Climate changes over the last 5000 years helped shape the landscape of Nhecolândia in the Pantanal wetlands
"Mudanças climáticas nos últimos 5000 anos ajudaram a moldar a paisagem da Nhecolândia no Pantanal"
Approximately 10,000 lakes form a unique and stirring landscape in the south of the Pantanal wetlands. These round or oval lakes average 2 meters (m) in depth and up to 1,000 m in length, and are scattered over an area of 24,000 square kilometers known as Nhecolândia, near the city of Corumbá in Mato Grosso do Sul. Other regions in the world such as Canada and Finland feature landscapes comprised of many lakes, but none are as chemically and biologically diverse as the lakes in Nhecolândia. Here, most of the lakes are freshwater and filled mostly by rain; others, which are black or greenish in color, contain salt water and are extremely alkaline. For decades geologists have tried to explain how these lakes were formed and how some became rich in salts. Now, a group of Brazilian and American researchers led by geologist Mario Assine of the Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences at the Rio Claro campus of São Paulo State University (UNESP) seems to have found some answers for Nhecolândia’s peculiar landscape. In two articles published this year in Quaternary Research and Hydrobiologia, they proposed that the lakes in this region arose approximately 5,000 years ago and that some became salty approximately 900 years ago.
Reportagem na integra:
Projeto:
Paleo-hydrological changes, chronology of events, and quaternary sedimentary dynamics in the Pantanal Basin".
Pesquisador Principal:
Doutor Mario Luis Assine (UNESP)
Artigos Científicos: McGLUE, M. M. et al. Holocene stratigraphic evolution of saline lakes in Nhecolândia, southern Pantanal wetlands (Brazil). Quaternary Research. Online. Aug. 2017. GUERREIRO, R. et al. Paleoecology explains holocene chemical changes in lakes of the Nhecolândia (Pantanal-Brazil). Hydrobiologia. Online. Nov. 9, 2017.