In previous articles, in Science Daily Online we have talked about the Amazon forest, the largest plant ecosystem on the planet and one of the largest oxygen and carbon processor suppliers , to the point of having been qualified as "lung of the Earth" .
On this occasion we want to mention some extraordinary aspects of the river that crosses and feeds this basin, the Amazon.What do you know about the river Amazon? Expand your knowledge!
5 curious facts about the Amazon River
1.A river called "Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce"
It was the curious name which gave him in 1500 the first Spanish explorer of this river truly as big as a sea, Vicente Yanez Pinzon , one of the co-discoverers of America, next to Cristobal Colon.But also the different indigenous peoples that occupied its banks had different names: Paranaguazu, Guyema, Solimões, Ucayali, Apurimac , and many others, to which we would have to add those placed upon the arrival of the Europeans: Santa Maria, Maranon and Amazonas .
2.Source of the definitive name
It is said that Francisco de Orellana (1511-1546) called this river “ Amazonas ”shortly after facing an indigenous village where both men and women fought, and that I end up associating with the Greek myth of women warriors.
Other scholars believe that the name could be the result of an error when transcribing a similar word of the indigenous people marajoara , which meant “boat breaker”, for the violent swell or macareo present at the mouth of the great river.
3.The most abundant
If we could unite the flow of the Nile, the Yangtse and the Mississippi in a single river, even then the Amazon would continue to be the largest in the world.Near the Atlantic, the river has a volume of 200,000 cubic meters of water per second and contains one fifth of the fresh water available in the world!
It could not be otherwise, if we consider that too, With more than seven million square kilometers and over a thousand tributaries or tributaries, is the largest river basin on Earth .
It's not coincidentally, the two largest rivers in the world, the Amazon and the Congo, are surrounded precisely by the two largest forest ecosystems on Earth, since without a doubt the abundance of water is associated with the presence of large wooded masses, protecting aquifers and generators of more or less closed hydrological cycles (by processes such as evotranspiration ), which maintain and increase the presence of water.
4.Now it is also the longest in the world
Although Traditionally, the Nile has been considered the longest river, with 6,671 km, since 2007 there are more and more geographers who consider the Amazon as the longest river, because when joining its route with the Maranon river it reaches around 7,020 km.
5.Other waters, other records
Referring to the Amazon as a freshwater sea , Yanez Pinzon was not exaggerating: the river in Its lower part is up to 10km wide, as it can be quintupled in the rainy season, its estuary is 240km wide, the main mouth 80 and the biodiversity in its waters and forests surround can compete in number with that of the world's oceans.
For all these things, and others that we have not mentioned (like the economic potential of the basin, for example), the Amazon River should enjoy the attention and protection of all human beings.
Did you like our article about the Amazon River? ? We recommend you read about the young man who planted a forest.
Images: Helidixon, tommy chheng, Nick Ballesteros, Casey, International Rivers, carla arena
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