Week 3 - Amazon River - Jeremy Haynes

This week, my wife and I decided to visit the Amazon River at it's mouth located in Macapa, Brazil. During this, we took a helicopter tour of the river in its' entire length of 3,977 miles. Once in the air, it was notable how the shape of the valley occupied by the Amazon River begins in the Andes Mountains and then runs into mostly flat lands that make it prone to flooding. The tour guide stated that not all parts of the Amazon River floods at the same time. Many of its' branches will flood at different parts of the year. With its' annual flooding during high tide of winter, the water from the Atlantic is funneled into the Amazon delta in which results in a tidal bore so powerful that it extends upstream and within the River for hundreds of miles. During our tour you could look down and see the various meandering paths that the River has taken over the years. Multiple oxbow's show how the River has created a shorter path to other parts of the River and inevitably cut of the remainder path leaving behind a small body of water that will eventually dry up. My wife asked the tour guide why the River creates these different shapes and he stated that the River meanders due to the flatness of the basin as well as the force of the water that crashes into the far side of the River after a curve. Considering the Amazon River's color and nature reflects how it carries high amounts of sediment in its' suspended load, the 7KPH or 4.35MPH speeds that River can reach up to, meandering is extremely likely. This is also due to the fact that the River is perennial in nature considering its' flow is constant in a majority of its' stream beds. Though, as the guide pointed out, the Amazon River is vast and there are intermittent streams at various altitudes that stops flow in dry periods during the year. This was definitely an interesting tour and considering the Amazon is known for its' creepy spiders and Anaconda's, I made this journey a rather quick one!



Image [Above] Source: (Lock, 2019)

References:

Lock, S. (28 Aug. 2019). AMAZING AMAZON Where is the Amazon rainforest, how long has it been around and what exotic animals call it home? Retrieved 27 Mar. 2020 from: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9790130/where-amazon-rainforest-animals-plants/.