1.
Venezuela
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Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America. It is bordered by Colombia on the west, Brazil on the south, Guyana on the east, Venezuela covers 916,445 km2 and has an estimated population of 31775371. The territory now known as Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522 amid resistance from indigenous peoples and it gained full independence as a separate country in 1830. During the 19th century, Venezuela suffered political turmoil and autocracy, since 1958, the country has had a series of democratic governments. This new constitution changed the name of the country to República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Venezuela is a presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District. Venezuela also claims all Guyanese territory west of the Essequibo River, oil was discovered in the early 20th century, and Venezuela has the worlds largest known oil reserves and has been one of the worlds leading exporters of oil. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports. The recovery of oil prices in the early 2000s gave Venezuela oil funds not seen since the 1980s, the Venezuelan government then established populist policies that initially boosted the Venezuelan economy and increased social spending, significantly reducing economic inequality and poverty. However, such policies later became controversial since they destabilized the economy, resulting in hyperinflation, an economic depression. According to the most popular and accepted version, in 1499, the stilt houses in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded the navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, of the city of Venice, so he named the region Veneziola Piccola Venezia. The name acquired its current spelling as a result of Spanish influence, where the suffix -uela is used as a term, thus. The German language 16th century-term for the area, Klein-Venedig, also means little Venice, however, Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the Vespucci and Ojeda crew, gave a different account. In his work Summa de geografía, he states that they found people who called themselves the Veneciuela. Thus, the name Venezuela may have evolved from the native word and it is not known how many people lived in Venezuela before the Spanish conquest, it has been estimated at around one million. In addition to indigenous peoples known today, the population included historic groups such as the Kalina, Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche, the Timoto-Cuica culture was the most complex society in Pre-Columbian Venezuela, with pre-planned permanent villages, surrounded by irrigated, terraced fields. They also stored water in tanks and their houses were made primarily of stone and wood with thatched roofs. They were peaceful, for the most part, and depended on growing crops, regional crops included potatoes and ullucos
2.
Delta Amacuro
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Delta Amacuro State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, and is the location of the Orinoco Delta. The Paria Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean are found to the north, Bolívar State is found to the south, the Atlantic Ocean and Guyana are found to the east, the state capital city is Tucupita. Delta Amacuro State covers a surface area of 40,200 km² and. The Warao people have lived in this region well before the Europeans arrived in America. Thanks to the remoteness of the Delta, the Warao managed to keep a certain independence from the European, columbus arrived at the coast off the Delta on 1 August 1498 during his third voyage to America. He wrote about the macareo, the noise that occurs when a river flow meets the ocean currents. As the Delta connects to the Orinoco, it became the point of entry from the Ocean to Guayana, diego de Ordaz explored the territory from June 1531, when he sailed upstream the Orinoco River with several ships. Antonio Berrío traveled through the region in the 1580s, fernando de Berrío, Antonio Berríos son, initiated expeditions going through the area in search for El Dorado. Walter Raleigh crossed the Delta in 1594,1595 and finally on his last expedition, during Colonial Venezuela the Delta was part of New Andalusia Province. Alexander von Humboldt wrote in his Voyages to the Equinoccial Regions that the Waraos were the only Native Americans still free from control from the Spanish authorities in the province. He said people calculated the Warao population in the Delta at around 6. 000-7.000 individuals, the territory became part of the Guayana Province when Venezuela became independent. On 27 February 1884 the Delta became Federal Territory and was composed of the districts Manoa, the territory was attached soon afterwards to the Bolivar state. It became a Federal Territory again on 26 April 1901, the catholic missionary Barral arrived in the area in the 1930s and established a couple of religious missions and schools. He carried out some of the first studies on the Warao language, the Delta became state on 3 August 1991. In the last decade, Delta Amacuro has seen an important migration of criollo Venezuelans looking for jobs in the oil sector, the Native Americans Warao Indians live mostly here. According to the count for First Nations, there were in 2001 some 2680 Native Americans in the Delta. The Waraos have their own language, but they are mostly bilingual, the population in the main cities is composed mostly of other Venezuelans. According to the 2011 Census, the composition of the population was
3.
Monagas
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Monagas State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. Monagas State covers a surface area of 28,900 km² and. The capital of the state is Maturín, the former Indian town of Uyapari was the centre of a splendid kind of pottery admired by some European explorers as Diego de Ordaz. Scholars, who studied this pottery, gave the culture which designed it the name of Barrancoide Culture, after a probable arrival of Columbus to the coast of Monagas State during his third voyage in August 1498 many explorations were done to this land. Some of the most famous Spanish explorers were Diego de Ordaz, Diego de Lepe, Juan Bono de Quejo, apart from that, some hunters of Indians from the islands of Cubagua and Margarita sail around Monagas state looking for slaves in some Indians towns. The colonization of this state was slow, for the resistance made by the Caribs. These Indians defended their freedom, families and lands against the Spanish conquerors who wanted to hunt and this situation began to change when Franciscan missioners arrived from Spain in order to evangelize the Indians. The Franciscans are the responsibles of the establishment of missions which became in towns later. Some of these towns founded by the Franciscans are San Antonio, Guanaguana, Caicara, Caripe, Santa Bárbara, Maturín, Barrancas, however these foundations were not so easy. At the beginning some Indians, especially the Caribs, attacked the group of missioners, some Franciscans died for the attacks, others died for the tropical sicknesses or for the rude conditions they were living. The lands of Monagas were the scene of battles during the fight for the independence of Venezuela. The most famous took place in Maturín. During the period of the republic, Monagas state had a slow growth because of the frequent civil wars which destroyed possessions and killed cattle, another cause of this problem was the increment of deaths produced by tropical sicknesses as the yellow fever. The landscape change when oil fields were discovered in this land, the new petroleum activity stimulated industrial and commercial activities which attracted persons from other states and countries. Punta de Mata, El Tejero, Temblador are examples of towns which were born around the oil fields, Maturín became in an important commercial and banking centre in the east of Venezuela. In 1856 Monagas was raised to the level of province with the name of province of Maturín, in 1864 was ratified the new Maturín state. But in 1879 these lands lost their autonomy and formed part of the east state, in 1891 Monagas was added to the great Bermúdez state, which was composed by Sucre, Anzoátegui, Monagas, Bolívar states. Monagas got again the autonomy in 1901 with the name of Maturín state, however Monagas lost this condition in 1904 when it was added to the Bermúdez state
4.
Sucre (state)
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Sucre State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. Sucre State covers a surface area of 11,800 km² and. The most important river in the state is the Manzanares River, francisco del Valle Álvarez Agreda, singer. Eladio Lárez, TV host José Antonio Ramos Sucre, poet, irene Esser, Miss Universe 2012 2nd runner up. Wolfgang Larrazábal, rear admiral president of Venezuela States of Venezuela
5.
Orinoco Basin
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The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,140 kilometres. Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 square kilometres, with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela, the Orinoco and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. The Orinoco is extremely diverse and hosts a variety of flora. The mouth of the Orinoco at the Atlantic Ocean was documented by Columbus on 1 August 1498 and its source at the Cerro Delgado–Chalbaud, in the Parima range, was not explored until 1951,453 years later. The source, near the Venezuelan–Brazilian border, at 1,047 metres above sea level, was explored in 1951 by a joint Venezuelan–French team. The Orinoco Delta, and tributaries in the eastern llanos such as the Apure and Meta, were explored in the 16th century by German expeditions under Ambrosius Ehinger and his successors. In 1531 Diego de Ordaz, starting at the outlet in the delta. Antonio de Berrio sailed down the Casanare to the Meta, and then down the Orinoco, alexander von Humboldt explored the basin in 1800, reporting on the pink river dolphins. He published extensively on the flora and fauna. The first bridge across the Orinoco was the Angostura Bridge at Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, in 2006 a second bridge was completed near Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, known as the Orinoquia Bridge. The first powerline crossing of the Orinoco was completed in 1981 for an 800 kV TL single span of 1,200 metres using two towers 110 metres tall. In 1992, a power line crossing for two 400 kV-circuits was completed just west of Morocure, north of the confluence of Routes 1 and 19. It had three towers, and the two spans measured 2,161 metres and 2,537 metres, respectively, at its mouth, the Orinoco forms a wide delta that branches off into hundreds of rivers and waterways that flow through 41,000 km2 of swampy forests. In the rainy season, the Orinoco can swell to a breadth of 22 kilometres, most of the important Venezuelan rivers are tributaries of the Orinoco, the largest being the Caroní, which joins it at Puerto Ordaz, close to the Llovizna Falls. The Orinoco crocodile is one of the rarest reptiles in the world and its range in the wild is restricted to the Orinoco River Basin. More than 1000 fish species have recorded in the river basin. Among the fish in the river are found in brackish or salt water in the Orinoco estuary. By far the largest orders are Characiformes and Siluriformes, which account for more than 80% of the fresh water species
6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
7.
River delta
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A river delta is a landform that forms from deposition of sediment carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or standing water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, River deltas are ecologically important as they provide coastline defense, are home to many species, and can impact drinking water supply. The tidal currents also cannot be too strong, as sediment would wash out into the body faster than the river deposits it. Of course, the river must carry enough sediment to layer into deltas over time, the rivers velocity decreases rapidly, causing it to deposit the majority, if not all, of its load. This alluvium builds up to form the river delta, when the flow enters the standing water, it is no longer confined to its channel and expands in width. This flow expansion results in a decrease in the flow velocity, as a result, sediment drops out of the flow and deposits. Over time, this single channel builds a deltaic lobe, pushing its mouth into the standing water, as the deltaic lobe advances, the gradient of the river channel becomes lower because the river channel is longer but has the same change in elevation. As the slope of the channel decreases, it becomes unstable for two reasons. First, gravity makes the flow in the most direct course down slope. If the river breaches its natural levees, it out onto a new course with a shorter route to the ocean. Second, as its slope gets lower, the amount of stress on the bed decreases, which results in deposition of sediment within the channel. This makes it easier for the river to breach its levees, often when the channel does this, some of its flow remains in the abandoned channel. When these channel-switching events occur, a mature delta develops a distributary network, another way these distributary networks form is from deposition of mouth bars. When this mid-channel bar is deposited at the mouth of a river and this results in additional deposition on the upstream end of the mouth-bar, which splits the river into two distributary channels. A good example of the result of this process is the Wax Lake Delta, in both of these cases, depositional processes force redistribution of deposition from areas of high deposition to areas of low deposition. This results in the smoothing of the shape of the delta as the channels move across its surface. Because the sediment is laid down in fashion, the shape of these deltas approximates a fan. The more often the flow changes course, the shape develops as closer to an ideal fan, the Mississippi and Ural River deltas, with their birds-feet, are examples of rivers that do not avulse often enough to form a symmetrical fan shape
8.
Orinoco
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The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,140 kilometres. Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 square kilometres, with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela, the Orinoco and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. The Orinoco is extremely diverse and hosts a variety of flora. The mouth of the Orinoco at the Atlantic Ocean was documented by Columbus on 1 August 1498 and its source at the Cerro Delgado–Chalbaud, in the Parima range, was not explored until 1951,453 years later. The source, near the Venezuelan–Brazilian border, at 1,047 metres above sea level, was explored in 1951 by a joint Venezuelan–French team. The Orinoco Delta, and tributaries in the eastern llanos such as the Apure and Meta, were explored in the 16th century by German expeditions under Ambrosius Ehinger and his successors. In 1531 Diego de Ordaz, starting at the outlet in the delta. Antonio de Berrio sailed down the Casanare to the Meta, and then down the Orinoco, alexander von Humboldt explored the basin in 1800, reporting on the pink river dolphins. He published extensively on the flora and fauna. The first bridge across the Orinoco was the Angostura Bridge at Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, in 2006 a second bridge was completed near Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, known as the Orinoquia Bridge. The first powerline crossing of the Orinoco was completed in 1981 for an 800 kV TL single span of 1,200 metres using two towers 110 metres tall. In 1992, a power line crossing for two 400 kV-circuits was completed just west of Morocure, north of the confluence of Routes 1 and 19. It had three towers, and the two spans measured 2,161 metres and 2,537 metres, respectively, at its mouth, the Orinoco forms a wide delta that branches off into hundreds of rivers and waterways that flow through 41,000 km2 of swampy forests. In the rainy season, the Orinoco can swell to a breadth of 22 kilometres, most of the important Venezuelan rivers are tributaries of the Orinoco, the largest being the Caroní, which joins it at Puerto Ordaz, close to the Llovizna Falls. The Orinoco crocodile is one of the rarest reptiles in the world and its range in the wild is restricted to the Orinoco River Basin. More than 1000 fish species have recorded in the river basin. Among the fish in the river are found in brackish or salt water in the Orinoco estuary. By far the largest orders are Characiformes and Siluriformes, which account for more than 80% of the fresh water species
9.
Tucupita
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Tucupita is the capital city of the Venezuelan state of Delta Amacuro. Delta Amacuro consists almost entirely of the swampy Orinoco River delta, the hot and humid Tucupita lies well into the delta on the Caño Manamo river. It is approached by a road runs along the top of a gigantic barrier constructed in the 1960s to create dry land. The project is considered by many to be a failure since little dry land was created, the delta is covered mostly by mangrove swamp but there is a huge range of other flora and fauna making it one of the worlds more ecologically diverse places. Significant amounts of oil have been discovered in the parts of the delta. The city is also the see of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Tucupita. The main income of the town comes from eco-tourism, the attractions are the vast and varied bird life, mammals and reptiles of the delta. Also to be seen and visited are the villages of the local Indians, fast motorised canoes can take tourists into the remotest parts of the delta where a range of lodges have been constructed, ranging from simple rustic huts to more luxurious accommodations. Tourists can also stay in the houses of the Warao for a few days and see how they live and learn some of their skills in herbalism. In the delta itself, only travel by boat is possible, there is a range of basic accommodation in the town and several quite reasonable cafés and bars, although there is little else for the tourist to see and do within Tucupita itself. There are good bus connections to Bolivar City and other towns in the north of Venezuela
10.
Warao people
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The Warao are an indigenous people inhabiting northeastern Venezuela and western Guyana. Alternate common spellings of Warao are Waroa, Guarauno, Guarao, the term Warao translates as the boat people, after the Waraos lifelong and intimate connection to the water. Most of the approximately 20,000 Warao inhabit Venezuelas Orinoco Delta region, with numbers in neighboring Guyana. They speak a language, Warao. On the wide Orinoco River and its fertile delta composed of islands and marshes and these houses are usually built on the highest ground to avoid the annual floods. Sometimes a group of houses is built upon a large platform of trees. The huts each possess a clay cooking pit or oven located in the center, besides the hammocks, the only other furniture sometimes present are wooden stools, sometimes carved in the shapes of animals. Warao use canoes as their form of transportation. Other modes, such as walking, are hampered by the hundreds of streams, rivulets, marshes, Warao babies, toddlers, and small children are famed for their ability to hold tight to their mothers necks, as well as to paddle. They often learn to swim before they learn to walk, the Warao use two types of canoes. Bongos, which carry up to 5 people, are built in a process that starts with the search for large trees. When an old bongo is no longer usable, a consensus is reached by the leaders of each household on which tree is best. At the start of the dry season, they find the tree, at the end of the dry season, they return to cut it down. It is then hollowed out and flattened with stone tools traded from the mountains along with fire, the other type of canoe is a small, seating only three people, and is used for daily travel to and from food sources. The Warao diet is varied with an emphasis on the products of the delta, by 1500 they had acquired basic horticulture, although many of their daily fruits and vegetables come from the wild orchards of the delta. In July and August, Warao feast on crabs when they come to the delta from the beach, hunting is generally avoided due to cultural taboos. They occasionally also eat grubs found in the palm tree. The Warao are, according to their own reports, descended from a heavenly figure — the primordial hunter
11.
Distributary
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A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. They are a feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation, the opposite of a distributary is a tributary. In some cases, a minor distributary can divert so much water from the channel that it can become the main route. Common terms to name individual river distributaries in English-speaking countries are arm and they may refer to a distributary that does not rejoin the channel it has branched from, or one that does. In Australia, the term anabranch is used to refer to a distributary that diverts from the course of the river. In North America an anabranch is called a braided stream, in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya River is an important distributary of the Mississippi River. Examples of inland distributaries, Teton River—a tributary of Henrys Fork in Idaho—splits into two channels, the North Fork and South Fork, which join Henrys Fork miles apart. Kings River has deposited an alluvial fan at the transition from its canyon in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the flat Central Valley. Distributaries flow north into the Pacific Ocean via San Joaquin River, the QuAppelle River, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, is a distributary of the South Saskatchewan River. Its flow is controlled by the QuAppelle River Dam and this dam forms the southern arm of Lake Diefenbaker. The Casiquiare is a distributary of the upper Orinoco, which flows southward into the Rio Negro. It is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems, the IJssel, the Waal and the Nederrijn are the three principal distributaries of the Rhine. These are formed by two separate bifurcations within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, the Akhtuba River is a major distributary of the Volga. The bifurcation occurs close to, but before, the Volga Delta, the Tärendö River in northern Sweden is an inland distributary, far from the mouth of the river. It begins at the Torne River and ends at the Kalix River, the Little Danube in Slovakia branches off from the Danube near Bratislava, and flows into the Vah before rejoining the main river near Komárno. The area in the middle is the largest freshwater island in Europe, kollidam River is a distributary of the Kaveri River. These areas are highly flood-prone, for example the 2008 Bihar flood on the Kosi River, hoogli River is a Ganges distributary that flows through India, whereas most of the Ganges-Brahmaputra complex enters the sea through Bangladesh
12.
Lagoon
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A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are commonly divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons and they have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries, lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world. Lagoons can also be man-made and used for treatment, as is the case for e. g. aerated lagoons. Lagoons are shallow, often elongated bodies of water separated from a body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef. Some authorities include fresh water bodies in the definition of lagoon, the distinction between lagoon and estuary also varies between authorities. Richard A. Davis Jr. restricts lagoon to bodies of water with little or no fresh water inflow, and little or no tidal flow, Davis does state that the terms lagoon and estuary are often loosely applied, even in scientific literature. Timothy M. Kusky characterizes lagoons as normally being elongated parallel to the coast, while estuaries are usually drowned river valleys, coastal lagoons are classified as inland bodies of water. Many lagoons do not include lagoon in their common names, in England, The Fleet at Chesil Beach has also been described as a lagoon. In Latin America, the term laguna in Spanish, which translates to. However, sometimes it is used to describe a full-sized lake, such as Laguna Catemaco in Mexico. The brackish water lagoon may be explicitly identified as a coastal lagoon. In Portuguese the same usage is found, lagoa may be a body of sea water. Lagoon is derived from the Italian laguna, which refers to the waters around Venice, Laguna is attested in English by at least 1612, and had been Anglicized to lagune by 1673. In 1697 William Dampier referred to a Lagune or Lake of Salt water on the coast of Mexico, captain James Cook described an island of Oval form with a Lagoon in the middle in 1769. Atoll lagoons form as coral reefs grow upwards while the islands that the reefs surround subside, unlike the lagoons that form shoreward of fringing reefs, atoll lagoons often contain some deep portions. Coastal lagoons form along gently sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop off-shore, coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres. Due to the slope of the coast, coastal lagoons are shallow
13.
Ocean
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An ocean is a body of saline water that composes much of a planets hydrosphere. On Earth, an ocean is one of the major divisions of the World Ocean. These are, in descending order by area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, the word sea is often used interchangeably with ocean in American English but, strictly speaking, a sea is a body of saline water partly or fully enclosed by land. The ocean contains 97% of Earths water, and oceanographers have stated that less than 5% of the World Ocean has been explored, the total volume is approximately 1.35 billion cubic kilometers with an average depth of nearly 3,700 meters. As the world ocean is the component of Earths hydrosphere, it is integral to all known life, forms part of the carbon cycle. The world ocean is the habitat of 230,000 known species, but because much of it is unexplored, the origin of Earths oceans remains unknown, oceans are thought to have formed in the Hadean period and may have been the impetus for the emergence of life. Extraterrestrial oceans may be composed of water or other elements and compounds, the only confirmed large stable bodies of extraterrestrial surface liquids are the lakes of Titan, although there is evidence for the existence of oceans elsewhere in the Solar System. Early in their histories, Mars and Venus are theorized to have had large water oceans. The Mars ocean hypothesis suggests that nearly a third of the surface of Mars was once covered by water, compounds such as salts and ammonia dissolved in water lower its freezing point so that water might exist in large quantities in extraterrestrial environments as brine or convecting ice. Unconfirmed oceans are speculated beneath the surface of many planets and natural satellites, notably. The Solar Systems giant planets are thought to have liquid atmospheric layers of yet to be confirmed compositions. Oceans may also exist on exoplanets and exomoons, including surface oceans of water within a circumstellar habitable zone. Ocean planets are a type of planet with a surface completely covered with liquid. The concept of Ōkeanós has an Indo-European connection, Greek Ōkeanós has been compared to the Vedic epithet ā-śáyāna-, predicated of the dragon Vṛtra-, who captured the cows/rivers. Related to this notion, the Okeanos is represented with a dragon-tail on some early Greek vases, though generally described as several separate oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water sometimes referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography. The major oceanic divisions – listed below in descending order of area and volume – are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, Oceans are fringed by smaller, adjoining bodies of water such as seas, gulfs, bays, bights, and straits. The Mid-Oceanic Ridge of the World are connected and form the Ocean Ridge, the continuous mountain range is 65,000 km long, and the total length of the oceanic ridge system is 80,000 km long
14.
Niger River
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The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about 4,180 km. Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km2 in area and its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the Nile and its main tributary is the Benue River. The Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first Westerner known to have travelled to the portion of the Niger River. The earliest use of the name Niger for the river is by Leo Africanus in his Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che iui sono published in Italian in 1550, the name may come from Berber phrase ger-n-ger meaning river of rivers. As Timbuktu was the end of the principal Trans-Saharan trade route to the western Mediterranean. When European colonial powers began to send ships along the West coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of distributaries along more than 160 kilometres, was thought to be no more than coastal wetlands. The Niger River is a clear river, carrying only a tenth as much sediment as the Nile because the Nigers headwaters lie in ancient rocks that provide little silt. Like the Nile, the Niger floods yearly, this begins in September, peaks in November, an unusual feature of the river is the Inner Niger Delta, which forms where its gradient suddenly decreases. The result is a region of braided streams, marshes, and lakes the size of Belgium, the river loses nearly two-thirds of its potential flow in the Inner Delta between Ségou and Timbuktu to seepage and evaporation. All the water from the Bani River, which flows into the Delta at Mopti, the average loss is estimated at 31 km3/year, but varies considerably between years. The river is joined by various tributaries, but also loses more water to evaporation. The quantity of water entering Nigeria measured in Yola was estimated at 25 km3/year before the 1980s, the most important tributary of the Niger in Nigeria is the Benue River which merges with the river at Lokoja in Nigeria. The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river and this strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. Over time upstream erosion by the lower Niger resulted in capture of the upper Niger by the lower Niger. The northern part of the river, known as the Niger bend, is an important area because it is the major river and this made it the focal point of trade across the western Sahara, and the centre of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao. The surrounding Niger River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the Sudan province, the origin of the rivers name remains unclear. What is clear is that Niger was an appellation applied in the Mediterranean world from at least the Classical era, when knowledge of the area by Europeans was slightly better than fable
15.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
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Freshwater swamp forest
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Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes, freshwater swamp forests are found in a range of climate zones, from boreal through temperate and subtropical to tropical. In the Amazon Basin of Brazil, a flooded forest is known as a várzea. Igapó, another used in Brazil for flooded Amazonian forests, is also sometimes used in English. Specifically, varzea refers to whitewater-inundated forest, and igapó to blackwater-inundated forest, peat swamp forests are swamp forests where waterlogged soils prevent woody debris from fully decomposing, which over time creates a thick layer of acidic peat. Eastern Congolian swamp forests Niger Delta swamp forests Western Congolian swamp forests
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Mangrove
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A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are salt tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to life in coastal conditions. They contain a complex filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion. They are adapted to the low oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud, the saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater, to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater. The term mangrove comes to English from Spanish, and is likely to originate from Guarani and it was earlier mangrow, but this word was corrupted via folk etymology influence of the word grove. Mangrove swamps are found in tropical and subtropical tidal areas, areas where mangal occurs include estuaries and marine shorelines. The intertidal existence to which trees are adapted represents the major limitation to the number of species able to thrive in their habitat. High tide brings in water, and when the tide recedes. The return of tide can flush out these soils, bringing back to salinity levels comparable to that of seawater. At low tide, organisms are exposed to increases in temperature and desiccation. About 110 species are considered mangroves, in the sense of being a tree grows in such a saline swamp, though only a few are from the mangrove plant genus. However, a mangrove swamp typically features only a small number of tree species. It is not uncommon for a mangrove forest in the Caribbean to feature three or four tree species. For comparison, the tropical rainforest biome contains thousands of tree species, though the trees themselves are few in species, the ecosystem that these trees create provides a home for a great variety of other organisms. Mangrove plants require a number of adaptations to overcome the problems of anoxia, high salinity. Each species has its own solutions to problems, this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines. Small environmental variations within a mangal may lead to greatly differing methods for coping with the environment, once established, mangrove roots provide an oyster habitat and slow water flow, thereby enhancing sediment deposition in areas where it is already occurring
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Venezuelan Andes
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The Venezuelan Andes also simply known as the Andes in Venezuela, are a mountain system that form the northernmost extension of the Andes. They are fully identified, both by their origin as by the components of the relief, the constituent rocks. The highest point in Venezuela is located in natural region. It covers around 5. 2% of the territory, being the 4th largest natural region in Venezuela. It can be divided in three subregions, Western Venezuelan Andes, north-Eastern Venezuelan Andes Sierra de Perija, located at the western extreme of Venezuela in Zulia state, bordering Colombia. Its characterized by tge interaction of the three most important lithosperic plates in the region, Nazca, Caribbean and South American, a northwest-southwest oriented irection of compression produces vertical and horizontal deformation components, with the formation of thrusts align the Andean borders, and strike-slip faults. The split of Venezuelan Andes apparently began in the Late Eocene, the main active structures are the strike-slip faults. The principal one being the Boconó Fault Zone, with a measured dextral displacement of several millimeters per year, in the field this displacement is shown by the existence of fault trenches, fault depressions, sag ponds, offset ridges and lateral moraines. Like all tropical mountain ranges with altitudes above 3, 000m, the Venezuelan Andes were affected by Pleistocene glaciations. Two morainic complexes have been recognized in the Cordillera de Mérida and these two levels have been considered as Early and Late Stades, respectively, of the Mérida Glaciation. The moraines of the Late Stade are topographically well represented, and several superposed moraines, in the absecence of more detailed data, these have been tentatively assigned to the Late Stade of the Mérida Glaciation. The moraines associated with this phase are most probably located at an altitude of approximately 4,700 m between 100 to 200 below the terminal zone of present-day glaciers
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Maracaibo Basin
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Covering over 36,657 square km, it is a hydrocarbon-rich region that has produced over 30 billion bbl of oil with an estimated 44 billion bbl yet to be recovered. The basin is characterized by a shallow tidal estuary, Lake Maracaibo. The Maracaibo basin has a tectonic history that dates back to the Jurassic period with multiple evolution stages. Despite its complexity, these major tectonic stages were carefully preserved within its stratigraphy and this makes The Maracaibo basin one of the most valuable basins for reconstructing South Americas early tectonic history. The Maracaibo basin is surrounded by two ranges, the Méridas Andes to the southeast and the Sierra de Perija to the west. The basin lies within a region of deformation created by the interactions of the Caribbean and these interactions include the collision of the Caribbean plate with the South American plate in the Cenozoic era, which formed a belt of foreland basins across northern South America. There are three main fault zones associated with the basin, the Santa Marta-Bucaramanga fault zone, the Boconó fault zone, and these strike-slip zones create a v-shape around the basin which form a smaller plate known as the Maracaibo block. Within this v-shaped wedge, multiple smaller fault zones are present including the Icotea strike-slip fault, the formation of the Maracaibo basin began 160 Ma with the North American, South American, and Caribbean plates playing key roles in the evolution of the basin. It developed into the foreland basin via multiple stages throughout time, Late Jurassic, Late Cretaceous, Paleocene-Eocene. During the break-up of Pangea, the North American plate began to separate from the South American plate, the two plates rifted away from each other forming the Proto-Caribbean Seaway, an 1800 km wide region of oceanic crust. As this rifting occurred, the Caribbean plate began its migration from the Pacific region. After rifting, the edge of the South American plate developed into a passive margin with the Proto-Caribbean Seaway. This stable passive margin allowed for thermal subsidence to occur which began to due to the building up of the Cordillera Central range of Colombia. This uplift was initiated by the eastward moving Caribbean plate interacting with the Nazca, the Caribbean plate has been migrating eastward from the Pacific region and eventually collided with the South American plate in the middle Paleocene. This collision transformed the passive margin of northern South America into an active margin, the Caribbean plate had subducted significant amounts of oceanic Proto-Caribbean crust by this time and was now subducting beneath the South American crust. This boundary interaction was greatly affecting the region of northwestern South America, foreland basins formed across the region which received large amount of sediment due to the plate boundary interactions to the north. The Caribbean plate continued its migration and continued to deform the northwestern regions of South America while also producing deformation along the northeastern regions. As plate migration proceeded, accretion along the South American plate increased and this accretion greatly influenced mountain building of the region
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