Time tunnel in Acre: scientists complete 1st stage of work that will help uncover the history of the Amazon

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By Matheus Mello, ContilNet

Last year, a group of 69 researchers, from 12 different countries, began drilling a well more than 2 kilometers deep, in Rodrigues Alves, Acre.

Eight months later, scientists from the Trans-Amazon Trilling Project completed the first phase of research.

SEE MORE: Scientists from 12 countries open “time tunnel” in Acre to research the history of the Amazon

The initiative is part of a research project that will study what life was like in the Amazon up to 65 million years ago, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The University of São Paulo (USP) collaborates with the research.

In Acre, the research resulted in the collection of 870 meters of continuous cores at a depth of 923 meters, which is considered a milestone in Brazilian science.

The drilling location is the municipality of Rodrigues Alves, in Acre. Photo: Isaac Bezerra/USP

From the well, it was possible to collect samples that could provide information on how the Amazon was formed, changed over time and how it should behave in the future, especially with climate change. Each piece of information collected is called “testimony” by researchers.

“Each “core” is a cylindrical sample up to six meters (m) long, containing a vertical sampling of the various layers of rock and sediment that make up the forest’s subsoil. Each of these layers, in turn, contains a series of physical, chemical and biological evidence that scientists can analyze in the laboratory to infer what the world was like at the time that layer was on the surface. Using an analogy, it’s like sticking a straw in a cake to take a sample of its layers and find out what each one is made of”, says an excerpt from the article published in Jornal da USP.

These collected cores are cylindrical samples of sediments and rocks, probably from the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The samples are at least 23 million years old.

To carry out the survey in Acre and other states, an investment of almost R$19.7 million is necessary.

The samples collected in Acre will now be sent to a repository at the University of Minnesota, in the USA.