Compartimentação geomorfológica e processos deposicionais no megaleque fluvial do rio São Lourenço, Pantanal mato-grossense

A planície sedimentar do Pantanal é um extenso trato deposicional moderno, no qual megaleques fluviais são as feições que mais se destacam, sendo o do rio Taquari o maior e mais conhecido. Também notável é o megaleque do rio São Lourenço, que, apesar de possuir área de cerca de 16.000 km², é ainda pouco conhecido nos seus aspectos geológicos e geomorfológicos. Situado na borda noroeste do Pantanal, o megaleque do São Lourenço coalesce com o do Taquari, sendo dele separado pela planície fluvial interleque do rio Piquiri. Com base na interpretação de dados orbitais e na sua validação em campo, foi possível identificar padrões de canais, interpretar processos sedimentares, reconhecer fenômenos de avulsão fluvial e delinear lobos deposicionais. Foram reconhecidos três compartimentos geomorfológicos no megaleque do São Lourenço: 1) lobos deposicionais abandonados indiferenciados, situados na porção proximal/média do megaleque e constituídos por sedimentos pleistocênicos depositados por paleocanais distributários, atualmente em dissecação por canais tributários; 2) cinturão de meandros de idade holocênica, limitado por terraços marginais e resultado de agradação fluvial em vale inciso, cuja direção está condicionada por estruturas N65E; 3) lobos deposicionais ativos, situados na porção distal do megaleque e principal área de sedimentação do sistema deposicional, caracterizados por frequentes eventos de avulsão, bifurcações do canal, padrão de drenagem distributária e presença de lóbulos deposicionais. Os lobos deposicionais ativos foram formados a partir de importante evento de avulsão fluvial, que culminou com o abandono da porção inferior do cinturão de meandros.

Channel arrangements and depositional styles in the Sao Lourenco fluvial megafan, Brazilian Pantanal wetland

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Diagnóstico da suscetibilidade à erosão linear, fluvial e assoreamento em trecho da Bacia do Rio Passa Cinco, Ipeúna-SP

Este trabalho teve como tema principal o mapeamento geológico-geotécnico de determinado trecho da Bacia do rio Passa Cinco, e sua suscetibilidade a processos erosivos lineares, fluviais e de assoreamento. A área tem 129km2 e está situada principalmente no município de Ipeúna, estado de SP. O estudo foi desenvolvido a partir de análise por sensoriamento remoto (land systems) de fotos aéreas e associação a mapas geológicos, geomorflógicos, pedológicos e perfis de alteração. Esta análise integrada permitiu a divisão da área em dez Unidades Básicas de Compartimentação (UBCs), com base na metodologia apresentada por VEDOVELLO em diversos trabalhos. Foram obtidas dez Unidades Básicas de Compartimentação, apresentadas na ordem de ocorrência na Depressão Periférica (6 Unidades) e no relevo escarpado (4 Unidades). A partir desta compartimentação, verificações em campo e imagens de satélite foram adotados parâmetros para a análise quanto a suscetibilidade a aos processos erosivos lineares, fluviais e de assoreamento, obtendo-se três Unidades com alta suscetibilidades a processos erosivos lineares, e uma Unidade com alta suscetibilidade a processos erosivos fluviais e assoreamento. Como produto foi gerado um Mapa geológico–geotécnico em escala 1:50.000, com perfil representativo da área e uma tabela-síntese com as principais características e análise de suscetibilidade aos processos analisados

Multistep taphonomic alterations in fluvial mollusk shells: a case study in the touro passo formation (pleistocene–holocene), Southern Brazil

Accurate paleoenvironmental reconstruction relies on the correct interpretation of the postmortem history of skeletal remains in shelly assemblages. In contrast to marine settings, actualistic taphonomic studies are lacking for shell-rich concentrations in freshwater riverine systems. In particular, the taphonomic pathways and the origins of taphonomic signatures that are recorded in bioclasts from fluvial settings are poorly known. In this study, we addressed this issue by comparing the taphonomic signatures and shell-damage profiles among shells of freshwater mollusks recorded both in death and in fossil assemblages from the same fluvial environment. Our data indicated that dissolution was the most pervasive taphonomic process leading to the destruction of the shells. The loss of taphonomic information extended beyond shell dissolution in the riverbed, or the early diagenesis in the sedimentary record. The loss of biological information from the living community through the death assemblage, until the incorporation of shells as fossils, mainly occurred during the time the shells were in the sediment-water interface. Though this destruction affected primarily dead shells, reworked fossils also became vulnerable because they were carried out into the river load again by channel avulsion. A model that included the main taphonomic pathways followed by the molluscan shells in the fluvial Touro Passo Formation (Pleistocene-Holocene) is discussed. In this model, two main destructive domains were recognized, which were the biological, physical, and chemical processes operating at the taphonomically active zone (= TAZ domain) and the pedogenetic domain.

Seismites as a tool in the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of fluvial deposits: The Cambrian Guarda Velha Formation, southern Brazil

Soft-sediment deformation (SSD) is widely described in the literature, but there is no clear consensus regarding its origin and significance. Existing models for SSD in fluvial sediments do not clearly demonstrate a relationship between the structures, preserved facies expression, and larger-scale depositional architecture. In this study several types of SSD structures are recorded in Cambrian fluvial deposits and these occur interbedded with undeformed strata throughout the entire stratigraphic interval. The random distribution of these features in relation to primary facies types and fluvial forms indicates that they have neither a direct nor indirect relationship with any depositional processes or bedform type. We propose that the relationship of SSD at the bed-set-scale to larger-scale depositional architecture, combined with tectono-stratigraphic analysis allows the determination of both short-term fluvial hydraulic conditions in ancient stream systems, such as the nature of the flow regime responsible for depositing ancient fluvial stream successions, and the long-term subsidence rates, in the form of mean recurrence interval of the seismic events responsible for triggering the generation of SSD in tectonically active basins. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Application of a computational model for complex fluvial ecosystems: The population dynamics of zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha as a case study

The potential and adaptive flexibility of population dynamic P-systems (PDP) to study population dynamics suggests that they may be suitable for modelling complex fluvial ecosystems, characterized by a composition of dynamic habitats with many variables that interact simultaneously. Using as a model a reservoir occupied by the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha, we designed a computational model based on P systems to study the population dynamics of larvae, in order to evaluate management actions to control or eradicate this invasive species. The population dynamics of this species was simulated under different scenarios ranging from the absence of water flow change to a weekly variation with different flow rates, to the actual hydrodynamic situation of an intermediate flow rate. Our results show that PDP models can be very useful tools to model complex, partially desynchronized, processes that work in parallel. This allows the study of complex hydroecological processes such as the one presented, where reproductive cycles, temperature and water dynamics are involved in the desynchronization of the population dynamics both, within areas and among them. The results obtained may be useful in the management of other reservoirs with similar hydrodynamic situations in which the presence of this invasive species has been documented.

The estuarine geochemical reactivity of Zn isotopes and its relevance for the biomonitoring of anthropogenic Zn and Cd contaminations from metallurgical activities: Example of the Gironde fluvial-estuarine system, France

Zinc stable isotopes measurements by MC-ICP-MS, validated by laboratory intercalibrations, were performed on wild oysters, suspended particles and filtered river/estuarine water samples to provide new constraints for the use of Zn isotopes as environmental tracers. The samples selected were representative of the long range (400 km) transport of metal (Zn, Cd, etc.) contamination from former Zn-refining activities at Decazeville (i.e. δ66Zn > 1 ‰) and its phasing out, recorded during 30 years in wild oysters from the Gironde Estuary mouth (RNO/ROCCH sample bank). The study also addresses additional anthropogenic sources (urban and viticulture) and focuses on geochemical reactivity of Zn in the turbidity gradient and the maximum turbidity zone (MTZ) of the fluvial Gironde Estuary. In this area, dissolved Zn showed a strong removal onto suspended particulate matter (SPM) and progressive enrichment in heavy isotopes with increasing SPM concentrations varying from δ66Zn = -0.02 ‰ at 2 mg/L to +0.90 ‰ at 1310 mg/L. These signatures were attributed to kinetically driven adsorption due to strongly increasing sorption sites in the turbidity gradient and MTZ of the estuary. Oysters from the estuary mouth, contaminated sediments from the Lot River and SPM entering the estuary showed parallel historical evolutions (1979-2010) for Zn/Cd ratios but not for δ66Zn values. Oysters had signatures varying from δ66Zn = 1.43 ‰ in 1983 to 1.18 ‰ in 2010 and were offset by δ66Zn = 0.6 - 0.7 ‰ compared to past (1988) and present SPM from the salinity gradient. Isotopic signatures in river-borne particles entering the Gironde Estuary under contrasting freshwater discharge regimes during 2003-2011 showed similar values (δ66Zn ≈ 0.35 ± 0.03 ‰; 1SD, n=15), i.e. they were neither related to former metal refining activities at least for the past decade nor clearly affected by other anthropogenic sources. Therefore, the Zn isotopic signatures in Gironde oysters reflect the geochemical reactivity of Zn in the estuary rather than signatures of past metallurgical contaminations in the watershed as recorded in contaminated river sediments. The study also shows that the isotopic composition of Zn is strongly fractionated by its geochemical reactivity in the Gironde Estuary, representative of meso-macrotidal estuarine systems.

On the zeros of the Abelian integrals for a class of Liénard systems

A planar polynomial differential system has a finite number of limit cycles. However, finding the upper bound of the number of limit cycles is an open problem for the general nonlinear dynamical systems. In this paper, we investigated a class of Liénard systems of the form x'=y, y'=f(x)+y g(x) with deg f=5 and deg g=4. We proved that the related elliptic integrals of the Liénard systems have at most three zeros including multiple zeros, which implies that the number of limit cycles bifurcated from the periodic orbits of the unperturbed system is less than or equal to 3.