This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative results obtained from palynofacies and geochemistry analyses carried out on a core covering approximately 8000 years of sedimentation of a pond of altitude located at the mining district of Ametista do Sul, southernmost Brazil. The main objective of this paper is to consider the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental significance of these analyses. The hydrological isolation renders this pond climatically sensitive to variations in pluviometric regime and this enabled infer rainfall events during the early Holocene, which was responsible for the beginning of the processes of water accumulation in the gossan and the sedimentation of the pond. Changes in the pattern of moisture over the time become the drier environment, resulting in the intermittent pattern of water depth that currently exists at the site. The fluctuations in water depth are inferred from the frequency of Botryococcus and other algae, which tend to decrease progressively toward the top where the autochthonous elements are replaced by parautochthonous and allochthonous elements. Pseudoschizaea, in turn, appears to act as a biological marker of these transitional intervals. The present results are of great importance for understanding the extent of climate change and its environmental impacts at regional and global levels.

No abstract

This paper focuses on the interpretations in the analyses of palynofacies and organic geochemistry carried out on a sedimentary profile covering 9542 cal yr BP from a pond located at the mining district from Ametista do Sul, southernmost Brazil. The hydrological isolation renders this pond, located on a hilltop, highly sensitive to climatic change because the water entering in the system is subsidized exclusively by the rainfall. The main goal of this study is to establish relationships between the sedimentary organic record and climatic fluctuations in the Holocene, trying to correlate the alterations in the particulate organic matter with regional climatic changes or perhaps even events on a global scale. Fluctuations in water depth are inferred from the frequency of the autochthonous elements (algae), which predominate in the basal intervals, but tend to decrease progressively toward the top, when begining to alternate periods of high and low frequency with the parautochthonous (spores) and allochthonous (pollen grains) elements, due to changes in the patterns of moisture. Pseudoschizaea seems to have a closer relationship with the spores than with all other algae and can serve as a biological marker of transitional intervals or have some role in the successional process of vegetation. The variety of spores of ferns and pollen grains on the topmost interval indicates increased vegetal diversity, and is probably related to the process of successional evolution of the area. An increased rainfall event detected between 8.6 to 7.4 ka yr BP can be responsible for the beginning of the process of water accumulation in the gos-G. T. san and sedimentation of the pond and can be related with the "Bond Events". The saturation level of the pond, in turn, remained relatively constant until 6.8 ka yr BP, when changes in the patterns of moisture make the environment drier and resulted in an intermittent pattern of water depth, currently existing on the site.