Amazon River
Amazon River: history, origin, characteristics, depth, and much more.
Amazon River, also called Marañón River and Solimões River, this being the largest river in South America and the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin.
The total length of the river, measured from the headwaters of the Ucayali-Apurímac river system in southern Peru, is at least 4,000 miles (6,400 km), which makes it slightly shorter than the Nile River, but equal to the distance from New York to Rome.
Its westernmost source is high in the Andes Mountains, within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Pacific Ocean, and its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean, on the northeast coast of Brazil.
However, both the length of the Amazon and its final source have been topics of debate since the mid-twentieth century, and there are those who claim that the Amazon is actually longer than the Nile.
If you have not yet noticed on which continent the Amazon River is located, we tell you that it is located in South America.
Amazon River, also called Marañón River and Solimões River, this being the largest river in South America and the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin.
The total length of the river, measured from the headwaters of the Ucayali-Apurímac river system in southern Peru, is at least 4,000 miles (6,400 km), which makes it slightly shorter than the Nile River, but equal to the distance from New York to Rome.
Its westernmost source is high in the Andes Mountains, within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Pacific Ocean, and its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean, on the northeast coast of Brazil.
However, both the length of the Amazon and its final source have been topics of debate since the mid-twentieth century, and there are those who claim that the Amazon is actually longer than the Nile.
If you have not yet noticed on which continent the Amazon River is located, we tell you that it is located in South America.
History and Origin of the Amazon River
During what many archaeologists call the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of the agrarian systems of the highlands of South America.
The commerce with the Andean civilizations in the lands of the headwaters of the Andes, formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of the civilizations of higher altitude, among others, the Muiscas and the Incas. The first human settlements were generally based on low hills or mounds.
Five types of archaeological mounds have been observed in the Amazon region:
Shell waste
Artificial mounds
Artificial earth platforms for entire villages
Mounds of land and crests for cultivation
Roadways and canals, and figurative mounds, both geometric and biomorphic.
The shell mounds: they were the first evidence of room; They represent lots of human waste and are mainly dated between 7500 and 4000 years. They are associated with ceramic age cultures; no mound of pre-ceramic shell has been documented so far by archaeologists.
Artificial earth platforms: for entire villages they are the second type of mounds. They are best represented by the culture of Marajoara. Figurative mounds are the most recent types of occupation (see article: Río Segura).There is ample evidence that the areas surrounding the Amazon River harbored complex and large-scale indigenous societies, mainly chiefdoms that developed large cities and towns.
Archaeologists estimate in the history of the Amazon River, that by the time the Spanish conqueror De Orellana traveled across the Amazon in 1541, more than 3 million indigenous people lived around the Amazon. These pre-Columbian settlements created highly developed civilizations. For example, pre-Columbian Indians on the island of Marajó may have developed a social stratification and support a population of 100,000 people. To achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the ecology of the forest through selective cultivation and the use of fire.
Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repetitively, the indigenous people made the soil richer in nutrients. This created areas of dark soil known as terra preta de indio.
Due to the terra preta, called dark earth as mentioned above; Indigenous communities were able to make the lands fertile and, therefore, sustainable for the large-scale agriculture necessary to maintain their large populations and complex social structures.
Additional research has hypothesized that this practice began around 11,000 years ago. Some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the inexplicable band of lower rainfall across the Amazon basin. (see article: Mekon River).
Many of the indigenous tribes participate in the constant war. James Stuart Olson wrote: “The expansion of Munduruku dislocated and displaced the Kawahíb, dividing the tribe into much smaller groups. Munduruku called the attention of Europeans for the first time in 1770 when they began a series of widespread attacks against Brazilian settlements along the Amazon River.
As for the history of the Amazon River, we mentioned that in March 1500, the Spanish conqueror Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first documented European to navigate the Amazon River. Pinzón called the Santa María del Mar Dulce river stream, later shortened to Mar Dulce, literally, fresh sea, due to its fresh water that pushes towards the ocean.
Another Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, was the first European to travel from the origins of the upstream river basins, located in the Andes, to the mouth of the river. On this trip, Orellana baptized some of the tributaries of the Amazon such as Río Negro, Napo and Jurua.
Francisco de Orellana baptized the Amazon River with this name, which is the largest in the world. ... Orellana, who lost an eye during the adventure, told on his return to Spain that the brig had been attacked by numerous warrior women who dominated the bow and arrows.
What does Rio Amazonas mean? It is taken from the native warriors who attacked this expedition, mostly women, which reminded De Orellana of the Amazonian warriors of the ancient Hellenic.
culture in Greece.
Exploration
Gonzalo Pizarro left in 1541 to explore eastern Quito in the interior of South America in search of El Dorado, the “city of gold” and La Canela, the “cinnamon valley”. He was accompanied by his second in command, Francisco de Orellana.
After 170 kilometers (110 miles), the Coca River joined the Napo River (at a point now known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana); The entourage stopped for a few weeks to build a boat just upriver from this confluence.
De Orellana offered and was ordered to follow the Napo River, then known as Río de la Canela (“Río Canela”) and return with food for the entourage. They continued downstream through an uninhabited area, where they could not find food. Based on information received from a captive native chief named Delicola, they hoped to find food a few days downstream by ascending another river to the north.
De Orellana took about 57 men, the boat and some canoes and left Pizarro's troops on December 26, 1541. However, De Orellana apparently lost the confluence (probably with the Aguarico) where he was looking for supplies for his men.
By the time he and his men arrived at another village, many of them were starving and ate "harmful plants," and were about to die. Seven men died in that village. His men threatened to mutiny if he followed his orders and the expedition returned to join Pizarro's largest entourage. He agreed to change the purpose of the expedition to discover new lands in the name of the king of Spain, and the men built a larger ship to navigate downstream. After a 600 km trip along the Napo River.
They reached a greater confluence, at a point near Iquitos, and then followed the upper part of the Amazon, now known as Solimões, for another 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) to its confluence with the Río Negro (near modern Manaus), to which They arrived on June 3, 1542. On the Nhamunda River, tributary of the Amazon River. Downstream from Manaus, Orellana's group had a fierce battle with warriors who, they reported, were led by fierce warriors who beat men to death with sticks if they tried to withdraw.
Orellana's men began to refer to women as Amazonas, a reference to the tribe of women warriors of Greek mythology. The river was initially known as the Marañón (the name by which the Peruvian part of the river is still known today) or Rio de Orellana. It later became known as the Amazon River, the name by which it is still known in both Spanish and Portuguese.
Regarding the initial mission of finding cinnamon, Pizarro informed the king that they had found cinnamon trees, but that they could not be harvested profitably. In fact, true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is not native to South America. Other related plants that contain cinnamon (from the Lauraceae family) are quite common in that part of the Amazon and Pizarro probably saw some of them. The expedition arrived at the mouth of the Amazon on August 24, 1542, demonstrating the practical navigability of the Great River.
In 1560, another Spanish conqueror, Lope de Aguirre, could have made the second descent of the Amazon. Historians are not sure if the river that descended was the Amazon or the Orinoco River, which runs more or less parallel to the Amazon further north.
Discovery of the Amazon River
The Portuguese explorer Pedro Teixeira was the first European to travel across the river. He arrived in Quito in 1637 and returned by the same route. From 1648 to 1652, the Brazilian Portuguese bandeirante António Raposo Tavares led an expedition from São Paulo by land to the mouth of the Amazon, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Black River, and covering a distance of more than 10,000 km (6,214 miles) .
In what is currently Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, a series of colonial and religious settlements were established along the banks of the main rivers and tributaries with the purpose of commercializing, enslaving and evangelizing indigenous peoples from the vast rainforest, like the Urarina. At the end of the 17th century, Spanish Jesuit Father Samuel Fritz, apostle of the Omaguas, established about forty mission villages.
Where the Amazon River is born
It was thought that the most distant source of the Amazon was in the drainage of the Apurimac River for almost a century. These studies continued to be published even recently, as in 1996, 2001, 2007, and 2008.
Where several authors identified the Mismi snowfall of 5,597 m (5,797 m), located approximately 160 km (99 miles) west of Lake Titicaca and 700 km (430 miles) southeast of Lima, as the most distant origin of the Amazon River.
From that point, the Carhuasanta Gorge emerges from the Mismi Snow, joins the Apacheta Gorge and then forms the Lloqueta River that becomes the Hornillos River and finally joins the Apurimac River. A 2014 study by Americans James Contos and Nicolás Tripcevich in Area, a magazine reviewed by the Royal Geographic Society, shows how they manage to identify the most distant source in the Amazon, and at the same time how to be in the Mantaro River drainage.
A variety of methods were used to compare the lengths of the Mantaro River with the Apurimac River from its most distant points of origin to its confluence, showing the longest length of the Mantaro.
The distances from Lake Junin to several potential points of origin in the Mantaro River were then measured, which allowed them to determine that the Rumi Cruz Mountain Range was the origin of the Amazon River, being the most distant water source in the Mantaro Basin (and therefore throughout the Amazon basin).
Birth, Route and mouth of the Amazon River
The birth of the Amazon River is in the Cordillera de los Andes Nevado Mismi, Arequipa, Peru, which is why the most accurate measurement method was the direct measurement of the GPS obtained by the kayak descent of each of the rivers from its point of origin until its confluence (carried out by Contos).
Obtaining these measurements was difficult given the nature of class IV-V of each of these rivers, especially in its lower "Abyss" sections. Ultimately, they determined that the most distant point in the Mantaro drainage is almost 80 km upstream compared to Mt.
Mismi in the Apurimac drainage, and therefore the maximum length of the Amazon River is approximately 80 km longer than previously thought. Contos continued downstream to the ocean and finished the first complete descent of the Amazon River. From its newly identified source (ending in November 2012), a trip repeated by two groups after the dissemination of the news.
After about 700 km (430 miles), Apurimac is known to then join the Mantaro River to form the Ene, which subsequently joins the Perene to form the Tambo, which then joins the Urubamba River to form the Ucayali.
After the confluence of Apurimac and Ucayali, the river leaves the Andean terrain and is surrounded by the flood plain. From this point to the confluence of the Ucayali and the Marañón, about 1,600 km (990 miles), the forested banks are located just above the water and flood long before the river reaches its maximum flood stage. The lower riverbanks are interrupted by only a few hills, and the river enters the huge Amazon rainforest.
The big question was: Where is the Amazon River born? It is because of them that after all this journey we have done that this is a river that crosses Peru where the birth of the Amazon River is considered, and in turn, also crosses Colombia and Brazil where its mouth of the Amazon River is considered.
The High Amazon
Although the Ucayali-Marañón confluence is the point at which most geographers locate the beginning or birth of the Amazon River itself, in Brazil the river is known at this point as the Solimões das Águas. The river systems and floodplains in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, whose waters flow into the Solimões and its tributaries, are called the “Alto Amazonas”.
The Amazon itself runs primarily through Brazil and Peru, and is part of the border between Colombia and Peru. It has a number of important tributaries in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, some of which flow into the Marañón and Ucayali, and others directly into the Amazon itself. These include the rivers:
Putumayo
Caquetá
Vaupés
Guainía
Morona
Pastaza
Nucuray
Urituyacu
Chambira
Tiger
Nanay
Napo
Huallaga
At some points the river is divided into multiple channels, often very long, with internal and lateral channels, all connected by a complicated system of natural channels, cutting the lowlands and flat igapó, which never exceed 5 meters above the river Low, on many islands. From the town of Canaria in the great curve of the Amazon to the Black, large tracts of land submerge in the high waters, above which only the upper part of the trees of the shady forests appears.
We mentioned earlier that the mouth of the Amazon River is in Río Negro a Serpa, almost in front of the Madeira River, the banks of the Amazon are low, until they approach Manaus, they rise to become hills.
The lower Amazon
The Lower Amazon begins where the dark waters of the Black River meet the Solimões River of sand color, and for more than 6 km (4 miles) these waters run side by side without mixing.
In Óbidos, a 17 m (56 ft) cliff above the river is backed by low hills. The lower Amazon seems to have once been a gulf of the Atlantic Ocean, whose waters washed the cliffs near Óbidos.
Length, Width and Depth of the Amazon River
Many wonder how much the Amazon River measures ?, its size is about 6400 km. In other words, only ten percent of the Amazon water enters downstream of Óbidos, very little of which comes from the northern slope of the valley. The drainage area of the Amazon basin over the city of Óbidos. The depth of the Amazon River varies; it has been registered in some areas from 20 to 50 meters, as in others it has been registered from 90-100 meters.
Many studies reveal in the same way that the depth of the Amazon River does not exceed 7 meters, since depending on the place it always varies. It is approximately 5,000,000 square kilometers (1,900,000 square miles) and, below, only 1,000,000 square kilometers (390,000 square miles) (about 20%), excluding the 1,400,000 square kilometers (540,000 square miles) of the Tocantins basin. The Tocantins River enters the southern portion of the Amazon Delta.
In the lower part of the river, the north bank consists of a series of steep and covered table hills that extend about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the mouth of the Xingu to Monte Alegre. These hills are reduced to a kind of terrace that lies between them and the river.
On the southern shore, above the Xingu, a line of cliffs that line the alluvial plain extends almost to Santarém in a series of gentle curves before turning southwest, and, adjacent to the lower Tapajós, merge into the cliffs that they form the margin terrace of the Tapajós river valley.
Belém: it is the main city and port at the mouth of the river in the Atlantic Ocean. The definition of where exactly the mouth of the Amazon is located and how wide it is is a matter of controversy due to the peculiar geography of the area.
The Pará and the Amazon are connected by a series of river channels called furos near the city of Breves; Among them is Marajó, the largest combined river / sea island in the world.
If the Pará river and the oceanic facade of the island of Marajó are included, the Amazon estuary is about 325 kilometers (202 mi) wide. In this case, the width of the river mouth is usually measured from Cabo Norte, the cape located east of Pracuúba in the Brazilian state of Amapá, to Ponta da Tijoca, near the city of Curuçá, in the state of Pará.
A more conservative measure that excludes the estuary of the Pará River, from the mouth of the Araguari River to Ponta do Navio on the north coast of Marajó, would still give the mouth of the Amazon a width of more than 180 kilometers (110 miles). If only the main channel of the river is considered, between the islands of Curuá (state of Amapá) and Jurupari (state of Pará), the width falls to about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles).
The pen generated by the discharge of the river covers up to 1.3 million square kilometers and is responsible for the muddy bottoms that influence a large area of the tropical North Atlantic in terms of salinity, pH, light penetration and sedimentation.
Dispute over length
While the debate over whether the Amazon River or the Nile is the longest river in the world has lasted many years, the historical consensus of the geographical authorities has decided to consider the Amazon River as the second longest river in the world, with the Nile being the longest.
However, different geographers have measured the Amazon between 6,259 and 6,992 kilometers (3,889 and 4,345 mi) long. It is often said to be "at least" 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) long.
According to reports, the Nile is between 5,499 and 6,690 kilometers (3,417 to 4,157 miles). It is often said to be "approximately" 6,650 kilometers (4,130 miles) long. There are many factors that can affect these measures.
A study of Brazilian scientists concluded that the Amazon River is actually longer than the Nile. Using Nevado Mismi, which in 2001 was labeled by the National Geographic Society as the source of the Amazon River, these scientists made new calculations of the length of the River Amazon.
They calculated the length of the Amazon River as 6,992 kilometers (4,345 miles). Using the same techniques, they calculated the length of the Nile as 6,853 kilometers (4,258 miles), which is longer than previous estimates, but even shorter than that of the Amazon River.
They made it possible by measuring the Amazon downstream to the beginning of the tidal estuary of Canal do Sul and then, of a sharp turn, following the tidal channels that surround the island of Marajó and finally including the marine waters of the Bay of the River For.
Full length. Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), told the Brazilian television network Globo in June 2007 that it could be considered a fact that the Amazon was the longest river in the world.
However, other geographers have had access to the same data since 2001, and a consensus has not yet been reached to support the claims of these Brazilian scientists. The length of the Amazon River and the Nile remains open to interpretation and ongoing debate.
Amazon River: features and location
The vast Amazon Basin (Amazonia), the largest plain in Latin America, has an area of approximately 2.7 million square miles (7 million square kilometers) and is almost twice as large as that of the Congo River, another large Earth's equatorial drainage system.
Extending approximately 1,725 miles (2,780 km) from north to south at its widest point, the basin includes most of Brazil and Peru, significant parts of Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, and a small area of Venezuela as seen on the map of the Amazon River.
Approximately two thirds of the mainstream of the Amazon and, by far, most of its basin are located within Brazil. The Tocantins-Araguaia area of influence in the state of Pará covers another 300,000 square miles (777,000 square km). Although the Brazilian government and popular use consider it part of the Amazon, it is technically a separate system. It is estimated that about one fifth of all the water that escapes from the Earth's surface is transported by the Amazon River.
Among the characteristics of the Amazon River we have that the discharge in the flood stage at the mouth of the river is four times that of the Congo and more than 10 times the amount transported by the Mississippi River. This immense volume of fresh water dilutes the salinity of the ocean more than 100 miles (160 km) from the coast.
The extensive lowland areas that border the main river and its tributaries, called Várzeas (floodplains), are subject to annual flooding, with the consequent enrichment of the soil; However, most of the great basin is made up of highlands, well above the floods and known as the mainland.
As it could be seen on the map of the Amazon River, more than two thirds of the basin are covered by an immense tropical rainforest, which extends to the dry forest and the savanna in the highest north and south margins and to the montane forest in the Andes to the west. The Amazon Rainforest, which accounts for approximately half of the remaining rainforest on Earth, also constitutes its largest reserve of biological resources.
Since the last decades of the 20th century, the Amazon basin has attracted international attention because human activities have increasingly threatened the balance of the highly complex forest ecology.
Deforestation has accelerated, especially to the south of the Amazon River and in the foothills of the Andes, as new roads and air transport facilities have opened the basin to a wave of settlers, businesses and researchers in the Boiling River of the Amazon.
Relief formations and drainage patterns
The Amazon basin is a major structural depression, a subsidence channel that has been filled with immense amounts of sediments from the Cenozoic age (that is, dating to approximately the last 65 million years). This depression, which extends to its greatest extent in the upper parts of the Amazon, lies between two ancient and relatively low crystalline plateaus, the rugged Highlands of Guyana to the north and the highlands of Brazil (somewhat further from the main river) to the south .
The Amazon basin was occupied by a large sea of fresh water during the Pliocene Era (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago). At some point during the Pleistocene Era (approximately 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) an exit to the Atlantic was established, and the great river and its tributaries were deeply entrenched in the seabed of the previous Pliocene.
The modern Amazon and its tributaries occupy a vast system of drowned valleys full of floods. With the rise in sea level that followed the melting of Pleistocene glaciers, steep-sided canyons that had eroded on the Pliocene surface during the period of lower sea levels gradually flooded. In the upper part of the basin in eastern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Amazon River in Bolivia, the most recent overflow of the Andes has covered many of the oldest surfaces.
Physiography of the Amazon River course
The main exits of the Amazon River are the two canals to the north of the island of Marajó, a low land of size slightly larger than Denmark, through a group of semi-submerged islets and shallow sandbars.
There the mouth of the river is 40 miles (64 km) wide. The port city of Belém, Brazil. It is found in the deep waters of the Pará river estuary south of Marajó. The Pará is fed mainly by the Tocantins River, which enters Pará southwest of Belém.
The link between the port city and the main channel of the Amazon is to the north along the oceanic facade of Marajó or following the narrow but narrow furos (canals) of Breves that connect the island to the west and southwest and join the river Para with the Amazon.
There are more than 1,000 tributaries of the Amazon that flow into the highlands of Guyana, the highlands of Brazil and the Andes. Here are six of these tributaries:
Japurá river.
Juruá River.
Madeira River
Black river
Purus river.
Xingu River
These are more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long; The Madeira River exceeds 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the source to the mouth.
Larger ships sailing across the ocean can ascend the river 1,000 miles to the city of Manaus, Brazil, while smaller cargo ships and passengers can reach Iquitos, Peru, 1,300 miles (2,090 km) upstream, at any time of the year.
The sedimentary axis of the Amazon basin comprises two distinct groups of geographical accidents: the Várzea or alluvial flood of the Holocene age (that is, up to approximately 11,700 years), and the mainland, or highland surfaces of Pliocene and Pleistocene (11,700 to 5,300,000 years) that are well above the highest flood level.
The floodplain of the main river is characteristically 12 to 30 miles (19 to 50 km) wide. It is irregularly limited by low cliffs 20 to 100 feet (6 to 30 meters) high, beyond which, the oldest undulating highlands extend both north and south to the horizon.
From time to time, these cliffs are undermined by the river that oscillates from side to side through the flood, producing the fallen terra, or "fallen earth," so often described by Amazonian travelers. In the city of Óbidos, Brazil, where the width of the river is approximately 1.25 miles (2 km), a low range of relatively hard rocks narrows the wide flood plain.
Hydrology
Most of the 1.3 million tons of sediments that the Amazon pours daily into the sea are transported northward by coastal currents to deposit along the coasts of northern Brazil and French Guiana. As a consequence, the river is not building a delta. Normally, the effect of the tide feels as upstream as Óbidos, Brazil, 600 miles (970 km) from the mouth of the river.
A tidal hole called pororoca sometimes occurs in the estuary, before live tides. With an increasing roar, it advances upstream at speeds of 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) per hour, forming a breaking wall of water 5 to 12 feet (1.5 to 4 meters) high.
In the Óbidos Strait, river flow was measured at 7,628,000 cubic feet (216,000 cubic meters) per second; its width is restricted to just over a mile. Here the average depth of the channel below the average watermark is more than 200 feet (60 meters), well below sea level.
In most of the Brazilian river, its depth exceeds 150 feet (45 meters). Its gradient is extraordinarily slight. On the Peruvian border, about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the Atlantic, the elevation above sea level is less than 300 feet (90 meters).
The maximum free width (without islands) of the permanent bed of the river is 8.5 miles (14 km), upstream from the mouth of the Xingu. However, during the great floods, when the river completely fills the floodplain, it extends over a band of approximately 55 km (55 miles) wide or more. The average speed of the Amazon is approximately 1.5 miles per hour, a speed that increases considerably at the time of the flood.
The rise and fall of water are controlled by events outside the flood plain. The Amazon floods are not disasters, but distinctive and anticipated events. Its marked regularity and the gradual change in water level are due to the enormous size of the basin. The smooth gradient and the large temporary storage capacity of both the flood plain and the estuaries of the river tributaries. The upper course of the Amazon has two annual floods.
The river is subject to the alternative influence of tributaries that descend from the Peruvian Andes (where rains fall from October to January) and from the Ecuadorian Andes (where rains fall from March to July).
This alternating pattern disappears later, as the two high-flow stations gradually merge into one. Therefore, the ascent of the river progresses slowly downstream in a gigantic wave from November to June, and then the waters recede until the end of October. Flood levels can reach 40 to 50 feet (12 to 15 meters) above the low river.
Amazon River Climate
The climate of the Amazon River is warm, rainy and humid. The lengths of day and night are the same on the equator (which runs only slightly north of the river), and normally clear nights favor relatively rapid radiation from the heat received from the sun during the 12-hour day.
There is a greater difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures than between the hottest and coldest months. Therefore, the night can be considered the winter of the Amazon.
In Manaus, the average daily temperature is between the upper 80 ° F (approximately 32 ° C) in September and the mid 70 ° F (approximately 24 ° C) in April, but the humidity is constantly high and often oppressive.
During the winter months of the southern hemisphere, a powerful mass of south-polar air drifts occasionally northward in the Amazon region, causing a sharp drop in temperature, known locally as friagem, when mercury can register at 50 ° F (around 14 ° C). At any time of the year, several days of heavy rains can be replaced by clear and sunny days and cool, cool nights with relatively low humidity. In the lower reaches of the river basin, the refreshing trade winds blow most of the year.
The main influx of atmospheric water vapor in the basin comes from the east. Approximately half of the precipitation that falls comes from the Atlantic Ocean; the other half comes from the evapotranspiration of the tropical forest and the associated conventional storms.
Lowland rainfall generally ranges from 60 to 120 inches (1,500 to 3,000 mm) annually in the central Amazon basin (for example, Manaus). On the east and northwest margins of the basin, rainfall occurs throughout the year, while in the central part there is a defined drier period, usually from June to November.
Manaus has experienced up to 60 consecutive days without rain. In addition, in 2005, the Manaus region experienced a devastating drought, which caused dry parts of the river; This hindered transportation, depleted drinking supplies and left millions of rotten fish in the riverbed.
Such extreme periods of drought are uncommon in the Manaus region, but fluctuations in the river level - which are believed to be related to climatic events and ongoing deforestation in the area - have remained a cause for concern. The dry season is not intense enough to stop plant growth, but it can facilitate the onset and spread of fires, whether natural or not. To the west, the Andes form a natural barrier that prevents most of the water vapor from leaving the basin.
The influence of the mountains on the rain is indicated by the high levels of precipitation in the upper foothills and by the Andean flanks soaked with clouds, which feed the rivers that form a large part of the Amazon system. The largest amounts of precipitation, up to 140 inches (3,500 mm), are recorded in the upper Putumayo River along the Colombian border.
Soils
The vast Amazonian forest vegetation seems extremely lush, leading to the erroneous conclusion that the underlying soil must be extremely fertile. In fact, the nutrients in the system are enclosed in vegetation, including roots and leaf litter, and are continuously recycled through the fall and decay of the leaves.
In general, the soils above the flood level are well drained, are porous and of variable structure. They are often sandy and of low natural fertility due to their lack of phosphate, nitrogen and potash and their high acidity.
The small areas are covered by basaltic rocks, with reddish soils known in the same way as (terra roxa) of considerable natural fertility. Terra preta dos Indios (“black land of the Indians”) is another type of localized and superior soil, created by the settlement activity of the past.
The agricultural potential of flooded areas of várzea annually is excellent. Its soils do not lack nutrients, since they are rejuvenated every year by the deposit of fertile sediments that remain when the waters recede, but their use for agricultural purposes is limited by periodic flooding.
It is estimated that these valuable soils occupy about 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km).
Importance of the Amazon River
The importance of the Amazon River is not defined solely by its size. It is the blood of an incredibly vast and diverse jungle. This tropical forest is the largest in the world. It overlaps the boundaries of nine countries and wildlife is so abundant that it is estimated that one third of the world's animal species can be found there.
Some of the best known animals in the region are the jaguar, the ocelot and the three-toed sloth. The waters of the Amazon are also combined with life, and some estimates put the number of fish species at 5,000.
The interior of the Amazon basin saw little development until the 20th century, and the area remained largely inaccessible and uncultivated. Since then, a road network has been built linking the main cities and greater access to available resources. Even so, as of 2014, the region contains large areas of tropical forests, grasslands and savannas that have not yet been developed.
Tributaries of the Amazon River
People see pictures of the dark Amazon and think about pollution when they are really seeing sediments. The white-water tributaries of the Amazon originate in the Andes, where nutrient-rich sediments disappear.
The sediment shake makes these tributaries appear white, but most of the material that the rivers are actually milky brown. The tributaries of white waters of the Amazon are neutral to slightly acidic and periodically flood. These include the Madre de Dios, Beni, Jutai, Madeira and Napo rivers. The Solimoes River and the Amazon River itself are white water rivers.
The tributaries of sewage are slow, dark brown, very light and very acidic, which makes them inhospitable for parasites, bacteria and insect larvae. This is an advantage for visitors, since that means that mosquitoes in and around these tributaries are less annoying. On the other hand, the lower diversity of trees results in a lower diversity of wildlife in the rainforest.
This is not true for fish species. Having adapted to the conditions, they are quite diverse in these rivers and easy to see due to the clarity of the water.
The rainforest areas surrounding the sewage rivers flood regularly during the flood season. The Blackwater rivers have a low pH and nutrient content because the river is composed of ancient rock that no longer decomposes and because it was leached from the vegetation of the decomposing floodplain due to almost constant flooding.
Although they are found elsewhere, most of the world's blackwater rivers are tributaries of the Amazon. Among these tributaries of sewage are the Negro and Urubu, as well as the Yarapo River near Iquitos, Peru. Some tributaries of the Amazon are clear water rivers, with an even lower pH than black water rivers. These include the Tapajos river in Brazil, the Trombetas river that flows from Venezuela and the Xingu river from the south, all east of Manaus.
The black and white water systems meet near Manaus, Brazil, and flow side by side for several thousand locally described as "the meeting of the waters." This phenomenon is an interesting day trip for visitors to the Amazon tours in Manaus.
Flora and Fauna of the Amazon River
The predominantly dominant feature of the Amazon basin is the rainforest, or jungle, which has a disconcerting complexity and a prodigious variety of trees. In fact, up to 100 tree species have been counted in a single acre of forest, and few of them occur more than once.
The Amazon rainforest has a surprisingly stratified structure. The giant sun-loving giants of the upper reaches, the canopy, rise as high as 120 feet (40 meters) above the ground; Occasional individual trees, rise beyond the canopy, often reaching heights of 200 feet (60 meters).
Its straight and whitish trunks are dotted with lichen and fungi. A feature of these giant trees is their buttresses, the basal enlargements of their trunks, which help stabilize the heaviest trees during strong winds.
Other characteristics of the canopy trees are their narrow, pointed down, "drip tip" leaves, which easily shed water, and their cauliflory (the production of flowers directly from the trunks instead of the branches).The flowers are discreet. Among the prominent members of the canopy species, which capture most of the sunlight and perform most of the photosynthesis, are:
Rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis).
Silk trees (Ceiba pentandra).
Chestnut trees (Bertholletia excelsa).
Sapucaia trees (Lecythis).
Sucupira trees (Bowdichia).
Under the canopy there are two or three levels of shade-tolerant trees, including certain species of palm trees, of the Mauritia, Orbignya and Euterpe genera. Myrtle, laurel, bignon, fig, Spanish cedar, mahogany and rosewood are also common. They admit a large number of epiphytes (plants that live in other plants), such as orchids, bromeliads and cacti, as well as ferns and mosses. The entire system is entwined by a bewildering network of woody antler vines known as vines.
In addition to the rainforests of the mainland, there are two types of flooded rainforests, Várzea and igapó, which constitute approximately 3 percent of the total Amazon rainforest. The forests of Várzea can be found in the flood plains rich in silt and nutrients of the white water rivers such as the Madeira and the Amazon, with their constantly changing mosaic of lakes, marshes, sandbanks, abandoned canals and natural dikes .
They are generally not as tall, diverse or old as those on the mainland, and are subject to periodic destruction by floods and human manipulation. (The Várzea and its flood-free margins attract most human settlements).
Wild cane (Gynerium) and aquatic herbs and herbs, as well as the fast-growing pioneer tree species of the Cecropia, Ficus and Erythrina genera, are conspicuous.
The forests of Igapó grow along the sandy plains of sewage and rivers of clear waters such as the Negro, the Tapajós and the Trombetas. These forests can reach a maximum flood level of 40 feet (12 meters) for up to half the year, but can be accessed by canoe.
The lowland forest of the Andean strip becomes a mountainous or cloud forest, discontinuous and matted, formed by deformed trees covered with mosses, lichens and bromeliads. There you can find cinchona, or tree of fever-bark, once exploited by its antimalarial agent, quinine. At even higher elevations there is the growth of the grass and shrub of the páramo areas and the cold region of Antiplano.
Giving a succinct description of the complete fauna of the Amazon is as impossible as adequately describing the great diversity of its flora; In part, this is because many of the species in the region have not yet been identified. The rivers and streams of the basin are full of life, and the forest canopy resonates with the cries of birds and monkeys and the hum of insects. There is a notable shortage of large species of land mammals; in fact, many of the mammals are arboreal.
Animals found in the Amazon River
More than 8,000 species of insects have been collected and classified. Myriads of mosquitoes can transmit diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. Leaf-cutting ants (of the Atta and Acromyrmex genera) are frequent, as are the ubiquitous small black flies known as pions in Brazil.
Fireflies, bees, hornets, wasps, beetles, cockroaches, cicadas, centipedes, scorpions, ticks, red insects and giant spiders are abundant. The most spectacular, however, are the hundreds of species of brightly colored butterflies; sometimes thousands of butterflies gather in riverside sandbanks in the afternoon.
Alligators are hunted for their skins, river turtles and their eggs are considered a delicacy, and the giant sea cow, or manatee, is wanted for its meat and oil. All are threatened by excessive hunting, and the manatee has been included as an endangered species.
Aquatic animals also include river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis); the semi-aquatic capybara, the largest rodent in the world (weighing up to 170 pounds [80 kg]); and the otter, or coipo, valued especially for its skin. Other common rodents are paca, agouti, porcupine and local squirrels, rats and mice.
The tapir, the white-lipped peccary and several species of deer are native to the Amazon basin and highly sought after for their meat. The water buffalo, introduced from Southeast Asia as working and dairy cattle, predominates in the remote and swampy parts of the island of Marajó (see article: Arkansas River).
Fishing in the Amazon River
The immense ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest means that searching for fish in the Amazon can be a very exciting experience. From the strange and wonderful to the utterly strange, the Amazon River is full of fish, many of which you may never have heard and never find anywhere else.
With approximately 30% of South America, the Amazon River basin is home to more than 2,000 different species of fish that are endemic to the Amazon region, this includes 15,000 tributaries and a total length of 6,520 km. Brazil has some of the most interesting and largest fish in the region, while many more reside in the waters of the other countries that are home to the Amazon.
Fish of the Amazon River
About 1,500 species of fish have been found within the Amazon River system, but many more have not been identified. Most fish are migratory and move to large schools at the time of spawning.
Fish represent a critical source of dietary protein often poor in meat of the caboclo population. (The term caboclo refers to people of mixed European and Indian descent in Brazil who live from rivers and forests).
Among the most important commercial species are the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), one of the largest freshwater fish in the world, and several giant catfish. The small meat-eating piranha usually feeds on other fish, but can attack any animal or human that enters the water.
His sharp teeth cut pieces of meat, stripping his corpse of meat in a few minutes. Some fish species have become locally threatened as global demand for frozen and dried fish has increased.
The tropical fish of the Amazon River are also some of the most desired for food and breeding and for use as aquarium specimens. Iquitos, Manaus and the Colombian port of Leticia are centers of these exchanges.
Amazon River Dolphin
The Amazon River dolphin, also known as the pink river dolphin or boto, lives only in fresh water. It is found largely in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela (see article: Río San Lorenzo). It is a relatively abundant freshwater cetacean with an estimated population of tens of thousands. However, it is classified as vulnerable in certain areas due to dams that fragment and threaten certain populations, and other threats such as pollution of rivers and lakes.
Curiosities found in the Amazon River
The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world. Covering more than 5.5 million square kilometers, it is so large that the United Kingdom and Ireland would fit into it 17 times!
Running through the north of the jungle is the Amazon River. With a length of approximately 6,400 km, it is the second longest river in the world. The longest is the Nile River, which extends over more than 6,650 km!
In 2007, a man named Martin Strel swam along the Amazon River! To complete his jungle trip, Martin moved through the water for up to ten hours a day for 66 days.
Around 400-500 indigenous Amerindian tribes call the Amazon rainforest home. It is believed that about fifty of these tribes had never had contact with the outside world.
The Amazon has an incredibly rich ecosystem: there are about 40,000 species of plants, 1,300 species of birds, 3,000 types of fish, 430 mammals and a whopping 2.5 million different insects.
The Amazon is home to a lot of fascinating and deadly. - creatures, including electric eels, piranhas that eat meat, poison frogs, jaguars and some venomous snakes. These are several of the many curiosities and characteristics of the Amazon River.
Amazon River Countries
The Amazon is located in South America, covering Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
Economic activities of the Amazon River
Since World War II, the economic development of the Amazon basin has been a priority for the countries it covers. From the mid-1940s onwards, a series of "penetration roads" have been built from the highlands of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia to the East.
These roads have channeled an incalculable number of landless peasants into the lowlands. They have also served to facilitate the development of important discoveries of oil and timber resources.
Tropical hardwoods, river fish and, since the 1980s, clandestinely produced cocaine have been commercially exploited, along with Brahman-type cattle raised in freshly carved pastures in the jungle.
Such activities have led to a widespread displacement of indigenous groups, which have been forced into new reserves or have been left to survive as best they could. The opening of the Amazon basin has been carried out more aggressively in Brazil. In the mid-1950s, the decision was made to reorient the country inland by building a new interior capital, Brasilia.
A consequence of this decision was the beginning of a massive road construction program that aimed to integrate the North (consisting of the current states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima) with the rest of Brazil while established an exhaust valve for the northeast crowded and hit by drought.
A 1,100-mile (1,770 km) long road linking Brasilia to Belém, the trade center at the mouth of the Amazon, was completed in 1964. The even more ambitious Transamazon Highway of 3,400 miles (5,100 km). For all the cities of the Amazon River from the Atlantic port of Recife to Cruzeiro do Sul, on the border with Peru, with extensions north of Santarém and Manaus (later to the border with Venezuela) and south to Cuiabá (Mato Grosso ) and Pôrto Velho (Rondônia).
It was to provide the framework for a network of almost 20,000 miles (32,000 km) of roads and feeder routes that would replace the traditional river transport system. At the beginning of the 21st century, the road had not been completed, and remained largely unpaved and impassable at several points (see article: Colorado River).
Is the Amazon River Contaminated?
The world's largest river system is rapidly being degraded and threatened by dams, mining, overfishing and deforestation, warns a study published last week by an international team of scientists.
Researchers led by Leandro Castello, a research associate at the Woods Hole Research Center, catalog the litany of threats facing the Amazon River and its tributaries. They point out that existing terrestrial protected areas may not be sufficient to protect river ecosystems affected by upstream and downstream activities, including oil extraction, gold mining, overexploitation of plants and animals, logging and forest conversion and the construction of dams.
Amazon River in Peru
The headwaters of the Apurimac River in the Nevado Mismi had been considered for almost a century as the most distant source of the Amazon, which is where the Amazon River is born; until a 2014 study discovered that it was the Rumi Cruz Mountain Range at the head of the Mantaro River in Peru. The Mantaro and the Apurímac join, and with other tributaries, they form the Ucayali River, which in turn meets the Marañón River upstream of Iquitos, Peru, to form what other countries apart from Brazil consider the main source of the Amazon .
Brazilians call this section the Solimões River about its confluence with the Black River to form what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Water Encounter (Portuguese: Encontro das Águas) in Manaus, the largest city in the river.
Amazon River in Colombia
The Amazon region in southern Colombia comprises the departments of Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo and Vaupés, and covers an area of 403,000 km², 35% of the total territory of Colombia. The region is mainly covered by rainforest or jungle, which is part of the massive Amazon rainforest.
Amazon River in Leticia
Leticia, as we know, is one of the municipalities of Colombia, which is located at the southern tip of the country, it is also the Capital of the Department of the Amazon, has a very important commercial link with Brazil, since it borders the Amazon River, giving it the name as the "Three Borders", with Peru and Brazil. It has an elevation of 96 meters above sea level and an average temperature of 27 ° C (80.6 ° F). Leticia has long been Colombia's boarding point for tropical fish and aquarium trade.
Leticia has approximately 33,000 inhabitants on the left bank of the Amazon River, and is located at the point where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet in an area called the Three Borders as mentioned above.
Amazon River in Venezuela
The state capital is Puerto Ayacucho. The capital until the early 1900s was San Fernando de Atabapo. Although named after the Amazon River, most of the state is drained by the Orinoco River. The state of Amazonas covers a total area of 176,899 km² and, in 2007, had a population of 142,200. Its density is 0.8 inhabitants per km².
During what many archaeologists call the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of the agrarian systems of the highlands of South America.
The commerce with the Andean civilizations in the lands of the headwaters of the Andes, formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of the civilizations of higher altitude, among others, the Muiscas and the Incas. The first human settlements were generally based on low hills or mounds.
Five types of archaeological mounds have been observed in the Amazon region:
Shell waste
Artificial mounds
Artificial earth platforms for entire villages
Mounds of land and crests for cultivation
Roadways and canals, and figurative mounds, both geometric and biomorphic.
The shell mounds: they were the first evidence of room; They represent lots of human waste and are mainly dated between 7500 and 4000 years. They are associated with ceramic age cultures; no mound of pre-ceramic shell has been documented so far by archaeologists.
Artificial earth platforms: for entire villages they are the second type of mounds. They are best represented by the culture of Marajoara. Figurative mounds are the most recent types of occupation (see article: Río Segura).There is ample evidence that the areas surrounding the Amazon River harbored complex and large-scale indigenous societies, mainly chiefdoms that developed large cities and towns.
Archaeologists estimate in the history of the Amazon River, that by the time the Spanish conqueror De Orellana traveled across the Amazon in 1541, more than 3 million indigenous people lived around the Amazon. These pre-Columbian settlements created highly developed civilizations. For example, pre-Columbian Indians on the island of Marajó may have developed a social stratification and support a population of 100,000 people. To achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the ecology of the forest through selective cultivation and the use of fire.
Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repetitively, the indigenous people made the soil richer in nutrients. This created areas of dark soil known as terra preta de indio.
Due to the terra preta, called dark earth as mentioned above; Indigenous communities were able to make the lands fertile and, therefore, sustainable for the large-scale agriculture necessary to maintain their large populations and complex social structures.
Additional research has hypothesized that this practice began around 11,000 years ago. Some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the inexplicable band of lower rainfall across the Amazon basin. (see article: Mekon River).
Many of the indigenous tribes participate in the constant war. James Stuart Olson wrote: “The expansion of Munduruku dislocated and displaced the Kawahíb, dividing the tribe into much smaller groups. Munduruku called the attention of Europeans for the first time in 1770 when they began a series of widespread attacks against Brazilian settlements along the Amazon River.
As for the history of the Amazon River, we mentioned that in March 1500, the Spanish conqueror Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first documented European to navigate the Amazon River. Pinzón called the Santa María del Mar Dulce river stream, later shortened to Mar Dulce, literally, fresh sea, due to its fresh water that pushes towards the ocean.
Another Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, was the first European to travel from the origins of the upstream river basins, located in the Andes, to the mouth of the river. On this trip, Orellana baptized some of the tributaries of the Amazon such as Río Negro, Napo and Jurua.
Francisco de Orellana baptized the Amazon River with this name, which is the largest in the world. ... Orellana, who lost an eye during the adventure, told on his return to Spain that the brig had been attacked by numerous warrior women who dominated the bow and arrows.
What does Rio Amazonas mean? It is taken from the native warriors who attacked this expedition, mostly women, which reminded De Orellana of the Amazonian warriors of the ancient Hellenic.
culture in Greece.
Exploration
Gonzalo Pizarro left in 1541 to explore eastern Quito in the interior of South America in search of El Dorado, the “city of gold” and La Canela, the “cinnamon valley”. He was accompanied by his second in command, Francisco de Orellana.
After 170 kilometers (110 miles), the Coca River joined the Napo River (at a point now known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana); The entourage stopped for a few weeks to build a boat just upriver from this confluence.
De Orellana offered and was ordered to follow the Napo River, then known as Río de la Canela (“Río Canela”) and return with food for the entourage. They continued downstream through an uninhabited area, where they could not find food. Based on information received from a captive native chief named Delicola, they hoped to find food a few days downstream by ascending another river to the north.
De Orellana took about 57 men, the boat and some canoes and left Pizarro's troops on December 26, 1541. However, De Orellana apparently lost the confluence (probably with the Aguarico) where he was looking for supplies for his men.
By the time he and his men arrived at another village, many of them were starving and ate "harmful plants," and were about to die. Seven men died in that village. His men threatened to mutiny if he followed his orders and the expedition returned to join Pizarro's largest entourage. He agreed to change the purpose of the expedition to discover new lands in the name of the king of Spain, and the men built a larger ship to navigate downstream. After a 600 km trip along the Napo River.
They reached a greater confluence, at a point near Iquitos, and then followed the upper part of the Amazon, now known as Solimões, for another 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) to its confluence with the Río Negro (near modern Manaus), to which They arrived on June 3, 1542. On the Nhamunda River, tributary of the Amazon River. Downstream from Manaus, Orellana's group had a fierce battle with warriors who, they reported, were led by fierce warriors who beat men to death with sticks if they tried to withdraw.
Orellana's men began to refer to women as Amazonas, a reference to the tribe of women warriors of Greek mythology. The river was initially known as the Marañón (the name by which the Peruvian part of the river is still known today) or Rio de Orellana. It later became known as the Amazon River, the name by which it is still known in both Spanish and Portuguese.
Regarding the initial mission of finding cinnamon, Pizarro informed the king that they had found cinnamon trees, but that they could not be harvested profitably. In fact, true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is not native to South America. Other related plants that contain cinnamon (from the Lauraceae family) are quite common in that part of the Amazon and Pizarro probably saw some of them. The expedition arrived at the mouth of the Amazon on August 24, 1542, demonstrating the practical navigability of the Great River.
In 1560, another Spanish conqueror, Lope de Aguirre, could have made the second descent of the Amazon. Historians are not sure if the river that descended was the Amazon or the Orinoco River, which runs more or less parallel to the Amazon further north.
Discovery of the Amazon River
The Portuguese explorer Pedro Teixeira was the first European to travel across the river. He arrived in Quito in 1637 and returned by the same route. From 1648 to 1652, the Brazilian Portuguese bandeirante António Raposo Tavares led an expedition from São Paulo by land to the mouth of the Amazon, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Black River, and covering a distance of more than 10,000 km (6,214 miles) .
In what is currently Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, a series of colonial and religious settlements were established along the banks of the main rivers and tributaries with the purpose of commercializing, enslaving and evangelizing indigenous peoples from the vast rainforest, like the Urarina. At the end of the 17th century, Spanish Jesuit Father Samuel Fritz, apostle of the Omaguas, established about forty mission villages.
Where the Amazon River is born
It was thought that the most distant source of the Amazon was in the drainage of the Apurimac River for almost a century. These studies continued to be published even recently, as in 1996, 2001, 2007, and 2008.
Where several authors identified the Mismi snowfall of 5,597 m (5,797 m), located approximately 160 km (99 miles) west of Lake Titicaca and 700 km (430 miles) southeast of Lima, as the most distant origin of the Amazon River.
From that point, the Carhuasanta Gorge emerges from the Mismi Snow, joins the Apacheta Gorge and then forms the Lloqueta River that becomes the Hornillos River and finally joins the Apurimac River. A 2014 study by Americans James Contos and Nicolás Tripcevich in Area, a magazine reviewed by the Royal Geographic Society, shows how they manage to identify the most distant source in the Amazon, and at the same time how to be in the Mantaro River drainage.
A variety of methods were used to compare the lengths of the Mantaro River with the Apurimac River from its most distant points of origin to its confluence, showing the longest length of the Mantaro.
The distances from Lake Junin to several potential points of origin in the Mantaro River were then measured, which allowed them to determine that the Rumi Cruz Mountain Range was the origin of the Amazon River, being the most distant water source in the Mantaro Basin (and therefore throughout the Amazon basin).
Birth, Route and mouth of the Amazon River
The birth of the Amazon River is in the Cordillera de los Andes Nevado Mismi, Arequipa, Peru, which is why the most accurate measurement method was the direct measurement of the GPS obtained by the kayak descent of each of the rivers from its point of origin until its confluence (carried out by Contos).
Obtaining these measurements was difficult given the nature of class IV-V of each of these rivers, especially in its lower "Abyss" sections. Ultimately, they determined that the most distant point in the Mantaro drainage is almost 80 km upstream compared to Mt.
Mismi in the Apurimac drainage, and therefore the maximum length of the Amazon River is approximately 80 km longer than previously thought. Contos continued downstream to the ocean and finished the first complete descent of the Amazon River. From its newly identified source (ending in November 2012), a trip repeated by two groups after the dissemination of the news.
After about 700 km (430 miles), Apurimac is known to then join the Mantaro River to form the Ene, which subsequently joins the Perene to form the Tambo, which then joins the Urubamba River to form the Ucayali.
After the confluence of Apurimac and Ucayali, the river leaves the Andean terrain and is surrounded by the flood plain. From this point to the confluence of the Ucayali and the Marañón, about 1,600 km (990 miles), the forested banks are located just above the water and flood long before the river reaches its maximum flood stage. The lower riverbanks are interrupted by only a few hills, and the river enters the huge Amazon rainforest.
The big question was: Where is the Amazon River born? It is because of them that after all this journey we have done that this is a river that crosses Peru where the birth of the Amazon River is considered, and in turn, also crosses Colombia and Brazil where its mouth of the Amazon River is considered.
The High Amazon
Although the Ucayali-Marañón confluence is the point at which most geographers locate the beginning or birth of the Amazon River itself, in Brazil the river is known at this point as the Solimões das Águas. The river systems and floodplains in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, whose waters flow into the Solimões and its tributaries, are called the “Alto Amazonas”.
The Amazon itself runs primarily through Brazil and Peru, and is part of the border between Colombia and Peru. It has a number of important tributaries in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, some of which flow into the Marañón and Ucayali, and others directly into the Amazon itself. These include the rivers:
Putumayo
Caquetá
Vaupés
Guainía
Morona
Pastaza
Nucuray
Urituyacu
Chambira
Tiger
Nanay
Napo
Huallaga
At some points the river is divided into multiple channels, often very long, with internal and lateral channels, all connected by a complicated system of natural channels, cutting the lowlands and flat igapó, which never exceed 5 meters above the river Low, on many islands. From the town of Canaria in the great curve of the Amazon to the Black, large tracts of land submerge in the high waters, above which only the upper part of the trees of the shady forests appears.
We mentioned earlier that the mouth of the Amazon River is in Río Negro a Serpa, almost in front of the Madeira River, the banks of the Amazon are low, until they approach Manaus, they rise to become hills.
The lower Amazon
The Lower Amazon begins where the dark waters of the Black River meet the Solimões River of sand color, and for more than 6 km (4 miles) these waters run side by side without mixing.
In Óbidos, a 17 m (56 ft) cliff above the river is backed by low hills. The lower Amazon seems to have once been a gulf of the Atlantic Ocean, whose waters washed the cliffs near Óbidos.
Length, Width and Depth of the Amazon River
Many wonder how much the Amazon River measures ?, its size is about 6400 km. In other words, only ten percent of the Amazon water enters downstream of Óbidos, very little of which comes from the northern slope of the valley. The drainage area of the Amazon basin over the city of Óbidos. The depth of the Amazon River varies; it has been registered in some areas from 20 to 50 meters, as in others it has been registered from 90-100 meters.
Many studies reveal in the same way that the depth of the Amazon River does not exceed 7 meters, since depending on the place it always varies. It is approximately 5,000,000 square kilometers (1,900,000 square miles) and, below, only 1,000,000 square kilometers (390,000 square miles) (about 20%), excluding the 1,400,000 square kilometers (540,000 square miles) of the Tocantins basin. The Tocantins River enters the southern portion of the Amazon Delta.
In the lower part of the river, the north bank consists of a series of steep and covered table hills that extend about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the mouth of the Xingu to Monte Alegre. These hills are reduced to a kind of terrace that lies between them and the river.
On the southern shore, above the Xingu, a line of cliffs that line the alluvial plain extends almost to Santarém in a series of gentle curves before turning southwest, and, adjacent to the lower Tapajós, merge into the cliffs that they form the margin terrace of the Tapajós river valley.
Belém: it is the main city and port at the mouth of the river in the Atlantic Ocean. The definition of where exactly the mouth of the Amazon is located and how wide it is is a matter of controversy due to the peculiar geography of the area.
The Pará and the Amazon are connected by a series of river channels called furos near the city of Breves; Among them is Marajó, the largest combined river / sea island in the world.
If the Pará river and the oceanic facade of the island of Marajó are included, the Amazon estuary is about 325 kilometers (202 mi) wide. In this case, the width of the river mouth is usually measured from Cabo Norte, the cape located east of Pracuúba in the Brazilian state of Amapá, to Ponta da Tijoca, near the city of Curuçá, in the state of Pará.
A more conservative measure that excludes the estuary of the Pará River, from the mouth of the Araguari River to Ponta do Navio on the north coast of Marajó, would still give the mouth of the Amazon a width of more than 180 kilometers (110 miles). If only the main channel of the river is considered, between the islands of Curuá (state of Amapá) and Jurupari (state of Pará), the width falls to about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles).
The pen generated by the discharge of the river covers up to 1.3 million square kilometers and is responsible for the muddy bottoms that influence a large area of the tropical North Atlantic in terms of salinity, pH, light penetration and sedimentation.
Dispute over length
While the debate over whether the Amazon River or the Nile is the longest river in the world has lasted many years, the historical consensus of the geographical authorities has decided to consider the Amazon River as the second longest river in the world, with the Nile being the longest.
However, different geographers have measured the Amazon between 6,259 and 6,992 kilometers (3,889 and 4,345 mi) long. It is often said to be "at least" 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) long.
According to reports, the Nile is between 5,499 and 6,690 kilometers (3,417 to 4,157 miles). It is often said to be "approximately" 6,650 kilometers (4,130 miles) long. There are many factors that can affect these measures.
A study of Brazilian scientists concluded that the Amazon River is actually longer than the Nile. Using Nevado Mismi, which in 2001 was labeled by the National Geographic Society as the source of the Amazon River, these scientists made new calculations of the length of the River Amazon.
They calculated the length of the Amazon River as 6,992 kilometers (4,345 miles). Using the same techniques, they calculated the length of the Nile as 6,853 kilometers (4,258 miles), which is longer than previous estimates, but even shorter than that of the Amazon River.
They made it possible by measuring the Amazon downstream to the beginning of the tidal estuary of Canal do Sul and then, of a sharp turn, following the tidal channels that surround the island of Marajó and finally including the marine waters of the Bay of the River For.
Full length. Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), told the Brazilian television network Globo in June 2007 that it could be considered a fact that the Amazon was the longest river in the world.
However, other geographers have had access to the same data since 2001, and a consensus has not yet been reached to support the claims of these Brazilian scientists. The length of the Amazon River and the Nile remains open to interpretation and ongoing debate.
Amazon River: features and location
The vast Amazon Basin (Amazonia), the largest plain in Latin America, has an area of approximately 2.7 million square miles (7 million square kilometers) and is almost twice as large as that of the Congo River, another large Earth's equatorial drainage system.
Extending approximately 1,725 miles (2,780 km) from north to south at its widest point, the basin includes most of Brazil and Peru, significant parts of Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, and a small area of Venezuela as seen on the map of the Amazon River.
Approximately two thirds of the mainstream of the Amazon and, by far, most of its basin are located within Brazil. The Tocantins-Araguaia area of influence in the state of Pará covers another 300,000 square miles (777,000 square km). Although the Brazilian government and popular use consider it part of the Amazon, it is technically a separate system. It is estimated that about one fifth of all the water that escapes from the Earth's surface is transported by the Amazon River.
Among the characteristics of the Amazon River we have that the discharge in the flood stage at the mouth of the river is four times that of the Congo and more than 10 times the amount transported by the Mississippi River. This immense volume of fresh water dilutes the salinity of the ocean more than 100 miles (160 km) from the coast.
The extensive lowland areas that border the main river and its tributaries, called Várzeas (floodplains), are subject to annual flooding, with the consequent enrichment of the soil; However, most of the great basin is made up of highlands, well above the floods and known as the mainland.
As it could be seen on the map of the Amazon River, more than two thirds of the basin are covered by an immense tropical rainforest, which extends to the dry forest and the savanna in the highest north and south margins and to the montane forest in the Andes to the west. The Amazon Rainforest, which accounts for approximately half of the remaining rainforest on Earth, also constitutes its largest reserve of biological resources.
Since the last decades of the 20th century, the Amazon basin has attracted international attention because human activities have increasingly threatened the balance of the highly complex forest ecology.
Deforestation has accelerated, especially to the south of the Amazon River and in the foothills of the Andes, as new roads and air transport facilities have opened the basin to a wave of settlers, businesses and researchers in the Boiling River of the Amazon.
Relief formations and drainage patterns
The Amazon basin is a major structural depression, a subsidence channel that has been filled with immense amounts of sediments from the Cenozoic age (that is, dating to approximately the last 65 million years). This depression, which extends to its greatest extent in the upper parts of the Amazon, lies between two ancient and relatively low crystalline plateaus, the rugged Highlands of Guyana to the north and the highlands of Brazil (somewhat further from the main river) to the south .
The Amazon basin was occupied by a large sea of fresh water during the Pliocene Era (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago). At some point during the Pleistocene Era (approximately 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) an exit to the Atlantic was established, and the great river and its tributaries were deeply entrenched in the seabed of the previous Pliocene.
The modern Amazon and its tributaries occupy a vast system of drowned valleys full of floods. With the rise in sea level that followed the melting of Pleistocene glaciers, steep-sided canyons that had eroded on the Pliocene surface during the period of lower sea levels gradually flooded. In the upper part of the basin in eastern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Amazon River in Bolivia, the most recent overflow of the Andes has covered many of the oldest surfaces.
Physiography of the Amazon River course
The main exits of the Amazon River are the two canals to the north of the island of Marajó, a low land of size slightly larger than Denmark, through a group of semi-submerged islets and shallow sandbars.
There the mouth of the river is 40 miles (64 km) wide. The port city of Belém, Brazil. It is found in the deep waters of the Pará river estuary south of Marajó. The Pará is fed mainly by the Tocantins River, which enters Pará southwest of Belém.
The link between the port city and the main channel of the Amazon is to the north along the oceanic facade of Marajó or following the narrow but narrow furos (canals) of Breves that connect the island to the west and southwest and join the river Para with the Amazon.
There are more than 1,000 tributaries of the Amazon that flow into the highlands of Guyana, the highlands of Brazil and the Andes. Here are six of these tributaries:
Japurá river.
Juruá River.
Madeira River
Black river
Purus river.
Xingu River
These are more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) long; The Madeira River exceeds 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the source to the mouth.
Larger ships sailing across the ocean can ascend the river 1,000 miles to the city of Manaus, Brazil, while smaller cargo ships and passengers can reach Iquitos, Peru, 1,300 miles (2,090 km) upstream, at any time of the year.
The sedimentary axis of the Amazon basin comprises two distinct groups of geographical accidents: the Várzea or alluvial flood of the Holocene age (that is, up to approximately 11,700 years), and the mainland, or highland surfaces of Pliocene and Pleistocene (11,700 to 5,300,000 years) that are well above the highest flood level.
The floodplain of the main river is characteristically 12 to 30 miles (19 to 50 km) wide. It is irregularly limited by low cliffs 20 to 100 feet (6 to 30 meters) high, beyond which, the oldest undulating highlands extend both north and south to the horizon.
From time to time, these cliffs are undermined by the river that oscillates from side to side through the flood, producing the fallen terra, or "fallen earth," so often described by Amazonian travelers. In the city of Óbidos, Brazil, where the width of the river is approximately 1.25 miles (2 km), a low range of relatively hard rocks narrows the wide flood plain.
Hydrology
Most of the 1.3 million tons of sediments that the Amazon pours daily into the sea are transported northward by coastal currents to deposit along the coasts of northern Brazil and French Guiana. As a consequence, the river is not building a delta. Normally, the effect of the tide feels as upstream as Óbidos, Brazil, 600 miles (970 km) from the mouth of the river.
A tidal hole called pororoca sometimes occurs in the estuary, before live tides. With an increasing roar, it advances upstream at speeds of 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) per hour, forming a breaking wall of water 5 to 12 feet (1.5 to 4 meters) high.
In the Óbidos Strait, river flow was measured at 7,628,000 cubic feet (216,000 cubic meters) per second; its width is restricted to just over a mile. Here the average depth of the channel below the average watermark is more than 200 feet (60 meters), well below sea level.
In most of the Brazilian river, its depth exceeds 150 feet (45 meters). Its gradient is extraordinarily slight. On the Peruvian border, about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the Atlantic, the elevation above sea level is less than 300 feet (90 meters).
The maximum free width (without islands) of the permanent bed of the river is 8.5 miles (14 km), upstream from the mouth of the Xingu. However, during the great floods, when the river completely fills the floodplain, it extends over a band of approximately 55 km (55 miles) wide or more. The average speed of the Amazon is approximately 1.5 miles per hour, a speed that increases considerably at the time of the flood.
The rise and fall of water are controlled by events outside the flood plain. The Amazon floods are not disasters, but distinctive and anticipated events. Its marked regularity and the gradual change in water level are due to the enormous size of the basin. The smooth gradient and the large temporary storage capacity of both the flood plain and the estuaries of the river tributaries. The upper course of the Amazon has two annual floods.
The river is subject to the alternative influence of tributaries that descend from the Peruvian Andes (where rains fall from October to January) and from the Ecuadorian Andes (where rains fall from March to July).
This alternating pattern disappears later, as the two high-flow stations gradually merge into one. Therefore, the ascent of the river progresses slowly downstream in a gigantic wave from November to June, and then the waters recede until the end of October. Flood levels can reach 40 to 50 feet (12 to 15 meters) above the low river.
Amazon River Climate
The climate of the Amazon River is warm, rainy and humid. The lengths of day and night are the same on the equator (which runs only slightly north of the river), and normally clear nights favor relatively rapid radiation from the heat received from the sun during the 12-hour day.
There is a greater difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures than between the hottest and coldest months. Therefore, the night can be considered the winter of the Amazon.
In Manaus, the average daily temperature is between the upper 80 ° F (approximately 32 ° C) in September and the mid 70 ° F (approximately 24 ° C) in April, but the humidity is constantly high and often oppressive.
During the winter months of the southern hemisphere, a powerful mass of south-polar air drifts occasionally northward in the Amazon region, causing a sharp drop in temperature, known locally as friagem, when mercury can register at 50 ° F (around 14 ° C). At any time of the year, several days of heavy rains can be replaced by clear and sunny days and cool, cool nights with relatively low humidity. In the lower reaches of the river basin, the refreshing trade winds blow most of the year.
The main influx of atmospheric water vapor in the basin comes from the east. Approximately half of the precipitation that falls comes from the Atlantic Ocean; the other half comes from the evapotranspiration of the tropical forest and the associated conventional storms.
Lowland rainfall generally ranges from 60 to 120 inches (1,500 to 3,000 mm) annually in the central Amazon basin (for example, Manaus). On the east and northwest margins of the basin, rainfall occurs throughout the year, while in the central part there is a defined drier period, usually from June to November.
Manaus has experienced up to 60 consecutive days without rain. In addition, in 2005, the Manaus region experienced a devastating drought, which caused dry parts of the river; This hindered transportation, depleted drinking supplies and left millions of rotten fish in the riverbed.
Such extreme periods of drought are uncommon in the Manaus region, but fluctuations in the river level - which are believed to be related to climatic events and ongoing deforestation in the area - have remained a cause for concern. The dry season is not intense enough to stop plant growth, but it can facilitate the onset and spread of fires, whether natural or not. To the west, the Andes form a natural barrier that prevents most of the water vapor from leaving the basin.
The influence of the mountains on the rain is indicated by the high levels of precipitation in the upper foothills and by the Andean flanks soaked with clouds, which feed the rivers that form a large part of the Amazon system. The largest amounts of precipitation, up to 140 inches (3,500 mm), are recorded in the upper Putumayo River along the Colombian border.
The vast Amazonian forest vegetation seems extremely lush, leading to the erroneous conclusion that the underlying soil must be extremely fertile. In fact, the nutrients in the system are enclosed in vegetation, including roots and leaf litter, and are continuously recycled through the fall and decay of the leaves.
In general, the soils above the flood level are well drained, are porous and of variable structure. They are often sandy and of low natural fertility due to their lack of phosphate, nitrogen and potash and their high acidity.
The small areas are covered by basaltic rocks, with reddish soils known in the same way as (terra roxa) of considerable natural fertility. Terra preta dos Indios (“black land of the Indians”) is another type of localized and superior soil, created by the settlement activity of the past.
The agricultural potential of flooded areas of várzea annually is excellent. Its soils do not lack nutrients, since they are rejuvenated every year by the deposit of fertile sediments that remain when the waters recede, but their use for agricultural purposes is limited by periodic flooding.
It is estimated that these valuable soils occupy about 25,000 square miles (65,000 square km).
Importance of the Amazon River
The importance of the Amazon River is not defined solely by its size. It is the blood of an incredibly vast and diverse jungle. This tropical forest is the largest in the world. It overlaps the boundaries of nine countries and wildlife is so abundant that it is estimated that one third of the world's animal species can be found there.
Some of the best known animals in the region are the jaguar, the ocelot and the three-toed sloth. The waters of the Amazon are also combined with life, and some estimates put the number of fish species at 5,000.
The interior of the Amazon basin saw little development until the 20th century, and the area remained largely inaccessible and uncultivated. Since then, a road network has been built linking the main cities and greater access to available resources. Even so, as of 2014, the region contains large areas of tropical forests, grasslands and savannas that have not yet been developed.
Tributaries of the Amazon River
People see pictures of the dark Amazon and think about pollution when they are really seeing sediments. The white-water tributaries of the Amazon originate in the Andes, where nutrient-rich sediments disappear.
The tributaries of sewage are slow, dark brown, very light and very acidic, which makes them inhospitable for parasites, bacteria and insect larvae. This is an advantage for visitors, since that means that mosquitoes in and around these tributaries are less annoying. On the other hand, the lower diversity of trees results in a lower diversity of wildlife in the rainforest.
This is not true for fish species. Having adapted to the conditions, they are quite diverse in these rivers and easy to see due to the clarity of the water.
The rainforest areas surrounding the sewage rivers flood regularly during the flood season. The Blackwater rivers have a low pH and nutrient content because the river is composed of ancient rock that no longer decomposes and because it was leached from the vegetation of the decomposing floodplain due to almost constant flooding.
Although they are found elsewhere, most of the world's blackwater rivers are tributaries of the Amazon. Among these tributaries of sewage are the Negro and Urubu, as well as the Yarapo River near Iquitos, Peru. Some tributaries of the Amazon are clear water rivers, with an even lower pH than black water rivers. These include the Tapajos river in Brazil, the Trombetas river that flows from Venezuela and the Xingu river from the south, all east of Manaus.
The black and white water systems meet near Manaus, Brazil, and flow side by side for several thousand locally described as "the meeting of the waters." This phenomenon is an interesting day trip for visitors to the Amazon tours in Manaus.
The predominantly dominant feature of the Amazon basin is the rainforest, or jungle, which has a disconcerting complexity and a prodigious variety of trees. In fact, up to 100 tree species have been counted in a single acre of forest, and few of them occur more than once.
The Amazon rainforest has a surprisingly stratified structure. The giant sun-loving giants of the upper reaches, the canopy, rise as high as 120 feet (40 meters) above the ground; Occasional individual trees, rise beyond the canopy, often reaching heights of 200 feet (60 meters).
Its straight and whitish trunks are dotted with lichen and fungi. A feature of these giant trees is their buttresses, the basal enlargements of their trunks, which help stabilize the heaviest trees during strong winds.
Other characteristics of the canopy trees are their narrow, pointed down, "drip tip" leaves, which easily shed water, and their cauliflory (the production of flowers directly from the trunks instead of the branches).The flowers are discreet. Among the prominent members of the canopy species, which capture most of the sunlight and perform most of the photosynthesis, are:
Rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis).
Silk trees (Ceiba pentandra).
Chestnut trees (Bertholletia excelsa).
Sapucaia trees (Lecythis).
Sucupira trees (Bowdichia).
Under the canopy there are two or three levels of shade-tolerant trees, including certain species of palm trees, of the Mauritia, Orbignya and Euterpe genera. Myrtle, laurel, bignon, fig, Spanish cedar, mahogany and rosewood are also common. They admit a large number of epiphytes (plants that live in other plants), such as orchids, bromeliads and cacti, as well as ferns and mosses. The entire system is entwined by a bewildering network of woody antler vines known as vines.
In addition to the rainforests of the mainland, there are two types of flooded rainforests, Várzea and igapó, which constitute approximately 3 percent of the total Amazon rainforest. The forests of Várzea can be found in the flood plains rich in silt and nutrients of the white water rivers such as the Madeira and the Amazon, with their constantly changing mosaic of lakes, marshes, sandbanks, abandoned canals and natural dikes .
They are generally not as tall, diverse or old as those on the mainland, and are subject to periodic destruction by floods and human manipulation. (The Várzea and its flood-free margins attract most human settlements).
Wild cane (Gynerium) and aquatic herbs and herbs, as well as the fast-growing pioneer tree species of the Cecropia, Ficus and Erythrina genera, are conspicuous.
The forests of Igapó grow along the sandy plains of sewage and rivers of clear waters such as the Negro, the Tapajós and the Trombetas. These forests can reach a maximum flood level of 40 feet (12 meters) for up to half the year, but can be accessed by canoe.
The lowland forest of the Andean strip becomes a mountainous or cloud forest, discontinuous and matted, formed by deformed trees covered with mosses, lichens and bromeliads. There you can find cinchona, or tree of fever-bark, once exploited by its antimalarial agent, quinine. At even higher elevations there is the growth of the grass and shrub of the páramo areas and the cold region of Antiplano.
Giving a succinct description of the complete fauna of the Amazon is as impossible as adequately describing the great diversity of its flora; In part, this is because many of the species in the region have not yet been identified. The rivers and streams of the basin are full of life, and the forest canopy resonates with the cries of birds and monkeys and the hum of insects. There is a notable shortage of large species of land mammals; in fact, many of the mammals are arboreal.
Animals found in the Amazon River
More than 8,000 species of insects have been collected and classified. Myriads of mosquitoes can transmit diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. Leaf-cutting ants (of the Atta and Acromyrmex genera) are frequent, as are the ubiquitous small black flies known as pions in Brazil.
Fireflies, bees, hornets, wasps, beetles, cockroaches, cicadas, centipedes, scorpions, ticks, red insects and giant spiders are abundant. The most spectacular, however, are the hundreds of species of brightly colored butterflies; sometimes thousands of butterflies gather in riverside sandbanks in the afternoon.
Alligators are hunted for their skins, river turtles and their eggs are considered a delicacy, and the giant sea cow, or manatee, is wanted for its meat and oil. All are threatened by excessive hunting, and the manatee has been included as an endangered species.
Aquatic animals also include river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis); the semi-aquatic capybara, the largest rodent in the world (weighing up to 170 pounds [80 kg]); and the otter, or coipo, valued especially for its skin. Other common rodents are paca, agouti, porcupine and local squirrels, rats and mice.
The tapir, the white-lipped peccary and several species of deer are native to the Amazon basin and highly sought after for their meat. The water buffalo, introduced from Southeast Asia as working and dairy cattle, predominates in the remote and swampy parts of the island of Marajó (see article: Arkansas River).
Fishing in the Amazon River
The immense ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest means that searching for fish in the Amazon can be a very exciting experience. From the strange and wonderful to the utterly strange, the Amazon River is full of fish, many of which you may never have heard and never find anywhere else.
With approximately 30% of South America, the Amazon River basin is home to more than 2,000 different species of fish that are endemic to the Amazon region, this includes 15,000 tributaries and a total length of 6,520 km. Brazil has some of the most interesting and largest fish in the region, while many more reside in the waters of the other countries that are home to the Amazon.
Fish of the Amazon River
About 1,500 species of fish have been found within the Amazon River system, but many more have not been identified. Most fish are migratory and move to large schools at the time of spawning.
Fish represent a critical source of dietary protein often poor in meat of the caboclo population. (The term caboclo refers to people of mixed European and Indian descent in Brazil who live from rivers and forests).
Among the most important commercial species are the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), one of the largest freshwater fish in the world, and several giant catfish. The small meat-eating piranha usually feeds on other fish, but can attack any animal or human that enters the water.
His sharp teeth cut pieces of meat, stripping his corpse of meat in a few minutes. Some fish species have become locally threatened as global demand for frozen and dried fish has increased.
The tropical fish of the Amazon River are also some of the most desired for food and breeding and for use as aquarium specimens. Iquitos, Manaus and the Colombian port of Leticia are centers of these exchanges.
Amazon River Dolphin
The Amazon River dolphin, also known as the pink river dolphin or boto, lives only in fresh water. It is found largely in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela (see article: Río San Lorenzo). It is a relatively abundant freshwater cetacean with an estimated population of tens of thousands. However, it is classified as vulnerable in certain areas due to dams that fragment and threaten certain populations, and other threats such as pollution of rivers and lakes.
Curiosities found in the Amazon River
The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world. Covering more than 5.5 million square kilometers, it is so large that the United Kingdom and Ireland would fit into it 17 times!
Running through the north of the jungle is the Amazon River. With a length of approximately 6,400 km, it is the second longest river in the world. The longest is the Nile River, which extends over more than 6,650 km!
In 2007, a man named Martin Strel swam along the Amazon River! To complete his jungle trip, Martin moved through the water for up to ten hours a day for 66 days.
Around 400-500 indigenous Amerindian tribes call the Amazon rainforest home. It is believed that about fifty of these tribes had never had contact with the outside world.
The Amazon has an incredibly rich ecosystem: there are about 40,000 species of plants, 1,300 species of birds, 3,000 types of fish, 430 mammals and a whopping 2.5 million different insects.
The Amazon is home to a lot of fascinating and deadly. - creatures, including electric eels, piranhas that eat meat, poison frogs, jaguars and some venomous snakes. These are several of the many curiosities and characteristics of the Amazon River.
The Amazon is located in South America, covering Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
Economic activities of the Amazon River
Since World War II, the economic development of the Amazon basin has been a priority for the countries it covers. From the mid-1940s onwards, a series of "penetration roads" have been built from the highlands of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia to the East.
These roads have channeled an incalculable number of landless peasants into the lowlands. They have also served to facilitate the development of important discoveries of oil and timber resources.
Tropical hardwoods, river fish and, since the 1980s, clandestinely produced cocaine have been commercially exploited, along with Brahman-type cattle raised in freshly carved pastures in the jungle.
A consequence of this decision was the beginning of a massive road construction program that aimed to integrate the North (consisting of the current states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima) with the rest of Brazil while established an exhaust valve for the northeast crowded and hit by drought.
A 1,100-mile (1,770 km) long road linking Brasilia to Belém, the trade center at the mouth of the Amazon, was completed in 1964. The even more ambitious Transamazon Highway of 3,400 miles (5,100 km). For all the cities of the Amazon River from the Atlantic port of Recife to Cruzeiro do Sul, on the border with Peru, with extensions north of Santarém and Manaus (later to the border with Venezuela) and south to Cuiabá (Mato Grosso ) and Pôrto Velho (Rondônia).
It was to provide the framework for a network of almost 20,000 miles (32,000 km) of roads and feeder routes that would replace the traditional river transport system. At the beginning of the 21st century, the road had not been completed, and remained largely unpaved and impassable at several points (see article: Colorado River).
Is the Amazon River Contaminated?
The world's largest river system is rapidly being degraded and threatened by dams, mining, overfishing and deforestation, warns a study published last week by an international team of scientists.
Researchers led by Leandro Castello, a research associate at the Woods Hole Research Center, catalog the litany of threats facing the Amazon River and its tributaries. They point out that existing terrestrial protected areas may not be sufficient to protect river ecosystems affected by upstream and downstream activities, including oil extraction, gold mining, overexploitation of plants and animals, logging and forest conversion and the construction of dams.
The headwaters of the Apurimac River in the Nevado Mismi had been considered for almost a century as the most distant source of the Amazon, which is where the Amazon River is born; until a 2014 study discovered that it was the Rumi Cruz Mountain Range at the head of the Mantaro River in Peru. The Mantaro and the Apurímac join, and with other tributaries, they form the Ucayali River, which in turn meets the Marañón River upstream of Iquitos, Peru, to form what other countries apart from Brazil consider the main source of the Amazon .
Brazilians call this section the Solimões River about its confluence with the Black River to form what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Water Encounter (Portuguese: Encontro das Águas) in Manaus, the largest city in the river.
Amazon River in Colombia
The Amazon region in southern Colombia comprises the departments of Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Putumayo and Vaupés, and covers an area of 403,000 km², 35% of the total territory of Colombia. The region is mainly covered by rainforest or jungle, which is part of the massive Amazon rainforest.
Amazon River in Leticia
Leticia, as we know, is one of the municipalities of Colombia, which is located at the southern tip of the country, it is also the Capital of the Department of the Amazon, has a very important commercial link with Brazil, since it borders the Amazon River, giving it the name as the "Three Borders", with Peru and Brazil. It has an elevation of 96 meters above sea level and an average temperature of 27 ° C (80.6 ° F). Leticia has long been Colombia's boarding point for tropical fish and aquarium trade.
Leticia has approximately 33,000 inhabitants on the left bank of the Amazon River, and is located at the point where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet in an area called the Three Borders as mentioned above.
Amazon River in Venezuela
The state capital is Puerto Ayacucho. The capital until the early 1900s was San Fernando de Atabapo. Although named after the Amazon River, most of the state is drained by the Orinoco River. The state of Amazonas covers a total area of 176,899 km² and, in 2007, had a population of 142,200. Its density is 0.8 inhabitants per km².
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