The Amazon Rainforest is the equatorial Rainforest that forms the majority of the Amazon Basin. It is one of the three largest tropical forests in the world. The hellion Amazon (as described by Alexander von Humboldt) has the appearance – looking down from above - of continuous green clusters of canopies situated at a height of 50 meters from the soil.

The majority of its seven million km² is made up of a rainforest that is never flooded, on a plane of 130-200 meters high, formed by sediments of the Belterra lake, that occupied the Amazon Rainforest 1.8 million and 25 thousand years ago. The time it took for the Andes to rise, the rivers dug their beds, which would then originate the three types of forests in the Amazon. The last two form the Brazilian Amazon:

Mountainous Forests in the Andes;
Terra Firma Forests;
Flooded fluvial Forests;


The Amazon River in Brazil. During the quaternary period the Amazonian Climate varied between cold-dry, hot-humid and hot-dry. During the last phase, cold-dry, around 12 to 18 thousand years ago, the Amazonian climate was semi-arid, and the maximum of humidity occurred 7 thousand years ago. During the semi-arid phase the open vegetal formation predominated as in the savannahs where there are but a few patches of jungle that have survived. Presently the savannahs survive in refuges within the jungle itself.

The Amazon soil is very poor, containing only a thin layer of nutrients. In spite of this, the fauna and flora maintain themselves, in virtue of the balance (climax) and the state affected by the ecosystem. The advantage of the natural resources is excellent, having minimal loss. A clear example of this is held within the accented distribution of the bacterial and overlaying roots in the soil, which guarantee that the roots rapidly absorb the nutrients that drain from the forests, from the rain. In addition to the fact that a layer of decomposed leaves, branches, dead animals form over the soil which are quickly converged into nutrients that are utilized before the leaching process.

Below an inferior layer, about a meter deep, the soil becomes sandy with very little nutrients. It is for this reason that it is practically up to the ilimited water supply, because the roots of the trees are short and the sustaining process is also done on the bases of one tree leaning on the other.

The difficulty for the entering of light due to the over abundance of the canopies causes soil vegetation to be very scarce in the Amazon, as well as for the animals that live on the soil surface. The majority of the Amazon fauna is made up of animals that live in the canopy of the trees between 30 to 50 meters high. There are no large scale animals in the Jungles as there are in the savannahs. Among the birds that live in the Amazon canopy are the parrots, macaws, toucans and wood peckers. Among the mammals are the bats, rodents, monkeys and the marsupials.

Some of the typical plants of the Rainforest. The Amazon fauna and flora have been impressionably described in a 40 volume collection called the Flora Brasiliensis by Carl von Martius, an Austrian naturalist who dedicated a good portion of his life researching the Amazon in the XIX century. Many types that is difficult to reach because of their height. Many kinds that is still unknown and unclassified.

The great rivers seperate mammals and birds. The flooded jungles are located near the rivers and have different characteristics of the jungle that is on terra firma. The climate within the Amazon Rainforest is equatorial, because it is near the equator and continues with the Atlantic Jungle. Nowadays the Amazon area is being devastated in order to plant soy and to create pastures for cattle.