Paleo-environmental reconstruction (vegetation and climate) in the Late Quaternary based on a multi/interdisciplinary study in the Vale do Ribeira (South of the State of São Paulo)

Abstract

In Brazil, paleo-environmental studies (vegetation and climate) have been more intensely developed since the beginning of the 1990s decade, using pollens deposited in lake and peaty sediments, isotopes of the organic matter of the soil (OMS) and fragments of charcoal found in the soils, among other indicators. However, in these studies, there is a feeling of the lack of joint actions, both analytical and interpretative, preventing an interdisciplinary approach. With this project, it is intended to develop in the Vale do Ribeira, in the region of Iporanga, south of the State of São Paulo, a comparative study involving paleo-environmental records, through the joint and systematized analyses of lake sediments, of speleothems and isotopes of the OMS and plants, with the possibility of associating them with antracological analysis, when there is the presence of charcoal buried in the soils. This integration of techniques and researchers should significantly reinforce studies of the reconstruction of vegetational and climatic exchanges that occurred in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in the Southeast region of Brazil. (AU)