The largest tropical rainforest in the world, which spans more than two million square miles
in South America, is home to many unsettling mysteries as well as some stunning ones.
It is so huge that it would have been the ninth-largest country in the world if it had
been any country.
And this forest alone gives the entire planet 20% of its oxygen.
Nearly 60% of the forest in South America is located in Brazil, as can be seen by looking
at the continent's map.
From the outside, the Amazon rainforest is as stunning as it is unsettling and perilous
on the inside.
Additionally, there are people residing in this forest who are cut off from the outside
world.
Due to the immense size of the forest, there are still many areas of it that have not been
investigated, as well as numerous mysteries that have not been discovered.
Join us as we learn more about the startling Amazon rainforest discoveries that have the
entire world in shock!
Geoglyphs Recently, geologists discovered hundreds of
circles in the Amazon rainforest's ground that date back thousands of years.
These geoglyphs indicate that humans have been modifying the landscape here for thousands
of years before Europeans arrived.
These rings continue to perplex scientists, who are unable to determine their significance.
The Amazon has long been viewed as a pure ecosystem that was mostly unaffected by people
until the arrival of the Europeans.
However, this latest discovery shows that people were present centuries before than
we thought.
The discovery of these 450 geometrically designed ditches in Acre Brazil, which occupy over
13,000 square kilometers of land, was made possible by recent deforestation in the region.
These geoglyphs were unnoticed for hundreds of years because they were hidden by trees
but growing deforestation in the area made them apparent from the air.
Archaeologists are unsure why these circles were created; there were insufficient artefacts
to determine whether it was a settlement or a defensive measure.
Some researchers believe these could have been ritual Gathering places.
Jennifer Watling, the principal researcher, and her team reconstructed 6 000 years of
plant and fire history in the vicinity of two of these geoglyphs.
They observed that humans had been tampering with the bamboo trees to construct temporary
clearings for these geoglyphs.
This also supports the hypothesis that indigenous peoples managed the Amazonian woods long before
European contact.
Watling believes that this evidence of human contact highlights the ingenuity of previous
subsistence regimes that did not result in forest degradation.
Thousands of untouched islands in the middle of the Amazon Forest
In the 1980s, dozens of large dams were constructed across rivers in the Amazon basin, including
the Balbina Dam.
Recent studies have shown that the dam produced thousands of lush forest islands, but they
are too small to support viable ecosystems and species.
One of South America's largest reservoirs, which reaches about 100 kilometers to the
north, was built by the Balbina Dam.
Since the region of the Basin where the reservoir is located is rather mountainous more than
3,500 Islands have arisen from it.
As a consequence of this, the region's ridges and hills have been transformed into island
forest patches.
It goes without saying that habitat loss and the fragmentation of the remaining Forest
Area are two of the main causes of the ongoing biodiversity crisis.
One of the main ways people are destroying these habitats is through hydroelectric dams
like the Balbina.
This dam rips the forest, as seen by the altered environment that resulted from its construction.
Numerous species are at danger of going extinct quickly due to the small islands' inability
to support their populations.
The ability of such species to handle this stress, according to experts, will depend
on a number of additional factors.
Discovering which species are vanishing and which ones are persisting in the Balbina reservoir
has taken time and resources from experts from many institutions over the past ten years.
In one study, three neighboring locations that were connected to the main Forest but
weren't Islands were compared with 22 nearby Forest islands of various sizes.
The survey collected 608 species from eight different ecological groups, including dung
beetles, birds, frogs, diurnal lizards, large and small animals, and orchid bees.
The majority of diversity and full species assemblages, according to the findings, were
concentrated on a small number of bigger islands.
It was determined that the smaller Islands were in danger.
Only the more adapted animals, like armadillos, were able to endure on these little Islands
for more than 30 years.
The larger species that need more area, such as tapirs and jaguars, vanish from these islands.
On certain islands, incidences of species extinction that were widespread and not random
were also found, with larger species being more susceptible.
95 of the islands made by the Balbina dam are less than one square kilometer in size,
making up the majority of the islands.
Low levels of biodiversity can only be sustained on these mini-islands.
However, despite these warnings, new plans for expanding hydropower projects across the
lowland tropical forests are under way.
Experts predict there will be significant and grave ramifications for the ecosystem's
ability to function here.
This will simply hasten the demise of the magnificent Amazon rainforest ecosystem.
Awá Tribe The Awá are a Brazilian indigenous group
who inhabit in the Amazon rainforest.
The tribe today has over 350 members, with approximately 100 of them having no interaction
with the outside world.
Because of the ongoing conflict with logging interests in the land that they govern, this
tribe is regarded to be in a state of high endangerment.
The Awá people speak a Tupi-Guaran language known as Guajá.
Initially, they lived in settlements, but by the early nineteenth century, they had
chosen a nomadic lifestyle in order to avoid incursions by European invaders.
The Awá people were increasingly targeted by European settlers in the region, who wiped
off most of the forests that covered their territory.
A few Awá people moved to government-established settlements beginning in the mid-1980s, but
for the most part, they have maintained their traditional way of life.
They primarily exist in forests as nomadic communities of a few dozen people with little
or no contact with the outside world.
The forest they relied on for survival was being devastated by logging and land clearance
for cultivation, and their people were being killed by settlers.
As a result, the World Bank and the European Union agreed to lend the Brazilian government
$900 million.
The loan was contingent on the protection of specific indigenous tribes' lands and people,
particularly the Awá.
Without government involvement, the tribe and its culture would have perished long ago.
However, the Brazilian government took a long time to follow through on its commitment.
It wasn't until 2003 that Awá land was fully demarcated, but it didn't stop invading tribesmen
and loggers from infringing on their territory and slaughtering their tribesmen.
Strange Abandoned Villages While studying what is today known as the
state of Acre in Western Brazil, explorers came across 25 villages that had been abandoned
long ago.
These Villages were established between the years 1300 and 1700.
LIDAR, or light detection and ranging technology, was put on a helicopter by a group of scientists
to see what lurks beneath the rainforest vegetation and gain a broad perspective of the structures
there.
Along with the circular towns, they also found 11 other villages built in rectangular patterns
and 15 that were so old or damaged that it was hard to understand their form.
Between 3 and 32 mounds, varying in height from less than 10 feet to more than 65 feet,
were discovered by the archaeologists.
They are still unsure about the function of these mounds; they may have been homes or
graveyards.
These Villages were constructed in symbolic patterns, arranged like clock faces.
According to some researchers, these circular designs may be a reflection of the native
inhabitants' conception of the cosmos.
The LIDAR pictures also showed that most of these villages had a network of sunken roadways
leading to high banks.
These frequently form part of a network that spans many miles and links one Village to
another.
For many years, archaeologists have held the view that there was little human activity
in this area of the rainforest prior to the arrival of the European settlers.
But the story being told by these LIDAR photos is rather different.
According to experts, this recent discovery has taught them a great deal about the region's
extensive human past.
The people of the area used to create enormous earthworks with geometric patterns for centuries
before the development of this mound building civilization, but they stopped doing so around
950 A.D.
Man of the Hole The title "man of the hole" refers to an indigenous
guy who, according to a report to the nonprofit organization Survival International, had spent
nearly 26 years living alone in the Amazon rainforest.
He resided in the state of Rondônia in Brazil.
He was the final surviving member of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon.
The majority of accounts state that he was around 60 years old when he passed away.
He was given the nickname for his propensity to dig large holes in the dirt to conceal
himself or trap animals.
A representative of Funai, Brazil's indigenous protection agency, found his body.
It was on a straw-filled hammock that was dangling outside his hut.
He apparently passed away peacefully because there were no traces of struggle or violence.
His entire tribe had been slaughtered in a series of savage attacks that began in the
1970s and lasted for decades.
The majority of the attackers were land-hungry cattle ranchers.
No one outside of this man's community knew his name, according to Fiona Watson, head
of research and advocacy at Survival International.
His passing brought an end to the ethnic cleansing of his people.
Human rights activists saw this as an intentional act of wiping out a whole tribe at the hands
of selfish cattle ranchers.
Nobody knows how he survived alone in the forest for more than two decades, or what
horrors he witnessed.
He rebuffed any attempts of contact and made it apparent that he wanted to be alone.
Funai shared footage of this poor man cutting away at a tree with an axe back in 2018.
Researchers discovered his abandoned campsite's crops, which included corn, papaya, and bananas.
And, like the man in the hole, most other Amazonian indigenous groups face similar threats
from outsiders.
A Boiling River The Shanay-Timpishka, popularly known as La
Bomba, is a tributary of the Amazon River and the world's only boiling river.
The 6.4-kilometer-long tributary is noted for its very high temperatures, yet on most
days, the temperature fluctuates between 45 and 100 degrees Celsius.
Shanay-Timpishka means "boiling by the heat of the Sun."
However, this is not quite correct because the actual cause of the scorching hot temperatures
of La Bomba's water is geothermal.
The river flows through the Mayantuyacu sanctuary, which is part of the Huánuco high forest.
Local shamans believe that Yacumama, a massive snake spirit known as the mother of the waters,
gave birth to the boiling River.
Andres Ruzo, a geothermal expert, studied the source of the heat that was causing the
water to boil.
Even though it is nowhere near any known volcanoes or geothermal vents, the river maintains its
high temperature.
National Geographic describes its unusual nature as a wholly natural feature.
It is a non-volcanic geothermal structure with unusually high rates of flow.
Most researchers assume that the heat comes from the Earth's geothermal gradient because
underground water has a higher temperature as it gets closer to the Earth's mantle.
Rainwater apparently falls on the surface of the Amazon rainforest and seeps down into
the crust via deep-rooted fissures.
This water is heated by the geothermal gradient and then fed to the surface by fault-driven
hot springs that heat up La Bomba along its length.
This amazing river is also threatened by fast deforestation and may vanish in the near future
if not tamed.
Leave your thoughts on the Amazon rainforests in the comments.