Amazon River

Assembled from 32 blocks · 1 evidence · 26 related

1. Story
2. The largest river on Earth by discharge, delivering on average of the order of 200,000 cubic metres per second to the Atlantic - roughly a fifth of all fresh water reaching the ocean from rivers, and more than the next several largest rivers combined. Its length is genuinely contested rather than merely imprecise. Since a 1971 National Geographic expedition the accepted headwater has been the Carhuasanta stream on Nevado Mismi in southern Peru, in the Apurimac drainage, giving a length usually stated as about 6,400 km. A Brazilian survey published in 2007-2008 claimed a longer course and, with it, primacy over the Nile; a 2014 study by Contos and Tripcevich argued that the most distant source lies instead in the Mantaro drainage, adding a further stretch. No measurement has settled it, because the answer depends on which of several defensible source streams and which of several channels through the delta one chooses. Downstream the river carries Andean sediment: the Solimoes runs pale with it, while the Rio Negro drains ancient weathered shield rock and runs dark with dissolved humic acids.
3. Knowledge
4. Amazon Basin
5. Amazon River
6. Nevado Mismi
7. Connections
8. Amazon Basin
9. Nevado Mismi
10. Meeting of the Waters (Encontro das Aguas)
11. Orellana descends the river to the Atlantic
12. The Carhuasanta stream on Nevado Mismi is identified as the Amazon source
13. The most severe drought in the instrumental record
14. Amazon River
15. Manaus
16. Moisture Recycling
17. Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO)
18. Brazil Nut Tree (Bertholletia excelsa)
19. Jaguar (Panthera onca)
20. Forest Degradation
21. Arc of Deforestation (Arco do Desmatamento)
22. BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho Highway)
23. The 2005 Amazon Drought
24. A drought in the southwestern basin reverses the carbon sink
25. A second severe drought follows within five years
26. Aircraft profiles show the eastern Amazon emitting more carbon than it absorbs
27. The UN climate conference convenes at the mouth of the Amazon
28. Amazon River
29. Flying Rivers (Aerial Rivers)
30. The Carhuasanta stream on Nevado Mismi is identified as the Amazon source
31. Evidence
32. Supports the claim that the most distant source of the Amazon lies in the Mantaro drainage rather than the Apurimac drainage identified in 1971, and therefore that the river's length remains contested. V55 verification basis: not retrieved in this session; the added length is deliberately not quoted and the volume details should be confirmed.