As the Andes rose, the Eastern Amazon sank and flooded - Earth.com

As the Andes rose, the Eastern Amazon sank and flooded

05-05-2017

Today’s Video of the Day comes from a new study that reveals that as the Andes mountains rose, the Eastern Amazon sunk twice, each time for just under a million years.

It was the discovery of a shark tooth, part of a mantis shrimp, and other microscopic organisms that allowed the team to piece the sequence of events together. According to their findings, once the Eastern Amazon sank, waters from the Caribbean flooded all the way from Venezuela to northwestern Brazil.

The study was performed by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, who published their research in this week’s edition of Science Advances.

By Rory Arnold, Earth.com

Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Carlos Jaramillo, German Bayona and Edward Duarte, using Gplates and VideoPad by NCHsoftware

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