FP7-INCO-LAB Joint Brazilian-European research facility for climate and geodynamic research on the Amazon River basin sediments – Clim-Amazon

The CLIM-AMAZON project aims at increasing the visibility and scientific excellence of the long-term Brazilian-French scientific activities supported by the current Laboratoire Mixte International Observatoire des Changements Environnementaux (LMI-OCE), a joint laboratory between the Geosciences Institute of the Federal University of Brasilia (UnB, Brazil) and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, France). The objective is to open the LMI-OCE to new participating researchers from EU-Member states and Associated Countries together with the Brazilian researchers in order to maximize the initial investment of France to benefit the whole European Union. This will be achieved through the increase of the already strong existing analytical facilities of UnB to develop new approaches in the geological and environmental research in the Amazon region, a world-class example for climate research. The expansion of the research activities of LMI-OCE to new EU researchers will occur by means of scientific meetings, visits of experienced EU scientists, PhD and Post-doc calls open to students from EU Universities and of new projects proposing to do research in Brazil about erosion, the long-term history of sedimentary load transport by the Amazon River and its interaction with Atlantic Ocean. The scientific collaboration between EU/MS and Brazil within the framework of CLIM-AMAZON will have a strong impact in terms of establishment of an international laboratory based in Brazil (UnB) and also for our understanding of global transport processes involved in the world largest tropical river basin. It will also consolidate the successful cooperation between South American and European countries under the Observatoire de Recherches en Environnement sur l’Hydrologie du Bassin Amazonien (ORE-HYBAM) project.