As these systems travel over landforms or bodies of water, they may gain or lose heat and moisture content. Mountains and Rainfall Tall mountain ranges, like the Andes of South America and the Rockies of North America, act as an obstacle to traveling air masses, forcing them to rise over their lofty peaks.
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The heavily forested plateau of the Guiana Highlands covers southern Venezuela, French Guiana, Guyana, northern Brazil, and a portion of southeastern Colombia. River Basins. South America has three important river basins: the Amazon, Orinoco, and Paraguay/Paraná.
The Paraguay/Paraná River basin supplies water to the plain s biome, or Pampas, of South America. The Pampas have rich, fertile soil and predictable rainfall patterns. They are the most important grazing and crop land areas on the continent. Coastal Plains A coastal plain is an area of low,...
How does geology affect the formation of river landforms? The geology of an area influences the rate of river erosion. Rivers flowing over hard rock have a slower rate of erosion as the bedrock is more resistant. However, areas with soft rock are more likely to experience greater rates of erosion.
Major Basins. Massive sedimentary basins make up the rest of South America: the Orinoco, Amazon and Chaco-Pampa. The Orinoco occupies a tectonic lowland, and is filled with sediments washed out of the Andes and the Caribbean coastal ranges, from which the Orinoco River rises. The basin includes the great grasslands of the Llanos.
The continent's western coast resembles a spinal column formed by the Andes Mountains, while its eastern coast looks like a bulging midsection. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west, the Atlantic Ocean is in the east, and the Caribbean Sea lies to the north.
Mountains and HighlandsTHE ANDES MOUNTAINS. ... HIGHLANDS. ... LLANOS OF COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA. ... PLAINS OF AMAZON RIVER BASIN. ... PAMPAS OF ARGENTINA AND URUGUAY. ... ORINOCO RIVER. ... AMAZON RIVER. ... PARANA RIVER.More items...
The Amazon River has the greatest discharge of any river in the world. It carries about one-fifth of all river water in the world. The Amazon and its many tributaries drain the entire interior region of the continent, covering 40 percent of South America.
South America is dominated by two major landforms. The Andes Mountains, located within the Pacific Ring of Fire, are formed from the subduction of the Nazca plate underneath the entire western edge of the South American plate.
3 major landforms regions make up Central America:mountainous core.Caribbean lowlands.Pacific coastal plain.
How are the landforms of the region both and advantage and disadvantage? the mountains provide protection for settlements but made it hard to cross the continents; the rivers also made traveling difficult. The landforms also resulted in rich soil that is good for planting and grazing and lots of natural resources.
The trade winds of both hemispheres converge between the subtropical anticyclones of the Northern and Southern hemispheres in that low-pressure region. A migrating zone of unstable atmospheric conditions results, bringing periods of prolonged, abundant precipitation.
as the region become dependent on farming and crops, huge textile mills and plantations were built, and the new factories attracted businesses which began to build down South, starting the growth of new cities.
The far-reaching Andes Mountains and the massive Amazon River system dominate South America's physical geography. The five-thousand-mile-long Andes Mountain chain extends along the entire western region of the continent from Venezuela to southern Chile.
The four largest drainage systems—the Amazon, Río de la Plata (Paraguay, Paraná, and Uruguay rivers), Orinoco, and São Francisco—cover about two-thirds of the continent. By far the largest system is formed by the Amazon River, which stretches some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) across equatorial South America.
With an unparalleled number of plant and animal species, South America's rich biodiversity is unique among the world's continents. South America's primary mountain system, the Andes, is also the world's longest. The range covers about 8,850 kilometers (5,500 miles).
A landform is a feature on the Earth's surface that is part of the terrain. Mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains are the four major types of landforms. Minor landforms include buttes, canyons, valleys, and basins.
South America’s extreme geographic variation contributes to the continent’s large number of biomes. A biome is a community of animals and plants that spreads over an area with a relatively uniform climate.
The capital cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay, practically face each other across the estuary. The Paraguay/Paraná River basin supplies water to the plain s biome, or Pampas, of South America.
Within a few hundred kilometers, South America’s coastal plains’ dry desert biome rises to the rugged alpine biome of the Andes mountains. One of the continent’s river basins (the Amazon) is defined by dense, tropical rain forest, while the other (Paraná) is made up of vast grassland s.
Every second, the Amazon River empties 209,000 cubic meters (7,381,000 cubic feet) of freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean. The Amazon River is the life force of the equally vast Amazon rain forest, which makes up about half of the rain forest of the entire planet.
There are hundreds of peaks more than 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) tall, many of which are volcanic.
South America has three important river basins: the Amazon, Orinoco, and Paraguay/Paraná. The Amazon River basin has an area of almost 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles), making it the largest watershed in the world.
Located south of the Amazon River in Brazil, the Brazilian Highlands are made up of low mountains and plateaus that rise to an average elevation of 1,006 meters (3,300 feet). The Guiana Highlands are located between the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers.
Rivers provide water for hydroelectric power and shipping, as well as supporting stream-side wetlands (riparian areas) that are critical for clean water and provide rich habitat. Source: Trista L. Thornberry-Ehrlich, Colorado State University. The drainage basin or watershed is a fundamental landscape unit in fluvial geomorphology.
Introduction. Fluvial systems are dominated by rivers and streams. Stream erosion may be the most important geomporphic agent. Fluvial processes sculpt the landscape, eroding landforms, transporting sediment, and depositing it to create new landforms. Human civilization and ecosystems alike are dependent on fluvial systems.
The shape that a stream takes, or its channel morphology, is a function of the sediment carried and deposited by the stream. This divides medium to low gradiant streams into two general categories, meandering and braided.
The drainage basin or watershed is a fundamental landscape unit in fluvial geomorphology. A dranage basin contains a primary, or trunk, river and its tributaries. Watersheds are separated from their neighbors by a divide; a highpoint where water flows in different directions on either side. Upper Basin.
A floodplain is the relatively flat surface adjacent to the river or stream. During floods, when the stream overflows its banks, water flows over the floodplain and deposits sediment. Through fluvial processes, streams construct floodplains that accommodate their maximum flood capacity.
Stressors, as used herein, are forcing mechanisms that can induce change in a fluvial system . These agents of change can be natural or artificial, be driven by forces within a watershed, such as logging, or driven by forces external to the watershed, such as climatic change, and may have a detrimental or beneficial impact on a fluvial system. Simply, stressors cause change in the fluvial systems that may result in instability.
Good descriptions of methods for monitoring fluvial systems are increasingly abundant because of the environmental emphasis on stream systems and because of the on-going effort of many agencies, mostly government, to make methods available on their Web sites.
In this chapter, vital signs are a subset of characteristics of a larger fluvial system that can be monitored to provide information about the overall condition and trends of the system . The vital signs for fluvial systems are introduced here to provide a framework for understanding how fluvial systems respond to natural and anthropogenic stresses (see the next section). These vital signs are fundamental characteristics of fluvial systems; they should be of interest to those making management decisions related to fluvial geomorphology. They are also relevant to other natural resources being monitored in many managed lands (such as biology, water quality, and hydrology). Most importantly, data generated by monitoring these vital signs will permit evaluation of trends to assess and understand the impact of stresses on fluvial systems.
Monitoring fluvial systems can be a daunting task because of the scale and interconnectedness of river systems. The form and processes of a stream are a response to most natural and artificial processes and properties within the watershed. They are also subject to external factors—most notably climate.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of river and stream dynamics, describe possible stressors that may lead to channel instability, and provide guidelines and methods for monitoring streams and rivers. Because there are great differences in budget, staffing, and management needs and objectives between managed lands, we provide procedures for three levels of monitoring protocols. The three levels progress from low-budget methods where minimal expertise in fluvial geomorphology is required, to higher-level methodologies requiring greater expertise, a larger budget, and more time. We recognize that personnel range from people having no formal training in fluvial geomorphology to people holding graduate degrees in the field. In the past decade, there has been increased emphasis on stream water quality, monitoring, and restoration from government and nongovernment associations. With this, people from a wide variety of backgrounds have become involved in monitoring and sampling of streams. While, indeed, many methods for sampling and monitoring are simple, the design of a study and interpretation of data are not simple—they require a sophisticated understanding of stream systems. Improper study design and interpretation has led to, in many cases, the collection of useless data, or worse, the implementation of land use plans or stream restoration projects that made problems worse. Because of this, we have put considerable emphasis in the overview of fluvial geomorphology to describe how stream processes relate to channel form and the dynamics of these complex, highly interconnected systems. Understanding how a stream works, how it relates to other systems (natural and artificial), and how it relates to the entire watershed defines the core of knowledge necessary for designing a successful monitoring plan and interpreting the data properly.
In a similar way, the particle size and volume of sediment produced in a drainage basin will reflect the interaction of landscape and climatic characteristics such as climate, vegetation, geology, tectonics and topography, geomorphic processes (weathering, glaciation, river flow, etc.), process intensity, and land use.
includes individual stressors that directly affect the stream channel, such as dredging, trail crossings, channelization, and trampling of banks by grazing animals. In addition to the scale at which the stressor acts and the stressor category, stressors are also grouped by source area (Table 1).
The types of erosional landforms that develop along the course of a river depend on the geology of the area. Landforms such as waterfalls and gorges are often found along boundaries between hard and soft rock.
The geology of an area influences the rate of river erosion. Rivers flowing over hard rock have a slower rate of erosion as the bedrock is more resistant. However, areas with soft rock are more likely to experience greater rates of erosion.