The largest lowland on the globe.

Where is the largest lowland on the globe? Any geographer will give an unequivocal answer to this question - in South America. This is the Amazonian Plain, with an area of ​​over five million square kilometers. Slightly smaller is the East European or Russian Plain, with an area of ​​about five (according to other estimates, about four) million square kilometers.

The Amazonian lowland: geographical location and geology

From the west, the plain is bordered by the Andes, from the east - by the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. From the north and south, respectively, the Guiana and Brazilian highlands. It contains most of the Amazon basin, from which the lowland got its name. Its length from north to south is about 2500 km, from west to east - about 3200 km.

The lowland lies in the equatorial and subequatorial belts. Therefore, the local climate is characterized by a large amount of precipitation. Part of the territory is swampy all year round. And in the rainy season, impenetrable swamps stretch for tens of kilometers. This greatly complicates the study and development of the lowland.

Geologically, the Amazonian Lowland is a tectonic trough filled with sedimentary rocks, as well as continental and marine deposits. Geologists divide the plain into the Western Amazon and the Eastern Amazon. The climate in both parts is practically the same, but geologically they are slightly different. In the east, closer to the sea, there are hills with a height of more than three hundred meters. In this regard, river rapids are not uncommon there, and the rivers themselves often look like canyons.

Economic use

The largest lowland on Earth is poorly populated. The main routes of communication are the Amazon with its tributaries and the Trans-Amazon highway. Living conditions in lowland forests are such that an unprepared person is unlikely to seem comfortable. At the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, there were numerous settlements of the so-called seringeiro - rubber collectors in the jungle. But after a replacement was found for the juice of the Brazilian hevea, the "rubber fever" began to decline and the settlements were abandoned.

The following minerals are currently being mined in the Amazonian lowland:

  • manganese ores,
  • iron ores,
  • oil,

and also timber harvesting is in progress.

True, in recent years, the Brazilian government has been limiting the deforestation of forests in which there is a lot of valuable ornamental wood. According to some reports, Brazilian forests have been reduced by 70 percent!

Ecology of the Amazon Lowland

Due to the deforestation, the ecological situation in the Amazon Lowland has deteriorated greatly. Earlier, before the beginning of the massive felling, it was inhabited by up to a third of all living organisms on the planet. Now, a large number of species of not only trees, but also other plants, as well as animals, are not found here. Decomposition of the garbage remaining after felling and burning of wood leads to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and, as a consequence, to an increase in the greenhouse effect.

Brazil is taking steps to reverse this situation. Will she succeed - time will tell. There are examples in history when people corrected the mistakes of their fathers. For example, as a result of vigorous measures by the Kazakh government, the northern, Kazakh part of the Aral Sea (Small Sea) began to gradually recover. For this, a huge dam had to be built in order to protect the Small Aral from the Big, and to limit the water intake from the Syr Darya river that feeds the sea.

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