https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.sp.387.2019

International Ocean Discovery Program
Expedition 387 Scientific Prospectus

Amazon Margin

Deep drilling of the Amazon continental margin: the evolution of Cenozoic neotropical biodiversity, climate, and oceanography¹

Published July 2019

Abstract

International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 387 aims to recover sediments at two sites located in shallow water (~350 to 450 m) on the uppermost continental slope west of the Amazon Fan, northwest of the mouth of the Amazon River. These sediments were deposited in the upper part of the long-lived Foz do Amazonas Basin of the equatorial margin of Brazil. These two sites will recover a sedimentary sequence that spans much of the Cenozoic but with variable provenance and highly variable sedimentation rates. By virtue of their location, the Quaternary sediments will recover an abundance of terrigenous materials including pollen, organic matter, zircon grains, and clay minerals, allowing detailed reconstruction of the biodiversity, climate, and hydrology of the adjacent tropical South American continent. At the same time, an abundance of well-preserved marine microfossils and organic matter will allow accurate determination of the age and oceanographic conditions of the western equatorial Atlantic that partly forced the climate of the adjacent continent.

However, our reconstructions of the spatial patterns of biodiversity and climate through time must be interpreted with the knowledge that the geometry of the watersheds that contributed water and sediment to the coastal Atlantic was itself rearranged through time. For example, a transcontinental proto-Amazon river did not likely reach the Atlantic until somewhere between 11 and 2 Ma, a date that we expect to more accurately determine from these new cores. Prior to that event, terrigenous sediments at our sites would have been derived from smaller coastal rivers draining watersheds limited to the eastern tropics of northeastern South America.

The planned drill sites of Expedition 387 will be the marine complement to a transect of continental drill sites. Together, the marine and continental sites form the Trans-Amazon Drilling Project (TADP), a project that is partly funded by the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP). The TADP addresses fundamental questions about the Cenozoic climatic evolution of the Amazon region, the origins and evolution of the neotropical rain forest and its biodiversity, and the origins and rearrangements of the transcontinental Amazon River. Together, we expect that these IODP and ICDP projects will transform our understanding of Amazonian geological, climatic, biological, and paleoceanographic history.

¹Guizan Silva, C., Baker, P.A., Estes, E.R., and Childress, L.B., 2019. Expedition 387 Scientific Prospectus: Amazon Margin. International Ocean Discovery Program. https://doi.org/​10.14379/​iodp.sp.387.2019

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