The Araripe basin, located between the states of Ceará, Pernambuco and Piauí, is home to the largest fossiliferous site in the country. It is there that fossils of animals and plants that lived more than 110 million years ago are found with an exceptional degree of preservation, comparable only to some excavations in China and Germany.
However, despite its exuberance, the region has faced several structural problems for decades, starting with the recurrent stoning of the fossiliferous heritage, destined for other countries.
There are species of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, spiders, insects, fish, amphibians, lizards and dozens of other organisms that leave Brazil and end up in private or scientific collections in several countries.
The main destinations are Germany, France, the United States and Japan. The American Museum of Natural History, in New York, has the largest collection of Araripe fish in the world: there are tens of thousands of specimens. And anyone who wants to study the pterosaurs of Brazil should look for collections in museums in Germany, which house the largest concentration of these fossils.
Paleontologists who wish to visit Araripe will find precarious working conditions, reduced infrastructure and difficulties in finding pieces for study.
The formation of the Araripe basin took place at least 400 million years ago, between the Ordovician and Devonian periods. The other rocks that form the basin have a more recent age, ranging from the Upper Jurassic, about 150 million years ago, to the limit of the Lower and Upper Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago.
The three main rock strata that conserve most of the fossils in the area belong to this age: the Crato formation, the Romualdo member and the Santana formation. The rocks that contain the fossils of the Crato formation are characterized by limestone sheets (slabs) and are therefore heavily exploited by the flooring and furniture industry — it is during this mining activity that the fossils are found.
The nodules (hard parts of the rock) of the romual member preserves soft structures of the beings who lived there, because of a series of chemical reactions and the release of sulfur by bacterial activity that occurs throughout the fossilization process. Thus, the organisms are preserved in a kind of “Kinder Egg” in the middle of the rocky wall.
Due to this unique condition, pterosaur wings are found three-dimensionally preserved, and plants and insects can be discovered still with pigments and soft parts in good condition.
The exceptional scientific value of these fossils, therefore, means that they are offered for values that reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions and sales sites outside the country, going through a path that involves discovery in the quarries, the hand of middlemen, international buyers, to private collectors and researchers from foreign museums.
Recently, the publication of the first non-avian feathered dinosaur in Latin America, the exotic ubirajara jubatus, led to a mobilization for the repatriation of the fossil that left the country illegally and went to the Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. After strong social pressure, the science journal Cretaceous Research “canceled” publication of the article, but the German museum said it would not return the dino.
The biggest issue that involves this and other specimens in collections abroad is that the fossils are considered a heritage of the Union, since the creation of a decree-law in 1942 that prohibits their sale and removal without authorization.
The exploration of fossils can only be done with a license for collection —for researchers and research institutions— issued by legal bodies, but the number of fossils from Araripe in several countries around the world reveals how this legislation alone cannot control the problem.
In addition, foreigners contrast Brazilian law with the legislation of the countries themselves — the 1970 Unesco convention that legislates on cultural, historical and biodiversity assets of nations was not signed by all parties and, therefore, is not valid in some territories .
Because of this, Brazilian paleontologists and the Justice are now seeking the recovery of this fossiliferous heritage, saying that countries do not respect the law in force. Since 2015, the Federal Public Ministry of Ceará has been trying to repatriate almost a thousand Araripe fossils seized in France, in the port of Le Havre.
According to prosecutor Rafael Ribeiro Rayol, responsible for the operation, the fossils came out in containers as if they were quartz. The destination: a company in the city of Gannat, France, called Eldonia.
“The problem is that in Europe it is not illegal to trade fossils, and that is why the materials are sold openly, but as our legislation has prohibited it since 1942, that is, for more than 80 years, it is known that the fossils came out illegally”, Rayol says.
The owner of Eldonia, to which the 998 fossils masked as quartz would be sent, paleontologist François Escuillié defends himself by saying that the market for selling gemstones is not prohibited and the rocks are worth much more than the fossils.
“There is a paradox in legislation that does not prohibit the removal and sale of its precious stones, which are worth tens of millions of dollars abroad, but condemns the removal of fossils,” he says.
In addition to the containers, several fossils are taken by middlemen in boxes, often with authorizations for the transport of “rocks and precious stones”, a generic name that can include fossils.
In general, a rare amphibian or bird fossil sells for around R$3,000 by miners. The rarest specimens, such as dinosaurs or pterosaurs, reach a maximum of R$ 15,000. In Europe, the same fossils are sold by middlemen for between US$30,000 and US$300,000 (about R$150,000 to R$1.57 million).
One of the most controversial figures when it comes to Araripe’s fossils, the British paleontologist David Martill, the University of Portsmouth (UK), says the problem of Brazilian fossils are not the foreign paleontologists who remove or receive these materials out there.
“There is lax enforcement in the country, and fossils come out in containers containing thousands. The question is: who lets these containers out?”
In recent years, the MPF (Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office), together with the Federal Police, has reinforced operations to monitor international trafficking, with actions in the quarries, passport control and telephone tracking.
“The mining process today is mostly regularized, but we closed many clandestine quarries in the past. It is in this environment that the miners end up finding the fossils and guarding to market in a clandestine way, for the most varied prices,” says Rayol.
“The activity of removing fossils is not illegal, but a worker who finds the fossils must separate, communicate and deliver to the authorities”, he adds.
Recently, the paleontology laboratory at Urca (Universidade Regional do Cariri) started working with the Environmental Police to collect the fossil material found in the quarries two to three times a week. In general, they are fossils considered of lesser scientific importance.
“Even with the collection, we know that there are many fossils that go abroad, via Fortaleza or São Paulo”, says Antônio Álamo Saraiva, paleontologist and professor at Urca.
The material collected goes to Saraiva’s laboratory in Urca or to the Santana do Cariri Paleontology Museum, linked to the university.
The creation, in 2006, of the Araripe Geopark, recognized today by Unesco as a World Heritage Site, brought more visibility to the area of paleontology in the region, but the lack of resources hinders local scientific progress.
“If there is a Geopark here, for better or worse, we have the UNESCO assessment every four years, and if the criteria for maintaining the park are the defense of geological heritage, how can we allow the situation of removing fossils to continue?”, asks Saraiva .
