C.F. Grilo

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Federal University of Espírito Santo

The Fundão dam failure, the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, launched 50 million m³ of iron ore tailings mud through the Doce River, reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, mine tailings increase the sediment inflow, leading to mud burial of epibenthic macrofauna, and the raise of metal(oid)s concentration causing macrofauna long-...

Since November of 2015, when ore tailings from a dam rupture reached the Atlantic Ocean, researchers are trying to assess the degree of impact across the Doce River and adjacent coastal area. This study aims to use the zooplankton dynamics as a tool to evaluate the environmental impact in the coastal region, five years after the rupture, during per...

After the Fundão iron ore mining dam rupture in November 2015, yellow/ocher emulsions never before reported on the continental shelf adjacent to the Doce River began to be seen, both in coalesced and foam forms. XRD analyses pointed to a prevailing composition of iron and kaolinite with a substantial contribution of an organic-metallic compound, me...

In the past several decades, anthropogenic changes throughout drainage basins have threatened physical, hydrological and ecological river-to-ocean continuum balances. Dams are one of these anthropogenic influences that can seriously affect sediment fluxes to the ocean. Here, we investigate the formation and dispersion of a high-concentration mud su...

Zooplankton were sampled five days after the tailings from the Samarco dam rupture reached the ocean in the coastal region at the mouth of the Doce River. This was one of the largest environmental disasters in Brazilian history, and the impacts on the marine biota are not yet fully understood. This study aimed to evaluate the zooplankton community...

This work aims to characterize, in mineral and chemical terms, the ore tailings related to the Mariana disaster (MG, Brazil), occurred on 5 November 2015, and assess its correlation with sediments found in the continental shelf adjacent to the Doce River mouth (ES, Brazil). This study uses samples of tailings and seabed sediments collected at the m...

In the mining industry, tailings are conventionally stored in artificial ponds that are susceptible to ruptures, as occurred in Southeast Brazil in November 2015. The Fundão failure dumped approximately 40 million m³ of very fine iron-rich tailing material into the Doce River watershed, where part reached the adjacent continental shelf. Part of the...

Paq proxy was applied on mid and long-chain n-alkanes in order to develop an index to assist in the long-term assessment of changes and exchanges between aquatic communities in estuarine environments as a result of increased saline incursion. New boundaries are proposed according to n-alkanes abundance in the leaves of local mangrove tree species f...

In November 2015, a tailing dam failure dumped approximately 32 million m3 of very fine iron-rich tailing material into the Doce River watershed, Southeast Brazil. A highly concentrated tailing slurry travelled 660 km down to the river mouth, reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The changes in flocculation patterns of cohesive sediments after dam failure a...

Although, estuarine ecosystems have an ecological and economical importance as they have a high biological productivity and occur within a unique and dynamic environment, they have been subjected to anthropogenic alterations. The Great Vitória Estuarine System (GVES), Espírito Santo State, Brazil, is not an exception, as urbanization is growing aro...

The Piraquê-Açú and Piraquê-Mirim estuarine system (PAPMES) is considered to be a hydrologically unaltered estuary; however, several human activities including introduction of pollutants may have contributed to changes in this system. We have studied hydrocarbons, major elements (Al, Mg, Fe and Mn), trace elements (As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Ni, P...

Three sediment cores (50 cm depth) were collected at three different sites from a tidal flat estuary at Passagem Channel (Vitória, Espírito Santo State-Brazil) to evaluate the influence of recent urbanization processes on the deposition of organic matter (OM) in a complex polluted tropical estuary. In addition to geochronology (by excess 210Pb), th...