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Fire in the paradise: evidence of repeated palaeo-wildfires from the Araripe Fossil Lagerstätte (Araripe Basin, Aptian-Albian), Northeast Brazil

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Abstract

Reports on Cretaceous charcoals are relatively common on a global scale and have been increasing in recent years. Fossil charcoal from the Early Cretaceous mostly belongs to conifers (and other gymnosperms) and ferns whereas angiosperms become more common only during the Late Cretaceous. However, so far, reports of Cretaceous macroscopic charcoal are rare (three) for South America. Here, charcoal is identified from the Crato, Ipubi and Romualdo formations of the Early Cretaceous Santana Group within the Araripe Basin, Brazil. The presence of charcoal provides for the first time compelling evidence for the repeated occurrence of Early Cretaceous palaeo-wildfires in this region. The charred wood remains were identified as belonging to gymnosperms, which were important components of the palaeoflora during the Cretaceous in Northeast Brazil. The results presented here provide additional evidence for the occurrence of palaeo-wildfires in Northern Gondwana during the Early Cretaceous, increasing our understanding for the relevance of such events and their influence on palaeoenvironmental dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

A. Jasper and D. Uhl acknowledge CAPES (Brazil, 8107-14-9; A072/2013), CNPq (305436/2015-5) and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany BRA 1137359 STPCAPES). We would also like to thank the Fundação Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (FUNCAP) for the research in the region. We thank Renan Bantim for helping with the images. Last but not least, we thank the careful reviews by Prof. Dr. Rose Prevec and an anonymous reviewer.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geociências, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, grants FJL #142390/2013-5; JMS CNPq proc. N. 310799/2014-7; 458164/2014-3; 444330/2014-3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geociências, Centro de Tecnologia e Geociências, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

    Flaviana Jorge de Lima & Juliana Manso Sayão

  2. Laboratório de Paleontologia, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Regional do Cariri, Crato, Ceará, Brazil

    Flaviana Jorge de Lima & Antônio Álamo Feitosa Saraiva

  3. Laboratório de Paleobiologia, Campus de Porto Nacional, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade, Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Tocantins, Porto Nacional, Brazil

    Etiene Fabbrin Pires

  4. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ambiente e Desenvolvimento, PPGAD, Universidade do Vale do Taquari – Univates, Lajeado, Brazil

    André Jasper & Dieter Uhl

  5. Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    André Jasper & Dieter Uhl

  6. Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Dieter Uhl

  7. Laboratório de Biodiversidade do Nordeste, Centro Acadêmico de Vitória, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Vitória de Santo Antão, Brazil

    Juliana Manso Sayão

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  1. Flaviana Jorge de Lima
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  3. André Jasper
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de Lima, F.J., Pires, E.F., Jasper, A. et al. Fire in the paradise: evidence of repeated palaeo-wildfires from the Araripe Fossil Lagerstätte (Araripe Basin, Aptian-Albian), Northeast Brazil. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 99, 367–378 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-018-0359-7

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