TAPHONOMY IN BRAZIL: 36 YEARS OF HISTORY, ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES

Taphonomy was introduced in Brazil in the late 1980s, consolidating from the 2000s onwards, reaching stratigraphic contexts from the Ediacaran to the Quaternary. To date, a detailed scientometric study on national scientific production in the area has not been carried out, a gap that this work seeks to fill. A survey of 392 scientific articles was carried out in the Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases using specific descriptors. The analysis revealed that the first research containing taphonomic results corresponds to the Thesis of Lílian Paglarelli Bergqvist, defended in 1989. In the same year, the term "taphonomy" was first used in the title of a scientific work in Brazil, in a publication by Michael Holz and Mário Costa Barberena. The first research dedicated to the theme was the monograph by Fernanda Torello de Mello, completed in 1994. The first textbook to include specific chapters on taphonomy was Paleontologia, by Carvalho (2000), followed by the first work entirely focused on the theme, Elementos Fundamentals de Tafonnomia, by Holz and Simões (2002). Quantitatively, two phases were identified in scientific production: between 1990 and 2010, characterized by low productivity, and from 2011 onwards, marked by growth in the publication of articles. The states with the highest number of studies on fossil records are Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and Ceará. Roraima, the Federal District, Rondônia, Amapá, Espírito Santo and Goiás have a shortage of jobs. The most investigated lithostratigraphic units are the Crato, Ponta Grossa and Romualdo formations