A team of scientists from 12 countries, including Brazil, is drilling a well in the town of Rodrigues Alves, Acre. The scientific drilling is the first carried out in the Amazon with an exclusively scientific purpose and the deepest ever done in the region, with a depth of 2 kilometers. The initiative involves 60 researchers and is funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), a program to support scientific drilling projects, in collaboration with other institutions. Learn more in the text below, from Engenharia 360!
What is the purpose of drilling?
The goal of said drilling is to reconstruct the evolution of the Amazon, determining the age of the forest, how it formed and evolved to reach the biodiversity it has today. Finally, determine how the forest might behave in the face of climate change.
This study can help to understand such an evolution since the beginning of the Cenozoic era, 65 million years ago, showing all the climatic and geological changes that affected the fauna, flora and structure of the Amazon basin as a whole.
The initiative has a partnership with the São Paulo State Research Foundation (FAPESP), the National Science Foundation (USA) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama). The drilling is the first carried out in the Amazon with an exclusively scientific purpose and the deepest, even if compared to the mineral exploration work that has already been carried out in the region.
Note: The deepest scientific drilling ever done on land began in the late 1980s and was completed in 1995 in Northern Bavaria, Germany. The well reached 9,101 meters and the project had the participation of the private sector. The German Geosciences Research Center used the hole to install a seismic observatory, which operated until 2001.
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What are the “testimonies” created by drilling?
In this scientific study, cylindrical samples will be collected from the layers of soil removed during the drilling of the well, called “checks”. 227 “witnesses” will be created. They will be deposited at the University of Minnesota, USA, in a repository of this type of material. And from this it will then be possible to reconstruct the evolution of the Amazon and determine the age of the forest.
In the next phase, molecular technology will be used to analyze the samples, which carry a range of physical, chemical and biological elements. It can help to obtain faster answers about the effects caused to the environment, as, for example, in the case of genetic sequencing of Collembolas to determine the effect of fires on the ecological health of the Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, in Mato Grosso. We will talk more about this in the next topic!
How can Collembola explain the effects of the Mato Grosso fires?
Today, it is known that the migration of species to the South has further increased the diversity of life in the Amazon region. Fossil findings show that the Amazon was once home to giant alligators, 15 meters long, turtles over 2 meters long, and large rodents that eventually became extinct. Shark teeth and gypsy fossils, for example, even show that there was once salt water there at one point. For this reason, Amazonian lands away from their core in the Amazon are also true gems and must be preserved.
Currently, it is the Ecological Research Institute (Ipê), in collaboration with ICMBio, the government agency that manages the federal protection units, that is studying more the effects of fires on the ecological health of the Chapada dos Guimarães Park, in Mato Grosso.
Collembola, mentioned earlier, are small arthropods responsible for decomposing dead vegetation. Its genetic sequence may help scientists understand the impact of the Chapada dos Guimarães fires in particular. Explained better, they are like biomarkers of soil quality and DNA sequencing allows faster answers for the forest.
What are the pulses created by climate and geological changes?
Let’s recap something you might remember from geography class! Soil layers are formed from rock and plant debris and contain biological components, such as microfossils and pollen, as well as geological. In addition, sedimentary basins also contain biological and geological evidence that helps trace the history of an area, such as the Amazon.
Through various studies, such as soil layers, science concluded that the Amazon had phases of intersection and fragmentation, where isolated habitats were created from each other, cut off by rivers and mountains. Scientists believe that this mosaic could be the source of enormous biodiversity.
The Cordillera of the Andes influenced the formation of the Amazon, blocking the rivers that until then flowed to the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, to the west, and forming a giant lake that became a huge swamp. Then the river flows shifted to the east, as they do today.
In this drainage process. would have emerged the Amazon River, the largest in the world, whose flow in some areas, assessed by researchers from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), reaches 200 thousand cubic meters per second, a volume sufficient to fill the bay Guanabara in three minutes and Midle.
Sources: O Globo, Alagoas Notícia Boa.