Refining the ichnofacies paradigm of eolian environments: comparing units developed in different environments

• Grant number: 23/10050-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Support Program for Fixating Young Doctors
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Paleozoology
• Agreement: CNPq
• Principal Investigator: Renato Pirani Ghilardi
• Grantee: Bernardo de Campos Pimenta e Marques Peixoto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências (FC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/01470-2 - Refining the ichnofacies paradigm of eolian environments: comparing units developed in different environments, AP.R

Abstract

Eolian deposits are generated when there is a combination of intense winds, sedimentavailability and impossibility of substrate stabilization. There are emblematic examples inmodern deserts, but also in rainy areas with high sediment availability and intense winds.The Octopodichnus-Entradichnus ichnofacies is common to all types of eolian deposits,and it is not clear how the ichnological signature varies according to environmental andclimatic parameters. Therefore, we proposed here to analyze trace fossils and moderntraces in ancient and modern eolian systems developed under different conditions to testwhether these differences influence the trace fossil assemblage. To do this, we proposeto analyze trace fossils from the Botucatu Formation, which developed under hyper aridclimate during the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous at mid-latitudes; the Corda Formation,also from the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, but developed in the paleo-equator andrepresenting a wet eolian system; and the Piauí Formation, also developed at mid-latitudes, but during the Pennsylvanian. To support paleoenvironmental interpretations,we propose collecting neoichnological data in two active eolian systems: a more humidone (Lençóis Maranhenses) and a more arid one (Namibian Dunes Desert). Thecombination of studies on ancient and modern wind systems will allow the refinement ofthe ichnofacies paradigm for this depositional environment, thus empirically subsidizingpaleoenvironmental interpretations based on ichnofossils.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

PEIXOTO, BERNARDO; SEDORKO, DANIEL; DE BARROS, GABRIEL E. B.; FRANCISCHINI, HEITOR; GHILARDI, RENATO P.; FERNANDES, MARCELO A.. Pulses of life: Wet events in Botucatu Paleodesert evidenced by trace fossils analysis (earliest Cretaceous, Parana Basin, Brazil). PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY, v. 658, p. 21-pg., 2024-11-28. (23/10050-7, 23/01470-2)