The River - History
The Amazon started to form over 200 million years
ago when its highlands were formed on Gondwanaland, daughter of Pangea.
The Amazon River, newly formed, flowed west to the Pacific as there was
no barrier to stop it.
140 million years ago, Gondwanaland split apart and South America was left
adrift. When the South American plate collided into the Nazca plate, the
impact crushed the young rocks of Southern America to form the Andes. This
fresh mountain range blocked off the former mouth of the Amazon River, creating
a huge fresh water lake.
Over the next 50 million years, the continent began to tilt. Eventually,
this caused the freshwater lake to burst through its stony barriers and
form the Amazon River Basin.
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