Mid-Late Pleistocene OSL chronology in western Amazonia and implications for the transcontinental Amazon pathway

Author(s):Show less -

Rossetti, Dilce F. ^[1] ; Cohen, Marcelo C. L. ^[2] ; Tatumi, Sonia H. ^[3] ; Sawakuchi, Andre O. ^[4] ; Cremon, Edipo H. ^[1] ; Mittani, Juan C. R. ^[3] ; Bertani, Thiago C. ^[1] ; Munita, Casimiro J. A. S. ^[5] ; Tudela, Diego R. G. ^[6] ; Yee, Marcio ^[3] ; Moya, Gabriela ^[3]

Affiliation

^[1] Inst Nacl Pesquisas Espaciais, BR-12245970 Sao Jose Dos Campos, SP - Brazil

^[2] Fed Univ Para, BR-66075900 Belem, PA - Brazil

^[3] Univ Fed Sao Paulo, BR-11030400 Santos, SP - Brazil

^[4] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Geociencias, BR-05508080 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[5] Inst Pesquisas Nucl, BR-05508900 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[6] Univ Sao Paulo, BR-05508900 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY; v. 330, p. 1-15, DEC 2015.
• Web of Science Citations: 19

Abstract

The origin of the transcontinental Amazon drainage system remains unrevealed. Sedimentary deposits formed from the Neogene in the Amazonas and Solimoes Basins constitute natural archives for reconstructing this event in space and time. However, paleoenvironmental and chronological analyses focusing on these deposits, or even their basic mapping, are still scarce to allow such investigation. In this context, primary interests are fluvial strata related to the lithostratigraphic Ica Formation, mapped over a widespread area in western Amazonian lowlands. Although long regarded as Plio-Pleistocene in age, this unit has not yet been dated and its overall depositional setting remains largely undescribed. The main goal of the present work is to contribute for improving facies analysis and chronology of these deposits, approaching an area in southwestern Amazonia and another in northern Amazonia, which are located more than 1000 km apart. Despite this great distance, the sedimentological and chronological characteristics of deposits from these two areas are analogous. Hence, facies analysis revealed paleoenvironments including active channel, abandoned channel, point bar, crevasse splay and flood-plain, which are altogether compatible with meandering fluvial systems. Similarly, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating revealed thirty three ages ranging from 65.4 +/- 16.9 to 219.6 +/- 25.1 ky (in addition to three outliners of 54.0 +/- 7.6, 3373 +/- 36.9 and 346.6 +/- 48.6 ky), and nine 97.1 +/- 9.9 to 254.8 +/- 23.8 ky for the areas in southwestern and northern Amazonia, respectively. These data lead to establish that deposits mapped as Ica Formation over a vast area of western Brazilian Amazonia have a Mid-Late Pleistocene age, rather than the previously inferred Plio-Pleistocene age. It follows that if Plio-Pleistocene deposits exist in this region they remain to be dated and must be restricted to a narrow belt in western Amazonia, as well as isolated occurrences underlying the Mid-Late Pleistocene strata characterized herein. The combination of data from this work with previously published provenance studies supports main Andean sediment sources only in the Mid-Late Pleistocene. It is proposed that before this time, the Amazon River was restricted to eastern Amazonia, being separated from western Amazonian drainage basins due to the presence of the Purus Arch. Erosion and/or subsidence of this geological feature would have promoted the connection of these drainage systems, ultimately with the expressive record of the transcontinental Amazon pathway into the Atlantic Ocean in the Mid-Late Pleistocene. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/09484-2 - Quaternary megafans in the state of Roraima, Northern Amazonia: sedimentological, climatic and tectonic implications
• Grantee: Dilce de Fátima Rossetti
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 13/50475-5 - Mapping Amazonian biodiversity at multiple scales by integrating geology and ecology
• Grantee: Dilce de Fátima Rossetti
• Support type: Regular Research Grants