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The Paleontological Heritage of the Acre (Amazonia, Brazil): Contribution Towards a National Paleontological Database

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Abstract

Acre State is located in the southwest of Amazonia (Brazil) and is internationally known for its fossiliferous sites which have yielded well-preserved fossils of major relevance to the understanding of the Cenozoic paleofauna of South America, mainly during the Miocene. In order to preserve this paleontological heritage and to study the material from the formations outcropping across south western Amazonia, the Paleontological Research Laboratory was created in the 1980s at the Federal University of Acre (acronym UFAC in Portuguese) and houses a collection including over 4500 catalogued specimens (mainly invertebrates, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals) and a small Museum open to the scientific community and to a wider society. This paper aims to identify the geoheritage value of the fossil record of Acre, which is represented by material collected from the Solimões Formation (Miocene to Pliocene) over the last three decades and stored at the UFAC. The qualitative evaluation system used, which integrates both its scientific and social uses, can also be applied to other Brazilian collections, in order to create a National Paleontological Database, similar to that already developed for Geological and Paleobiological Sites.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the project 01200.001631/2010-32—Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Brazil (“Biochronostratigraphy and paleoecology based on the fossiliferous potential of the Cretaceous - Neogene of the Acre Basin, Juruá Valley, of the southwest Amazonia”), by a CAPES grant (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior/Higher Level Personnel Training Coordination programme), by FEDER funds through the Competitiveness Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE and national funds by FCT in the frame of the UID/Multi00073/2013 project. The authors are grateful to Gabriel Barberes, Sílvia Silva and Jorge Carvalho for helpful collaboration with the graphical information and to two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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  1. Geosciences Centre of the University of Coimbra and Multidisciplinary Centre of the Federal University of Acre, Campus Floresta, Cruzeiro do Sul, AC, 69980-000, Brazil

    Nei Ahrens Haag

  2. Geosciences Centre of the University of Coimbra and Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra (Polo II), Rua Sílvio Lima, 3030-790, Coimbra, Portugal

    Maria Helena Henriques

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Haag, N.A., Henriques, M.H. The Paleontological Heritage of the Acre (Amazonia, Brazil): Contribution Towards a National Paleontological Database. Geoheritage 8, 381–391 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-015-0163-y

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