The Amazon River is 11 million years old

The Amazon River originated as a transcontinental river around 11 million years ago and took its present shape approximately 2.4 million years ago. These are the most significant results of a study on two boreholes drilled in proximity of the mouth of the Amazon River by Petrobras, the national oil company of Brazil. A team formed by the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) of the University of Amsterdam, the University of Liverpool and Petrobras used this new oceanic record to reconstruct the history of the Amazon River. The study was published in the scientific journal 'Geology' in July 2009...

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