The Amazon River is a massive and impressive water system that flows through one of the world's most vital and complex ecosystems: the Amazon rainforest of South America. Learn all about it here.
The story of the Amazon River
From its river to its palm trees, the forests of the Amazon Basin have shaped human history. Long before timber, medicine, and exotic birds brought Europeans to the Amazon, indigenous peoples lived in the forests for millennia.
Over the past few decades, evidence has indicated that indigenous populations in the Amazon basin may have been very large, in the millions. Fragments of pottery, stone points, and fertilizer remains have indicated that several areas are approximately 10,000-11,000 years old, comparable in age to many sites in North America.
Most research agrees that the indigenous populations were concentrated along the rivers and cultivated "terra preta" soil, maintained with fire and fertilizers. At the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, Anna Roosevelt was one of the first to discover the ancient Amazonian habitation.
Elsewhere, remains have been found along the Xingu River, the Andes and in Bolivia's Beni region, debate continues over the exact population number as some argue that intensive land use was restricted and that interior forest areas were slightly affected.
Regardless of the exact number of the prehistoric Amazonian population; the landscape met an abrupt shock at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, at the height of the Inca empire, at the headwaters of the Amazon Basin, the Incas settled in Cusco, Peru, but also spread into the Amazon lowlands.
After Pizarro's conquest in 1532, Francisco Orellana explored the great river of South America in 1541 and 1542, naming it after the Greek Amazon warriors.
Although Orellana observed numerous advanced tribes living along the river banks, the populations were in decline due to diseases that had been introduced decades earlier by early Europeans. When settlers began exploring the Amazon Basin further a century later, the interior forests of the Amazon looked like virgin, uninhabited forest.
After the discovery, gold and precious metals attracted settlers to the region, Spanish settlements in the Pacific and Portuguese in the Atlantic, while the French, Dutch and English built settlements in the Guyana region.
Many explorers searched for El Dorado, the lost city of the Incas in the Peruvian Amazon and northern Bolivia, where the rulers may have hidden gold after the initial attack by the Spanish. Many of the surviving indigenous people were forced to work in mines such as Potosí and farms, generally through forced labor systems such as encomienda or mita.
Ranching and mining didn't always reach deep into the Amazon basin, but the rubber boom that began in the mid-1800s did. The rubber tree, or Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is native to the Amazon basin and grows in the mid-story of the lowland rainforest.
Rubber was used by native peoples, but only became popular around the world with the advent of vulcanization, the process of heating rubber and adding curatives to make the product more stable. Combined with the automobile, the rubber boom hit the Amazon hard until the end of the XNUMXth century.
Manaus quickly became a booming and affluent metropolis and economic wealth followed, but the rubber boom also led to enslavement and near genocide of numerous groups of indigenous peoples. Brazil dominated the international rubber trade.
Soon, however, in an act of true international espionage, British botanists in 1875 smuggled rubber seeds for planting into their colonies in Asia and after a few decades, most of the production moved to Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
Today, most of the world's production remains in Asia, although extractive rubber reserves form an important component of the conservation landscape in Brazil and Bolivia. Explorers like Theodore Roosevelt and Percy Fawcett failed, as did settlements like Henry Ford's Fordlandia.
The centuries of exploitation of the rubber boom did not lead to large-scale land clearing. Only after the 1950s did South American countries finally invest in settling the remote parts of the region.
Highways opened up access to the region; other development projects included dams and mines, such as the Carajas iron ore mine in the Brazilian state of Pará. Additionally, many countries sponsored state-driven resettlement programs to encourage frontier colonization of the rainforest.
Brazil transfer to settlers from the populated south; a similar program in the Andean countries encouraged settlement from the highlands to the Amazonian lowlands.
Exploration
The Europeans who first found themselves in the upper Amazon had no idea where the other end of the river might be. This may be due, in part, to the fact that the mouth of the Amazon is so large (over 200 miles wide) that early explorers sailing the Atlantic coast of South America simply did not recognize the mouth of the river as a river.
Despite the fact that indigenous peoples had been living in the Amazon for at least 10.000 years and possibly as long as 15.000 years, the same river was "discovered" by a Spanish explorer and conquistador.
Famous explorers of the Amazon include the following:
Francis of Orellana
Don Francisco de Orellana left Quito, Ecuador in February 1541 in the role of lieutenant in the company of Gonçalo Pizarro (whose brother, Francisco, had conquered the Inca Empire with only 150 soldiers!).
The company was looking for vast cinnamon forests and of course, the elusive El Dorado, legendary city of gold, which the Indians wisely and repeatedly assured the conquistadors really existed, after all, as long as guides were needed, the Indians would not be "saved." summarily for execution.
Orellana's company found Indians and food after a week's journey downriver, but the swift current made any return to the rest of the expedition completely impossible.
The company also had to build another boat, for which the manufacture of 2000 nails took a full 20 days. For several centuries, Orellana was wrongly denounced as a traitor for his apparent abandonment of his fellow conquerors.
The expedition did not find cinnamon or gold, but rather the largest river on earth, reaching the junction of the Napo and the Amazon on February 11, 1542. Don Francisco de Orellana, in the most modest way of his time, quickly named the newly discovered river
The "Orellana River", a name that European geographers later abandoned in favor of the Amazon River.
Orellana's amazing journey down the Amazon doubled just 13 years after his death, yet this second expedition was considerably bloodier, at least when it came to the blood of the conquistadors. Once again, the goal of the trip was to find the incredible riches and gold deposits that had to exist in the region.
The "hero" of this expedition was the infamous Lope de Aguirre, this man before the trip was over, had taken the leadership of the expedition, declared himself King of Peru, wrote a nasty and insubordinate letter to the King of Spain and quickly dispatched and horribly to anyone who might or might not conspire against him.
The expedition headed downriver to the Atlantic, then up the coast to Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela. Finally, his fellow rebels abandoned him and two of them killed him with arquebuses, his head was presented to the local governor, to be permanently displayed in an iron cage.
His hands were presented to the men of the two towns chiefly responsible for his overthrow. These ended up being thrown into a river and to the dogs, respectively, when the scent of him began to exceed their memory value. Aguirre's horror expedition must surely be one of the most infamous in Western civilization.
Henry Walter Bates
He was an English naturalist and explorer born in 1825. Bates is best known for his journey to the Amazon and his well-known book, The Naturalist on the River Amazon. His journey began in 1848 with Alfred Russell Wallace to the Amazon to collect and study animals. During their first year, they lived in a village near the city of Belém, collecting birds and insects.
After a year of working together, the pair parted ways to focus on different areas of the Amazon, some 11 years later Bates finally returned to England and by then had collected a sufficient number of animals to occupy his time.
He is reported to have sent back some 14.712 new species of animals (mainly insects) of which around 8.000 were entirely new to science, after returning to London Bates was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Survey and instead of returning to the Amazon, he was stuck in an office for the rest of his life.
Work-related stress is a possible factor in his death from bronchitis in 1892. Much of his work can now be seen at the Natural History Museum in London.
Percy Harrison Fawcett
He was a British artillery officer, archaeologist, and explorer. After being released from the army, he embarked on several trips to the Amazon River between 1906 and 1925. It is believed that he had a good relationship with the indigenous natives, as he often brought gifts and was very polite and courteous.
Fawcett was known for making some pretty outlandish claims about native animals that he found that were completely unknown to zoology. This includes seeing a 62-foot anaconda, a small dog-like cat, and a giant Apazauca spider that poisoned locals. However, the two-nosed dog he claimed to have seen has been proven, although it is very rare and the species is commonly known as the double-nosed Andean tiger hound.
Teddy Roosevelt
He is surely the most famous searcher to investigate the Amazon, since he was president of the United States between 1901 and 1909 and between 1913 and 1914, Roosevelt together with Candido Rondo and a small expedition were the first to cross the river of doubt 1.000 miles long in the Brazilian Amazon.
The trip was funded by the American Museum of Natural History and the pair vowed to bring back a wide variety of new animal species, the expedition described in Roosevelt's wildly popular book "Through the Brazilian Desert." Problems arose for Roosevelt very early in the trip.
During the trip downriver he suffered a leg injury that became infected and consequently gave him a tropical fever that closely mirrored the malaria he contracted 15 years earlier in Cuba. Also, the bullet that had not been removed from his chest just a few months before an assassination attempt aggravated the infection.
Discovery of the Amazon River
The first documented European to discover the Amazon River was the Spanish conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in March 1500, who first spotted it when he was 200 miles (300 kilometers) offshore. He realized that he was sailing in fresh water and turned towards the coast in search of the source, where he then found the mouth of the Amazon.
He named the river "Río Santa María del Mar Dulce (later shortened to "Mar Dulce", meaning "sweet sea"). Francisco de Orellana was the first European to navigate the entire Amazon River, after which it was called "Río de Orellana" for a short time. He sailed from sources in the Peruvian Andes to where the river meets the ocean in Brazil.
The name "Amazonas" was later given to the river (in English, the Amazon), the Amazon name comes from native warriors, mainly women, who attacked Orellana's expedition. They reminded the warriors of "the Amazons" of the Hellenic culture.
The most distant source of water in the Amazon River comes from melting glaciers in the mountains of Peru. For almost a century, it was agreed that this distant source is the headwaters of the Apurimac River at Nevado Mismi, but a 2014 study showed that the most distant source of the Amazon is in the Cordillera Rumi Cruz, at the headwaters of the Mantaro River in Peru.
During the Cretaceous period, the Amazon River notably flowed in the opposite direction, emptying into the Pacific Ocean, but now the river's mouths are on the eastern side of Brazil, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. The Marañón River flows upstream from Iquitos, the Amazon adventure capital of Peru and one of the most fascinating places to enjoy Amazon River adventures.
¿Where is the Amazon River born?
The Amazon River is a South American river that flows through Peru, Colombia (for a short distance), Brazil, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
The river originates in Nevado Mismi at 5600 meters above sea level (Arequipa Department, Peru). Initially it is called Apurimac and later it is called Ene. Then it takes the name of Río Tambo. When the Tambo joins the Urubamba River, the river is called Ucayali.
At the confluence of the latter with the Marañón (river), the river takes the name of Amazon River. From the border between Colombia and Brazil, Brazilians call the river "Solimões" (because of the stretch to the confluence with the Rio Negro).
Beyond this point, the river is also called by Brazilians "Río Amazonas". Considering the source furthest from the sea, the Apurimac River. The Amazon River is the longest watercourse in the world, 6937 kilometers.
It is the largest river in the world by volume of water, number of tributaries and water catchment area (6.915.000 km2). Suffice it to say that around 10.000 rivers flow, of which 18 are over 1.000 km long. The Amazon River is about 5 times the length of Italy.
The course of the Amazon River in Brazil changes, depending on the seasons and depending on the variable amount of rain in the upper course of the river. In periods of large amounts of water, it can overflow into neighboring forests up to 100 km away, the flooding of the affected forests creates Várzea, a unique ecosystem in the world. In the area of the mouth of the Amazon River is the fluvial-marine island of Marajó.
If you include this large island (49.000 km2) together with the rivers that flow south of it (particularly the Tocantins), the Amazon River estuary is several hundred kilometers wide. It crosses from west to east a geographical area called the Amazon Basin.
¿Where does the Amazon River flow?
This River is the second longest in the world and the largest in terms of the size of its watershed, the number of tributaries and the volume of water discharged into the sea, no bridge crosses the river along its entire length.
The Amazon River and its tributaries flow through several countries, including Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean 6,437 kilometers (4.000 miles) from the source of the Amazon River high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. This vast basin also contains the world's largest rainforest, as well as arid lowland areas.
The Amazon River rises in the Peruvian Andes, at a height of 5.598 m. There, just 192 km from the Pacific Ocean, where it once flowed, the Amazon River begins as a small tributary called Carhuasanta.
As it heads east, it empties and becomes the Hornillos, which merges into the Apurimac, a major tributary that eventually joins the Ene, the Tambo, and then the Ucayali.
After an initial drop in elevation, the Amazon River stabilizes its descent toward the Atlantic Ocean at a rate of 1.5 cm per kilometer over a distance of more than 6.400 km. In some places, the river reaches a width of 10 km, up to 1.600 km upstream and large ships can dock as far as Iquitos, Peru.
The brown waters of the Amazon River can be seen up to 100 km offshore from the mainland, long before the mainland is in sight. In the early days of colonization, this phenomenon would help ships sailing from Europe to South America to make sure they were on the right track before sighting land.
Length, Width and Depth of the Amazon River
The Amazon River stretches 4.000 miles (6.400 km) from the Andes Mountains to the sea and is the second longest river in the world after the Nile River (although some make convincing arguments that the Amazon River is longer than the Nile). ). With approximately 1.100 tributaries flowing into the Amazon (12 of which are over 1.500 km long), it is no wonder that it is considered the largest river in terms of the volume of water that flows through it.
During the rainy season, the Amazon River can reach more than 120 miles (190 kilometers) wide, the amount of water that the Amazon River deposits in the sea is so great that it represents a fifth of all the fresh water in the oceans. of the world.
It's a staggering percentage when you think about it: a fifth of the fresh water that flows into our earth's seas flows into the Atlantic in the Amazon River Delta in northern Brazil. This is the largest river delta on our planet (it discharges more fresh water than the next seven largest rivers combined) creating a saltwater vs freshwater muddy zone that covers an area of about 1 million square miles.
In 2011, scientists confirmed that the Amazon River had an "underground Amazon river," mirroring its above-ground twin in length and flow, the Hamza River (named after the Indian scientist leading the research group) flows around 4 km underground and is believed to be up to four times as wide as the Amazon River.
The area covered by the Amazon River and its tributaries triples between the dry and wet seasons over the course of a year. In an average dry season, 110.000 square kilometers of land are filled with water, while in the wet season, the area that floods the Amazon basin rises to 350.000 square kilometers.
At its widest point, the Amazon River can be 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) wide during the dry season, but during the rainy season, when the Amazon River floods the surrounding plains, it can be up to 24.8 miles (40 kilometers) wide.
The amount of freshwater released by the Amazon into the Atlantic Ocean is enormous: up to 300.000 cubic meters per second during the rainy season. The Amazon is responsible for one-fifth of the total volume of freshwater entering the world's oceans.
Off the coast of the mouth of the Amazon, drinking water can be drawn from the ocean out of sight of the shoreline, and the salinity of the ocean is markedly less than a hundred miles out to sea.
The Amazon estuary is more than 202 miles (325 kilometers) wide. The main river (which is about one to six miles wide) is navigable by large ocean-going steamships to Manaus, Brazil more than 900 miles (1.500 kilometers) upstream from the mouth. Small ocean going vessels of 3.000 tons can reach as far as Iquitos, Peru 2.250 miles (3.600 kilometers) from the sea.
Smaller riverboats can reach 486 miles (780 kilometers) higher as far as Achual Point. Beyond that, small boats frequently ascend Pongo de Manseriche, just above Point Achual.
The Amazon drains an area of some 2.722.000 square miles, or nearly 40 percent of South America, gathering its waters from 5 degrees north latitude to 20 degrees south latitude. Its most remote sources are on the inter-Andean plateau a short distance from the Pacific Ocean and after traversing the interior of Peru and through Brazil, it enters the Atlantic Ocean at the equator.
The Amazon has changed its drainage several times, from the west in the early Cenozoic period to its current eastward locomotion, after the uplift of the Andes mountains.
Discussions about its length
Scientists claim to have traced the river's source to a snow-capped mountain in southern Peru, adding a new twist to the longest river label debate. The Amazon is considered the world's largest river by volume, but scientists believe it is slightly shorter than Africa's Nile.
The 14-day expedition by Brazilian scientists extended the length of the Amazon by about 176 miles (284 kilometers), making it 65 miles (105 kilometers) longer than the Nile.
According to the team's results, which have not been published, the Amazon is 4.225 miles (6.800 kilometers) long. The Nile stretches 4.160 miles (6.695 kilometers).
"Today, we can consider the Amazon as the longest river in the world," study author Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, told London's Telegraph newspaper.
The Amazon and the Nile have been at the center of a centuries-old rivalry for the title of "Longest River in the World."
Characteristics of the Amazon River
The Amazon River twists and turns, curving like a snake through the Amazon rainforest. That is what gives it its length, its volume comes from its width and depth. In fact, it is the widest river in the world, known to some as the River Sea.
In general, the Amazon River is approximately 6.8 miles wide at its widest points; however, during the rainy season, the Clouds become laden with water and the river floods its banks to an additional 140.000 square miles of land. When this happens, the widest point of the river reaches approximately 24.8 miles.
Annual flooding is a common feature of most major rivers, but this experience is a bit different in the Amazon, not everything around the Amazon is truly floodable, while the river is mostly within a flat basin, there are large parts of it that are also bordered by highlands that are too high to be flooded.
The river deepens, but never floods its banks. Additionally, about 2/3 of the river is immediately surrounded by dense rainforest, the vast amount of foliage holding the soil together and absorbing much of the flood waters.
¿Where is located?
The Amazon River begins as a series of streams that originate from meltwater and natural springs high in the Andes Mountains. From there, it flows approximately 4.000 miles to the coast of Brazil, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
For comparison, that's about the distance from Hawaii to Japan. However, defining the exact size of the river is somewhat difficult. With multiple sources in the Andes, as well as more than 200 tributaries, the Amazon connects to various water systems on the mainland.
What makes the Amazon truly impressive is not just its size but the amount of water it moves. Along with its tributaries, the Amazon River drains an area of 2.7 million square miles. In terms of size, it is equal to about 1/3 of the entire continent of South America.
In terms of flow, it is more water than the next 7 largest rivers in the world combined. In fact, the Amazon River pours so much fresh water into the Atlantic that the salinity of the ocean is diluted for a hundred miles.
Relief rows and drainage schemes
The Amazon Basin is a large structural depression, a subsidence channel that has been filling with immense amounts of sediment from the Cenozoic era (that is, dating back the last 65 million years).
This depression, which erupts at its largest in the upper reaches of the Amazon, lies between two old and relatively low-lying crystalline plateaus, the rugged Guiana Highlands to the north and the Brazilian Highlands to the south (which lie somewhat further from the river). main) to the south.
The main outlets of the Amazon River are the two conduits to the north of Marajó Island, it is a low-lying area and is a little larger than Denmark, through a group of islets that are immersed and shallow sandbanks, there the mouth of the river is 40 miles (64 km) wide.
The port city of Belém, Brazil, is in the deep waters of the Pará River Estuary south of Marajó. The Pará is fed mainly by the Tocantins River, which enters the Pará southwest of Belém.
The union of the port city with the main conduit of the Amazon is located to the north and along the ocean front of Marajó, following the deep, but narrow channels that articulate the island in the west and southwest and join the Pará River with the Amazon River. . There are more than 1.000 tributaries of the Amazon distilling into it from the Guiana Highlands, the Brazilian Highlands, and the Andes.
The sedimentary axis of the Amazon Basin comprises two distinct groups of landforms: the várzea, or alluvial floodplain of Holocene age (i.e., up to about 11.700 years), and the mainland or upland materials. of Pliocene and Pleistocene (those from 11.700 to 5.300.000 years) that are well above the highest level of flood.
The main river floodplain is characteristically 12 to 30 miles (19 to 50 km) wide. It is irregularly bounded by low cliffs 20 to 100 feet (6 to 30 meters) high, beyond which older rolling highlands stretch both north and south to the horizon.
Occasionally, the river undermines these cliffs as it rocks back and forth through the alluvium, producing the terra caer, or "fallen land," so often described by Amazonian travelers. In the city of Óbidos, Brazil, where the width of the river is about 1.25 miles (2 km), a low range of relatively hard rock narrows the otherwise wide floodplain.
Streams that rise in the formerly pristine highlands are classified as blackwater. Blackwater tributaries have higher levels of humic acids (which cause their dark color) and originate in nutrient-poor, often sandy, highlands, so they carry little or no sediment or dissolved solids.
Physiography of the course of the Amazon River
The Amazon began 11 million years ago as a transcontinental river and took its current form about 2,4 million years ago. Running through the world's most biologically diverse biomes, the Amazon is a critically important river system. Here are some interesting geographic facts about the Amazon River.
The Amazon also has the largest drainage basin in the world with 2.720.000 square miles (7.050.000 square kilometers), which represents a fifth of the total flow of the world's rivers.
The Amazon River originates from a glacial stream flowing from a peak called Nevado Mismifound, an elevation of 18.363 feet (5.597 meters) in the Peruvian Andes. A simple wooden cross on the peak marks the most distant source of the Amazon River.
The Amazon has more than 1.100 tributaries (smaller streams or rivers that branch off from the main river). Of those tributaries, 17 are more than 930 miles (1.500 kilometers) long. The three longest tributaries are:
- Wood: that crosses Bolivia and Brazil and has a length of 2.020 miles (3.250 km).
- Purus: which runs through Peru and Brazil 1.995 miles (3211 km) long.
- Japura: which runs through Colombia and Brazil 1.750 miles (2.820 km) in length.
The Amazon flows through the Amazon rainforest, an area considered to be the most biologically diverse in the world, the exact number varies depending on the source, but experts estimate that there are between 2.500 and 5.000 species of fish in the Amazon basin.
Amazon River Hydrology
The Amazon Basin is the large area of land that flows into the Amazon River and its tributaries. It occupies about 38 percent of the total area of South America, covering a total of 2,67 million square miles (6,9 million square kilometers), according to the United States Geological Survey.
The lowlands around the river and its tributaries are flooded annually, deeply enriching the surrounding soil. More than two-thirds of the basin is covered with rainforest or jungle, the basin is in parts of six countries:
- Brazil
- Peru
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- Bolivia
- Venezuela
Most of the basin and about two-thirds of the river is in Brazil.
There are several large cities located in the Amazon basin: Belém, Brazil, located at the mouth of the Amazon River and home to 1.3 million people; Santarém, Brazil, located at the confluence of the Amazon and Tapajós rivers; Manaus, Brazil, a city of 2 million people located in the heart of the rainforest; and the large metropolitan city of Iquitos, Peru, a port city and gateway to the tribal communities of the northern Amazon.
Indigenous peoples represent approximately 9 percent (2,7 million) of the population in the Amazon basin, this includes 350 different ethnic groups, of which more than 60 remain essentially isolated, according to the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organization of the Amazon basin.
Climate
The rainforest climate has heavy rainfall and continual high temperatures, these forests are so large that scientists believe they actually help control the world's climate in important ways. The destruction of forests as settlers clear land for agriculture and companies harvesting trees for lumber are thought to contribute to the global warming problem.
The time that water is retained in rivers and floodplains directly affects biogeochemical and ecological processes related to hydrological cycles, the analysis of travel time and residence in large hydrological systems and their variability in time and space, continues being a challenge.
In this work, a probabilistic water monitoring numerical model for watershed applications was developed, numerical experiments were used to study the dynamics of water flow in the Amazon basin, such as water exchanges between rivers and floodplains.
The Amazon Rainforest is a tropical rainforest and is located very close to the equator:
- As a result of being a rainforest, el Rainy weather of the Amazon is very hot and humid.
- Its average temperature is 27 degrees.
- There are no seasons like summer, fall, winter and spring, it's just a wet season with a lot of rain!
- Due to the laden humidity, it feels like you're having a hard time breathing.
- However, the Amazon rainforest rarely reaches more than 33 degrees.
It rains practically every day and the variations between day and night tend to be greater than the variations between the seasons. However, there are still two distinct seasons: a wet season and a less humid season, the rainy season is from approximately September to May, and the less humid season is from approximately June to August.
The tropical climate of the Amazon rainforest is quite cold and provides an average of 80 inches of heavy rain each year, with half of the heat resulting from the gasification of the forest, in the Amazon River it rains more than ninety days each year with temperatures that they fluctuate around 64 and 77 degrees.
Floods can occur between June and October, but much of the rain that falls stays in the trees and never reaches the forest floor, direct sunlight reaches the top of the Amazon rainforest, and the sun shines brightly between the rains. .
Arrecife
An international team of scientists made an unusual discovery during a recent expedition to the Amazon River, they discovered a coral reef system that thrived in the river column, the area where the river converges into the ocean.
When river water enters the ocean, it has a significant impact on salinity levels, pH, sedimentation, temperature, light penetration, and nutrient availability, generally making the environment very unfavorable for reef growth. . This is particularly true of the huge Amazon plume, which can reach as far north as the Caribbean Sea.
Unfortunately, as with the Amazon rainforest, these unique reefs are susceptible to human activity, in terms of human threats the most immediate being oil drilling, phosphate mining and fishing pressure.
But these reefs are within the tropical topsoil, so they are also likely to experience ocean warming and acidification from human-driven burning of fossil CO2 (oil and gas). We also know that climate change is affecting the tropical water cycle and thus the Amazon River, but those connections are still being investigated.
Soils
Nutrients in the system are locked up in vegetation, including roots and surface litter, and are continuously recycled through leaf fall and decay. In general, soils above the flood stage are well drained, porous, and of variable structure.
Often sandy and of low natural fertility due to their lack of phosphate, nitrogen and potash and their high acidity, small areas are underlain by basaltic and diabasic rocks, with reddish soils of considerable natural fertility. The black earth of the Indians is another type of localized and superior soil, created by the activity of previous settlements.
Unlike other temperate regions, the nutrients are not found mainly in the soil but in the forest, that is, in the biomass. What happens is that the forest has a high capacity to absorb nutrients from decomposing and falling organic matter, thus controlling nutrient loss.
Its soils are not devoid of nutrients, as they are rejuvenated each year by the deposit of fertile silt left behind as the waters recede, but their use for agricultural purposes is limited by periodic flooding. These valuable soils are estimated to occupy some 25.000 square miles (65.000 square km).
Importance of the Amazon River
The Amazon River has long been one of the Fundamental Forces of Nature as an important repository of biodiversity and natural resources, not only for particular populations and indigenous tribes, but also for the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, as forests continue to disappear and the effects of climate change become more of a daily reality, we risk losing this great natural treasure for future generations.
This majestic river offers us a number of benefits such as those mentioned below:
Sweet water
Beginning as small streams in the Andes, more than 1.100 tributaries converge to form the mighty Amazon River . This region contains 20% of the world's freshwater, which flows through the Amazon to the sea. The Amazon River provides countless services to humans, such as water for agriculture, transportation, and food.
Medicinal plants
Throughout the Amazon, thousands of plant species are used by local people for traditional medical problems. Malaria, one of the deadliest diseases in the tropics, can be tackled by no fewer than 41 different species of plants in the Brazilian Amazon alone and 70% of plants with anti-cancer properties grow in the rainforest.
Oxygen
The Amazon is considered the lung of our Earth that absorbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity and the burning of fossil fuels, while providing us with the oxygen we breathe, the Amazon rainforest produces about 20 percent of the oxygen of the land.
Minerals
Peru is one of the countries of the Amazon world creator of:
- Gold
- Copper
- Tin
- Zinc
- Silver
Mining helps sustain the country's growth in response to growing global demand for metals such as gold. All this thanks to the Amazon River.
The gold is found at the base of the Andes, where millions of years of sedimentary runoff have accumulated small deposits, but one problem is that mining occurs outside of regulated and formalized claims governed by environmental standards.
Lunch time
Rain forest products are a regular part of our global food supply. About 80% of our favorite foods originally come from tropical forests, including coffee, chocolate, rice, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, black pepper, pineapples, and corn.
Transport
In this land of impassable jungles and limited roads, the Amazon River remains the primary means of transportation for many people, especially Indigenous communities. Riverboats commonly transport citizens, tourists, and goods from one area of the Amazon to another.
But as the growing population continues to rely on the largely unsupervised river for transportation, it has exposed more people to an age-old terror: piracy.
Tributaries of the Amazon River
The Amazon River flows from the headwaters of the high Andes, crosses vast rainforests, meanders through the lowlands of Brazil, empties into a massive delta, and then joins the Atlantic Ocean. It traverses lands so vast and remote that measuring its length has proven to be a formidable task.
The Amazon and its tributaries are divided into two segments. The Upper Amazon is made up of tributaries beginning in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil that flow into the Solimoes River. The Lower Amazon includes the tributaries east of Manaus and the main channel the rest of the way to the Atlantic.
Just east of Iquitos, Peru, the north-flowing Maranon and Ucayali rivers merge, it is here, at their confluence, that the Amazon technically begins and takes its name. When the borders of Peru, Colombia and Brazil meet, the name of the river changes to Solimoes until its confluence with the Negro River, after which it recovers the name of Amazonas.
Flora and Fauna of the Amazon River
The plants and animals in the Amazon River Basin are among the most diverse in the world. Year-round rain, large amounts of sunlight, and high temperatures have produced a land of tropical evergreen trees that have grown incredibly tall.
Trees
The trees of the Amazon River usually measure about 130 feet in most places and the canopy at the top of all the trees is so dense that sunlight rarely reaches the rainforest floor, resulting in formidable diversifications of life found at different heights.
In addition to its trees, the Amazon River basin is home to many types of orchids that climb trees to reach the light, as well as rubber trees and tropical fruit trees, including those that grow Brazil nuts and cacao. The tallest tree in the Amazon is the ceiba tree, which can reach a height of 200 feet.
Most of the plants in the Amazon rainforest are trees. Tropical rainforests have more types of trees than any other place in the world. Scientists have counted 100 to 300 species in a 2 1/2 acre area in the Amazon rainforest. Trees form four separate areas in the rainforest, including emergent trees, the canopy, the understory, and the forest floor.
The trees from the Amazon River are smooth-shelled umbrella-like shrubs 100 to 240 feet tall, the canopy of these trees is 60 to 130 feet tall, and all of the rainforest animals inhabit the top of those bushes. The understory, or lower canopy, is shaded by the upper canopy and contains shrubs, plants, and trees up to 60 feet tall.
Plants
Plants that grow in the Amazon rainforest include herbaceous, perennial, and bulbous plants, shrubs, vines, ferns, and lilies. Many plants grow on trees in the upper canopy of the rainforest, including epiphytes such as orchids and bromeliads.
The edible plants of the Amazon include fruits such as avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, acai berries, pineapples, mangoes, and tomatoes. Vegetables, such as corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash, and yams. Spices such as black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cane sugar, turmeric, coffee and vanilla, and nuts, including Brazil nuts and cashews.
Many medicinal plants, including those with anti-cancer properties, are only found in the rainforest. Researchers in the Amazon rainforest discovered 637 new plants in 10 years.
Animals
The Amazon is awash with animals, including at least 1.400 species of mammals, 1.500 species of birds, 1.000 species of amphibians, more than 2.000 species of fish, and tens of thousands of species of insects, as well as hundreds of species of reptiles such as snakes. and lizards.
Insects, including butterflies, mosquitoes, ants, and camouflaged stick insects make up the largest group of animals that live in the Amazon rainforest. Threatened species such as harpy eagles and pink river dolphins live in the Amazon, as well as jaguars, giant otters, scarlet macaws, southern two-toed sloths, pygmy marmosets, piranhas, anacondas, and howler monkeys.
Fish
You'll also find several notorious carnivorous fish swimming in the Amazonian waters: the piranha and the paiche (also known as arapaima or pirarucu). Piranhas are infamous for being small but vicious with sharp teeth; they generally attack their prey in groups.
The paiche are less well known, but even more threatening. Growing up to 9 feet (3 meters) long, they have teeth on the roof of their mouths and tongues with which they can catch and eat almost any other fish in the river.
Dolphin
Of the various river dolphin species that inhabit the Amazon River , the most unique is the endangered pink river dolphin. They are quite friendly, a common sight for many travelers on the Amazon River.
Snake
The world's largest snake, the anaconda, lurks in the shallows of the Amazon River, known to attack larger animals like the capybara or small alligator that venture too close to the water's edge.
Other animals
Catfish found in other parts of the world often weigh up to 60 pounds, but catfish in the Amazon weigh over 200.
Bull sharks are usually inhabitants of the sea, but they have been found in the Amazon River up to 2.300 miles inland, having entered through the mouth in Brazil, these sharks were thriving in the Peruvian Andes.
Economic activities of the Amazon River
Since the Europeans arrived in the Amazon basin, its natural resources have been exploited, the first European settlers cultivated and marketed them, the first economic exploitation of the region occurred in the 1890s with the increase in world demand for rubber. .
The rubber boom saw people come to the Amazon region and many made a fortune, but suddenly in 1920 it was all over, the seeds were taken to the Far East where rubber was easier and cheaper to collect and transport.
Trade and industry in the Amazon have been based on the extraction of natural resources and their transformation elsewhere. One of the largest contributors to the region's economy is the export of timber.
The trees are a treasure of the Peruvian jungle; mahogany, teak, chestnut, walnut, rosewood and ebony are valued for their beauty and hardness. Agriculture represents an important part of the region's economy, products including bananas, soybeans, cocoa, coffee and corn are produced on land that has been cleared and most are produced for export.
Amazon River Pollution
People cause the most pollution in the Amazon River. They account for most of the pollution by industrial means, the expansion of industry in the Amazon River has caused the destruction of plants, animals and the environment.
It also causes water pollution by leaching hazardous materials into rivers, tributaries, and underwater. There is some pollution caused by people like gold mining and mercury trading. Gold and mercury mining also influences the health of local humans and animals.
The Amazon River is the largest and deepest river in the world . Therefore, it is very easy to navigate, facilitating trade between countries. The Amazon River is also used for drinking and bathing, but bathing increases pollution. People drink the water, which can cause illness.
The Amazon rainforest has been the focus of fervent conservation efforts in the last three decades, as human activities have increasingly threatened the delicate balance of the complex ecology of the area, the cattle industry in Brazil plays an important role and is responsible of approximately 80 percent of Amazon deforestation.
Amazon River in Peru
The Amazon is the largest tropical forest on the planet and the Peruvian Amazon occupies 60% of the country, extending from the north to the southeast of the nation. Much of the Peruvian Amazon is located in the north of the country in the Loreto region. Iquitos is the capital of the region and is also the gateway to the Amazon, only accessible by air or water.
Amazon River in Colombia
As with the other Andean countries that share territory in the Amazon basin, the Colombian Amazon occupies a third of the national territory, but is isolated both physically and culturally from the rest of the country.
The only municipalities in the Colombian Amazon are the river port of Leticia, accessible only by a two-hour flight from Bogotá and locally by river, and the idiosyncratic Puerto Nariño eco-village, reached only by boat.
Amazon River in Leticia
Leticia, the capital of Amazonas province, is the largest settlement for hundreds of kilometers and yet it still looks and feels very much like the small border town that it is. Located on the Amazon River, where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet, Leticia is about 800 km from the nearest Colombian highway.
Amazon River in Venezuela
The Amazon River of Venezuela, is located in the south of the country in the amplification of the Orinoco River. The Amazon River conquers the two largest states in the country, which are Bolívar and Amazonas, and a small part of the Delta Amacuro state.
This area of the Amazon River has a small number of inhabitants, representing only 8,5% of the total population, that is, about 32 million; however, 24 indigenous peoples are located in this area out of the total number living in Venezuela.
