–2470 14C yr B.P.); and (4) a blocked river with high water levels and marked increase of inundated forests during the last 2470 14C yr B.P. Increased charcoal during this last period suggests the first strong presence of humans in this region. The Atlantic sea level rise was probably the major factor in paleoenvironmental changes, but high water stands might also be due to greater annual rainfall during the late Holocene.

Keywords

BrazilAmazon rain forestHolocenepaleoenvironmentpollencharcoalmultielement geochemistryvegetation dynamicsfire historypre-Columbian settlementsea levelHolocene transgression
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , May 2000 , pp. 369 - 377
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Absy, M.L., (1979). A Palynological Study of Holocene Sediments in the Amazon Basin.Google Scholar
Absy, M.L., Cleef, A.L., Fournier, M., Martin, L., Servant, M., Sifeddine, A., Da Silva, M.F., Soubies, F., Suguio, K., Turcq, B., Van der Hammen, T., (1991). Mise en evidence de quatre phases d'ouverture de la forêt dense dans le sud-est de l'Amazonie au cours des 60.000 dernières annère comparaison avec d'autres regions ees. Comptes Rendue Academie Science Paris 312, 673–678.Google Scholar
Angulo, R.J., Lessa, G.C., (1997). The Brazilian sea-level curves: A critical review with emphasis on the curves from the Paranaguá and Cananeia regions. Marine Geology 140, 141–166.Google Scholar
Behling, H., (1993). Untersuchungen zur spätpleistozänen und holozänen Vegetations- und Klimageschichte der tropischen Küstenwälder und der Araukarienwälder in Santa Catarina (Südbrasilien). J. Cramer, Berlin/Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Behling, H., (1996). First report on new evidence for the occurrence of Podocarpus and possible human presence at the mouth of the Amazon during the late-Glacial. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 5, 241–246.Google Scholar
Behling, H., Negrelle, R.R.B., Colinvaux, P.A., (1997). Modern pollen rain data from the tropical Atlantic rain forest, Reserva Volta Velha, South Brazil. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 97, 287–299.Google Scholar
Behling, H., Berrio, J.C., Hooghiemstra, H., (1999). Late Quaternary pollen records from the middle Caquetá river basin in central Colombian Amazon. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 145, 193–213.Google Scholar
Bemerguy, R.L., (1997). Morfotectônica e Evolução Paleogeográfica da Região da Calha do Rio Amazonas. Universidade Federal do Pará, Belem-PA.Google Scholar
Bush, M.B., Colinvaux, P.A., (1988). A 7000 year vegetational history from lowland Amazon, Ecuador. Vegetatio 76, 141–154.Google Scholar
Bush, M.B., Piperno, D.R., Colinvaux, P.A., (1989). A 6000 year history of Amazonian maize cultivation. Nature 340, 302–303.Google Scholar
Colinvaux, P.A., De Oliveira, P.E., Moreno, J.E., Miller, M.C., Bush, M.B., (1996). A long pollen record from lowland Amazonia: Forest and cooling in glacial times. Science 274, 85–87.Google Scholar
Colinvaux, P.A., Frost, M., Frost, L., Liu, K-b., Steinnitz-Kannan, M., (1988). Three pollen diagrams of forest disturbance in the western Amazon. Review of Paleobotany and Palynology 55, 73–82.Google Scholar
Costa, M.L., Moraes, E.L., Behling, H., Melo, J.C.V., Siqueira, N.V.M., (1997). Os sedimentos de fundo da Baı́a de Caxiuanã. Caxiuanã Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Belem.p. 121–137.Google Scholar
Faegri, K., Iversen, J., (1989). Textbook of Pollen Analysis. Wiley, Chichester.Google Scholar
Ferreira, L.V., Almeida, S.S., Rosário, C.S., (1997). As áreas de inundaçao. Caxiuanã Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Belem.p. 195–211.Google Scholar
Frost, I., (1988). A Holocene sedimentary record from Anangucocha in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Ecology 69, 66–73.Google Scholar
Grimm, E.C., (1987). CONISS: A Fortran 77 program for stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis by the method of the incremental sum of squares. Computer and Geosciences 13, 13–35.Google Scholar
Herrera, L.F., Urrego, L.E., (1996). Atlas de Polen de Plantas Útiles y Cultivadas de la Amazonia Colombiana,” Estudios en la Amazonia Colombiana, Vol. XI. Tropenbos Colombia, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Hida, N., Maia, J.G., Hiraoka, M., Shimmi, O., Mizutani, N., (1997). Notes on annual and daily water level changes at Breves and Caxiuanã, Amazon estuary. Caxiuanã Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Belem.p. 97–107.Google Scholar
Irion, G., Müller, J., Mello, J.N.de, Junk, W.J., (1995). Quaternary geology of the Amazonian lowland. Geo-Marine Letters 15, 172–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kern, D.C., (1996). Geoquı́mica e Pedogeoguı́mica de Sı́tios Arqueológicos com Terra Preta na Floresta Nacional de Caxiuana (Portel-Pará). Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará.Google Scholar
Lisboa, P.L.B., Silva, A.S.L., Almeida, S.S., (1997). Florı́stica e estrutura dos Ambientes. Caxiuanã Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Belem.p. 163–193.Google Scholar
Liu, K.-b., Colinvaux, P.A., (1988). A 5200-year history of Amazon rain forest. Journal of Biogeography 15, 231–248.Google Scholar
Nimer, E., (1989). Climatologia do Brasil. Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatı́stica, Rio de Janeiro.Google Scholar
Moraes, J.C., Costa, J.P.R., Rocha, E.J.P., Silva, I.M., (1997). Estudos hidrometeorológicos na Baia do Rio Caxiuanã. Caxiuanã Museu Paraense Emı́lio Goeldi, Belem.p. 85–95.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, A.C., Lima da Costa, M., Lopes Machado, C., Michab, M., Mercier, N., Valladas, H., Feathers, J., Barnett, W., Imazio da Silveira, M., Hederson, A., Sliva, B., Chernoff, B., Reese, D.S., Holman, J.A., Toth, N., Schick, K., (1996). Paleoindian cave dwellers in the Amazon: The peopling of the Americas. Science 272, 373–384.Google Scholar
Roubik, D.W., Moreno, J.E., (1991). Pollen and Spores of Barro Colorado Island. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Soubies, F., Suguio, K., Martin, L., Leprun, J.C., Servant, M., Sifeddine, A., (1991). The quaternary lacustrine deposits of Serra dos Carajás (State of Pará, Brazil)—Ages and other preliminary results. Boletim IG-USP, Publicação Especial 8, 223–243.Google Scholar
Suguio, K., Martin, L., Bittencourt, A.C., Bittencourt, A.C.S.P., Dominguez, J.M.L., Flexor, J-M., De Azevedo, A.E.G., (1985). Fluctuacões do nivel do mar durante o Quaternario superior ao longo do litoral Brasileiro e sus implicacões na sedimentação costeiro. Revista Brasileira de Geociencias 15, 273–286.Google Scholar
Urrego, L.E., (1997). Los Bosques Inundables del Medio Caquetá: Caracterización y Sucesión.Google Scholar