In the face of environmental changes concerns, the study of climate change becomes essential to understand the life trajectory of planet earth. For this purpose, this work seeks to understand climate change and fluctuations in the amount of atmospheric oxygen across geological ages, carbonizing the Araucaria columnaris wood in varying oxygen concentrations, and comparing them to the fossil coal from Quiteria Outcrop. In this study, pyrolysis of Araucaria columnaris wood occurred with the use of TGA, under an atmosphere of 21% and 30% O2, analyzed in FTIR, distinguishing the constituent compounds of the wood. Multivariate analysis of the mains components (PCA) was applied, for data crossing. There is a distinction between carbonized wood and fossil charcoal, the charcoal burning temperature as well as the atmospheric oxygen composition being inconclusive. However, FTIR results indicate that the amount of oxygen has an influence on the degradation of the wood, and samples at 450 °C have greater similarities with fresh wood. Thus, it was observed that the temperature and the burning time are the main factors of the fires, being that the amount of oxygen available in the atmosphere influences the firing process.

ABSTRACT Charcoal is widely accepted as evidence of the occurrence of palaeo-wildfire. Although fossil charcoal remains have been used in many studies, investigation into the anatomical changes occurring during charring are few. The present study analyses changes in selected anatomical characters during artificial charring of modern wood of three species of the genus Araucaria (i.e. Araucaria angustifolia, Araucaria bidwillii and Araucaria columnaris). Wood samples of the studied species was charred under controlled conditions at varying temperatures. Measurements of anatomical features of uncharred wood and artificial charcoal were statistically analysed. The anatomical changes were statistically correlated with charring temperatures and most of the parameters showed marked decreases with increasing charring temperature. Compared to the intrinsic variability in anatomical features, both within and between growth rings of an individual plant, the changes induced by temperature account only for a comparatively small percentage of the observed variability. Regarding Araucaria charcoal, it seems possible that at least general taxonomic and palaeoenvironmental implications can be drawn from such material. However, it is not clear so far whether these results and interpretations based on only three taxa, can be generalized for the entire family and anatomically similar fossil taxa or not.

The aim of the study is to evaluate the physical and chemical changes that occur on wood fragments submitted to different temperatures, verifying their influence on significant chemical characteristics in the forming process. Carbonization process in muffle associated to the techniques of Thermogravimetry, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and multivariate analysis. The analyses were performed on 3 replicates for each burn temperature. The temperature of the thermal muffle process was in every 50 °C, from 200 °C to 600 °C. TGA were performed under nitrogen atmosphere, using a heating ramp from 25 °C min-1 to 995 °C. A range between 1900 to 650 cm-1 was used, with a resolution of 4 cm-1 and 64 scans. The PCA showed that it is possible to describe 95.73% of the data, grouping the samples into three main clusters. These clusters were used to build a SIMCA (Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy) model, enabling to predict with 100%. Results showed that technical associations, such as TGA, FTIR and multivariate analysis may help to characterize the natural carbonization process and, in future works, contribute to significant (paleo)environmental inferences.

Charcoal fóssil foi encontrado na Mina do Faxinal, Permiano Inferior, Formação Rio Bonito, na porção sul da Bacia do Paraná, Brasil. Foram descritos três tipos de lenhos gimnospérmicos picnoxílicos originários de um único nível de tonstein, o que confirma a ocorrência de paleoincêndios vegetacionais nesta área. Uma redução da concentração de charcoal da base para o topo no nível de tonstein indica que a quantidade de combustível diminuiu durante a deposição, provavelmente devido ao consumo da vegetação existente pelo fogo. A presença de inertinita na camada de carvão, em níveis sobrepostos e sotopostos ao tonstein , indica que incêndios não estavam restritos ao intervalo de deposição da cinza vulcânica. A integração dos novos dados aqui apresentados com outros publicados anteriormente acerca da Mina do Faxinal, demonstra que eventos vulcânicos ocorridos nas áreas circunvizinhas podem ser identificados como potenciais fatores de ignição para os incêndios. A presença de chacoal em sedimentos associados a níveis de carvão em diferentes localidades no Permiano, demonstra que incêndios vegetacionais foram relativamente comuns nos ambientes formadores dos depósitos de carvão da Bacia do Paraná.

Fossil charcoal has been discovered in the Faxinal Coalfield, Early Permian, Rio Bonito Formation, in the southernmost portion of the Paraná Basin, Brazil. Three types of pycnoxylic gymnosperm woods recovered from a single tonstein layer are described and confirm the occurrence of paleowildfire in this area. A decrease of the charcoal concentration from the base to the top within the tonstein layer indicates that the amount of fuel declined during the deposition probably due to the consumption of vegetation by the fire. The presence of inertinite in coals overlying and underlying the tonstein layer indicates that fire-events were not restricted to the ash fall interval. The integration of the new data presented in the current study with previously published data for the Faxinal Coalfield demonstrates that volcanic events that occurred in the surrounding areas can be identified as one potential source of ignition for the wildfires. The presence of charcoal in Permian sediments associated with coal levels at different localities demonstrates that wildfires have been relatively common events in the peat-forming environments in which the coal formation took place in the Paraná Basin.