Historical Susceptibility of Forest Fires in the Carajas Region, Brazil

The Carajas Region in the Para state, nowadays keeps a vast area of forests protected by Units of Conservation and Indigenous Land. Despite the efforts and investments done by private companies and government agencies to prevent forest fires, they are still registered, being one of the major factors of degradation of forests, flora and fauna. Thus there is a need to improve the understanding of these burning processes at present, and its evolution in different time scales, which allows comparison between patterns of fire occurrences related to climate and human reasons. This study aims to assess the evolution of the climate of Carajas region along the Quaternary, with emphasis on natural occurrence of fires related to historical events palaeoclimatic. For this a sediment core of a lake with 450 cm of depth was collected. Chronology is being determined by the radiocarbon method. Ours specific objectives are quantify and qualify the source of sedimentary material, determine concentrations of biogenic elements and minerals, through granulometric and mineralogical analyses and of quality and quantity of organic matter through the establishment of elementary (the C/N) and isotopic ratios (ä13C and ä15N). The dimensions of processes linked to the biomass burning will be determined by quantifying of charcoal fragments resulting from fires through microscopic analysis. This seeks to reconstruct the environmental scene and paleoclimatics conditions related to events of biomass burning, demonstrating the susceptibility of this historic region to the occurrence of fires according to the different climate stages identified.