This water shift event is largely responsible for the myriad species of Characidae fish that exist in South America, from the cute little neon tetras to the aggressive piranhas and giant pacus. Most Characidae fish are very salt averse, so whenever there was a saline water inflow up the Pebas system, the fish fled upriver and isolated themselves in the smaller river inlets, speciating over time as they adapted to the local conditions and then spreading out again as separate species once the freshwater returned and became predominant in the main causeways of the Pebas basin. This process repeated itself several times before the Andes put an end to it all.
What's very interesting about this is that some of the more basal characid lineages are actually endemic to Africa. Just like primates, characids are a living testament to this Africa/South America connection. They are all freshwater fish, as far as I know. I did not know that the Pebas contributed to characid speciation in this way, that is neat
@@HuckleberryHim I've heard it was more evidence of plate tectonics as it's highly unlikely that they could have evolved in parallel, and they certainly couldn't have migrated across the Atlantic Ocean.
Over and over again, the message/feeling I come away from Eons videos is "And this too shall pass away..." It's always a mixed feeling; sadness for the species that couldn't adapt and are now gone, but always excitement for the something new that arises to take its place.
it seems every year we find out platypus have a new super power(glow in the dark etc.) I think it would be cool to get an episode on them and their genus, what environments pushed platypus to become platypus, what caused everything else to not be platypus
I agree I would be interested in this. As far as I know, monotremes were for a long time the only mammals in Australia, until marsupials colonized it from South America via Antarctica. Since then they’ve mostly dominated, except in aquatic niches. That’s probably because marsupials’ pouch system isn’t very conducive to living underwater. Laying eggs, though, is. And it’s been demonstrated even echidnas are descended from aquatic ancestors.
You didn't mention the part where some think before South America and Africa broke apart, the Congo and Amazon were one river at one point flowing from what is now the African highlands out to what is now the Pacifc Ocean and was maybe one of the largest rivers to ever exist. The evolution of this whole system is really some interesting history.
Came here to say that. I would have loved to hear about that. I wonder why they didn't include it. Something else I wanted to mention, that turning brackish could also be because there was no outlet. Just evaporation.
You got me looking. Search for an article with this title: "What is Gondwana: the ancient supercontinent that changed Earth". You'll see a map showing that Amazonia was connected to West Africa, not the Congo. That's where the Volta River is. Lots of uplifting has occurred since the split, also. Interesting idea you offered, but not likely. Thanks for sharing the idea, as I 'd never thought about Gondwana river systems.
The Andean Orogeny (caused by the subduction of the Nazca plate) caused the uplift that produced the Andes mountains. A magnificaently uplifting experience I should say.
(Doc Brown is about to send Marty back in time in a time-traveling speedboat on the Amazon) Marty: You better back up, Doc, or we'll crash into the Andes! Doc: Andes? Where we're going, there won't be (flips visor) the Andes.
I wish I was a Macro-organism like the Earth. The sheer timeline of life would be sooo crazy to live thru. Watching how your own body, and all the things on it change throughout the general length of your life would just be crazy fascinating.
As a Brazilian I can't express how much I love the amazing species diversity today and in the past, that South America has, even being together with Africa where dinosaurs appeared for the first time, had amazing marsupials and terror birds. Thank y'all for this episode folk. And a shout out for Dr. Erica Brozovsky and everybody at Storied, 'cos they rock too. 💙
8:40 "there goes the best pirate I've ever seen." "So it would seem." _the swelling music abruptly ends as we cut to a video of the Andes and whistling winds_
The moment you mentioned the pebas system connecting to the Caribbean, I got He's a Pirate stuck in my head. The term River Piracy just made it even worse. Dah dun dada, dadun dada, dadun dada da dada, dadun dada dun dada, dadun da da dun da.
I find this related to the inmense natural and biological wealth risen in the corner where Colombia sits, nestled between 2 enormous continental masses (millions of years after the Pebas history though), Colombia is the only country where all the wathershed subdivisions of the ancient Pebas system (Magdalena, Orinoco and Amazon, with all of the forementioned rivers going through it as well) occur in the same country, with all the species distribution, ecology and biodiversity implications this has, it feels overwhelming in a beautiful way.
This has got to be one of the most spectacular stories ever told by Eons. The right amount of science and drama! What a poster child for what the Internet should be about :)
I live in the Andes, in Colombia, and I work with indigenous communities (Magütá and Kukama) in Leticia, in the Colombian Amazon, just in the centre of the Pebas system. I had already heard this from them and from people living with them, so it was amazing that mention at 11:05. I almost cried! 🥹
Pity it's so terribly america-centric and racist, they never do it for other colonized native people in Africa/Asia/Australia, probably would require tiny effort to look it up...
@@aaronmarks9366 Sort of an anthropologist. I wish I already was (I'm planning to study anthropology as a second degree), but as an environmental science master student, I'm on a paradigm about the environment that includes both ecosystems and culture and its complex interactions to define the environment (instead of just ecological studies and concepts) and a lot of the work includes things that do biologists and things that do anthropologists. For now, I'm also working on environmental education processes that have been born from the initiative of the communities themselves.
@@KuK137 Fossils are a scientific resource and while it's right to acknowledge the traditional owners, it also led to the incredible geological and evolutionary story retold in this video. I hope you got more out of this video than just whether there was a cultural acknowledgement or not? I think it's amazing that science can uncover this vast historical landscape from just a few mollusc fossils that seemed out of place and then tie it in with the uplift and subsequent erosion of the Andes.
And to this day, the amazon system is home to a variety of fish from marine families like stingrays, pufferfish, frogfish and croakers that now live constantly in fresh water.
When South America and Africa were still connected, i.e., on the continent of Pangaea and until the successor continent Gondwana split, the Amazon also flowed on what is now African soil. I once read a scientific article about this and looked it up myself. If you look at the opposite side of the current Amazon estuary on the African side, you can still see pretty much the course of the original Amazon on African soil, at least near the coast. This is particularly noticeable when you look at topographical maps of the African side, where the old riverbed is even more clearly visible. At that time, the source was probably where Chad is today, in the Ennedi Mountains. This means that the Amazon was around 14,000 km long, twice as long as today's Nile.
@@HMot-g2x Do a search on “did the Nile River used to empty out in the Congo region.” More speculative is that the Nile & the Amazon used to be the same river, as the Congo region fits nicely in where the Amazon is when the two continents were still together. But that’s still an unproven hypothesis at this point, I believe. I don’t think they’re definitely saying that… yet.
Yeah that wouldnt make much sense, much of north africa is below sea level. Maybe the pressure of the tethis sea could of forced it backwards but even still thats a lot of water to move backwards
A similar story happened in North America during the mesozoic. The Western Interior seaway was formed by the creation of the Rockies, and was eventually filled in by sediment eroded from the mountains to create todays great plains.
Even today parts of the Amazon basin are barely above the current sea level. As sea level continues to rise (due to AGW), salt water will attempt to flow again, westward from the Atlantic, along the Amazon river, turning more and more of the river and basin brackish. So another big extinction event will occur.
Considering the Amazon river's freshwater continues to flow well beyond the end of South America deep into the Atlantic ocean, it would take some deep climatological changes for that to happen. Not impossible, but just moderate sea level rise alone might not be enough to make a dent for a long time.
Sea level will only rise on the order of millimetres, if that. Pacific Atolls are always naturally subsiding, and so are the Hawaiian islands that no longer host active volcanoes.
@@HMot-g2x Sea level rise is accelerating because ice loss at the poles is accelerating. And as the atmosphere warms the surface water down to at least 100 meters will warm more and thus expand!!
i wonder if same happened when the tethys sea was replaced by Himalayas.. could be all the rivers originating from himalayas and tibetan plateau could have been flowing backwards into same area… fascinating 🎉
So interesting! I always remember when I lived in Southern Brazil and you would fly over the Amazon in the middle of the night. Several hours over this landmass and not a light on the ground to be seen. It makes you feel very small..
Wow. Ho visto decine di documentari sulla deriva dei contineneti che parlavavo di Eurasia, Africa, Nordamerica, persino Australia e Antartide ma mai del Sudamerica. Questa storia dei fiumi che scorrono dall'oceano verso l'interno per me è una novità assoluta ed è fantastica. 👍
The Mega Wetland of Pebas is very similar to a vast wetland biome in South America (Pantanal) that spans Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Its formation is quite similar, as it is located in a lower area, with all the rivers from the higher regions flowing into it, including the Paraguay River, and it boasts high biodiversity.
You mean the natives one? If so, it's terribly america-centric and racist, they never do it for other colonized first people in Africa/Asia/Australia, probably would require some effort...
i’ve been watching yall for years now, I first found the channel at a year old, never missed an upload since, I love yall content and appreciate the weekly knowledge!!!
@@andrewscoppetta4944 that’s exactly what I thought he/she meant for a second, then I realized that they meant PBS EONS’s channel had been a year old when they found it, and it made me feel slow on the uptake.
Just like Amazon river dolphins there are actually two different species of river dolphins in Indian subcontinent as well-Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin both can be found deep inland subcontinent far from the Sea so now I wonder how they established their presence in such areas? maybe same kind of back flow of rivers?
I know it's quite a lot smaller than the vast areas you have been discussing here, but I'd love to see a little about the Pantanal - allegedly currently "the world's largest tropical wetland area" according to Wiki.
I cat sit for a semi feral cat and for some reason pbs eons videos help her calm down. she watches intently and purrs the whole time. if i try to turn them off she swats at me
So question: The andes lifted the west side up, essentially tilting the water to the east and causing it to flow towards the atlantic. Mountain growth is slow, so would there have been a time where it was essentially even? Would the flow have stagnated? Was there a time when the amazon was kinda just one big swamp with little water flow?
I don't remember where I first heard of the Amazon running westward. I do remember looking more information about it without being able to find anything, so this video is very welcomed. And that also explains the fossils of acuatic animals in Villa de Leyva, up in the colombian Andes. (maybe you could make a video about it) thank you
i always forget how long the Andes mountain range is. it's one thing to know it runs the length of my country, another thing entire to know it reaches all the way to Ecuador
But usually when mountains form where there's already a river, you simply get a valley or a gorge that cuts right through it, cause the river erodes the soil faster than a mountain can grow. So surely , if this is what happened, there must have been a very dry era that caused the river to dry up? Like the Wadi al Batin in Arabia, which was once a huge river.
Question: we know what isostatic rebound looks like today after a period of glaciation(s), like the current Canadian shield and its millions of lakes, but would something similar happen after the appearance/disappearance of an inland sea? I imagine the sea has to be quite big (and deep I imagine), it also most likely will need to fill or empty relatively quickly, but I don't see why it would not happen. Maybe the Arctic ocean for instance would rebound if there was a big lowering of the sea levels?
This water shift event is largely responsible for the myriad species of Characidae fish that exist in South America, from the cute little neon tetras to the aggressive piranhas and giant pacus. Most Characidae fish are very salt averse, so whenever there was a saline water inflow up the Pebas system, the fish fled upriver and isolated themselves in the smaller river inlets, speciating over time as they adapted to the local conditions and then spreading out again as separate species once the freshwater returned and became predominant in the main causeways of the Pebas basin. This process repeated itself several times before the Andes put an end to it all.
So that's why there are a lot of South American freshwater fish! (that I know of, due to their being popular in the pet aquarium trade)
These kinds of untold stories from Earth's geologic history are absolutely fascinating
What's very interesting about this is that some of the more basal characid lineages are actually endemic to Africa. Just like primates, characids are a living testament to this Africa/South America connection. They are all freshwater fish, as far as I know. I did not know that the Pebas contributed to characid speciation in this way, that is neat
@@HuckleberryHim so cool, y'all just dropping characin lore like this! thanks!
@@HuckleberryHim I've heard it was more evidence of plate tectonics as it's highly unlikely that they could have evolved in parallel, and they certainly couldn't have migrated across the Atlantic Ocean.
"Just 13 million years ago..." Nothing more Eons was ever said.
“It’s just 13 million years bro”😂
Over and over again, the message/feeling I come away from Eons videos is "And this too shall pass away..." It's always a mixed feeling; sadness for the species that couldn't adapt and are now gone, but always excitement for the something new that arises to take its place.
@@Zaxares haaaaaa existential dread ain't you a true old friend, always right behind me 😊😊
Bro it's only 13 million years, that's like yesterday.
No mention of sebecide
it seems every year we find out platypus have a new super power(glow in the dark etc.) I think it would be cool to get an episode on them and their genus, what environments pushed platypus to become platypus, what caused everything else to not be platypus
I agree I would be interested in this. As far as I know, monotremes were for a long time the only mammals in Australia, until marsupials colonized it from South America via Antarctica. Since then they’ve mostly dominated, except in aquatic niches. That’s probably because marsupials’ pouch system isn’t very conducive to living underwater. Laying eggs, though, is. And it’s been demonstrated even echidnas are descended from aquatic ancestors.
I can answer the last question. Sanity caused everything else to not be platypus.
There's a video exactly about that in the "Moth Light Media" TH-cam channel in case you are interested. It's very well made too, if I may add.
and why platypus have survived this long in spite of every extant mammal being placental
There is only one species in that genus. If you're gonna use big science words at least look them up
I'm brazilian, and i really love this channel. Thank you for the video!
I am not Brazilian and I also love this channel. It might not necessarily be a country thing... 😂
I love that they say how much it is unexplored and what the river did and what lived there.
@@vladimiralexanderlagos1477 The video specifically covers Brazil, this does not mean that he thought that only "americans" liked the channel.
You didn't mention the part where some think before South America and Africa broke apart, the Congo and Amazon were one river at one point flowing from what is now the African highlands out to what is now the Pacifc Ocean and was maybe one of the largest rivers to ever exist. The evolution of this whole system is really some interesting history.
Now that would be an interesting video topic!
Pangea and Gondwanaland must've had incredible river systems and deserts.
Came here to say that. I would have loved to hear about that. I wonder why they didn't include it.
Something else I wanted to mention, that turning brackish could also be because there was no outlet. Just evaporation.
You got me looking. Search for an article with this title: "What is Gondwana: the ancient supercontinent that changed Earth". You'll see a map showing that Amazonia was connected to West Africa, not the Congo. That's where the Volta River is. Lots of uplifting has occurred since the split, also. Interesting idea you offered, but not likely. Thanks for sharing the idea, as I 'd never thought about Gondwana river systems.
I was also sad this wasn’t mentioned
8:40 You wouldn't download a river, would you?
Caint fit a data river in a data stream
Not with those pathetic seeder numbers.
Ive downloaded into a river, does that count?
Interestingly enough, most rivers are cycling between a flowing stream, and being stored in a cloud!
That sounds like it would be a torrent.
The Andean Orogeny (caused by the subduction of the Nazca plate) caused the uplift that produced the Andes mountains. A magnificaently uplifting experience I should say.
(Doc Brown is about to send Marty back in time in a time-traveling speedboat on the Amazon)
Marty: You better back up, Doc, or we'll crash into the Andes!
Doc: Andes? Where we're going, there won't be (flips visor) the Andes.
I wish I was a Macro-organism like the Earth. The sheer timeline of life would be sooo crazy to live thru. Watching how your own body, and all the things on it change throughout the general length of your life would just be crazy fascinating.
You kinda are we just need cheaper access to imaging tools
As a Brazilian I can't express how much I love the amazing species diversity today and in the past, that South America has, even being together with Africa where dinosaurs appeared for the first time, had amazing marsupials and terror birds. Thank y'all for this episode folk. And a shout out for Dr. Erica Brozovsky and everybody at Storied, 'cos they rock too. 💙
8:40 "there goes the best pirate I've ever seen."
"So it would seem."
_the swelling music abruptly ends as we cut to a video of the Andes and whistling winds_
The moment you mentioned the pebas system connecting to the Caribbean, I got He's a Pirate stuck in my head. The term River Piracy just made it even worse.
Dah dun dada, dadun dada, dadun dada da dada, dadun dada dun dada, dadun da da dun da.
I find this related to the inmense natural and biological wealth risen in the corner where Colombia sits, nestled between 2 enormous continental masses (millions of years after the Pebas history though), Colombia is the only country where all the wathershed subdivisions of the ancient Pebas system (Magdalena, Orinoco and Amazon, with all of the forementioned rivers going through it as well) occur in the same country, with all the species distribution, ecology and biodiversity implications this has, it feels overwhelming in a beautiful way.
This event actually explains why freshwater stingrays in south America r more closely related to pacific marine rays than Atlantic marine rays
Amazon flows backward when they send me something faulty and I return it.
Wait, aren't you allowed to keep it and still get a refund if you get something faulty as long you can prove it? Because I did it a few times already.
@@fabiomgm1293Amazon had a different return policy 13 million years ago
This has got to be one of the most spectacular stories ever told by Eons. The right amount of science and drama! What a poster child for what the Internet should be about :)
I live in the Andes, in Colombia, and I work with indigenous communities (Magütá and Kukama) in Leticia, in the Colombian Amazon, just in the centre of the Pebas system. I had already heard this from them and from people living with them, so it was amazing that mention at 11:05. I almost cried! 🥹
That's awesome! Are you a linguist? Anthropologist?
Pity it's so terribly america-centric and racist, they never do it for other colonized native people in Africa/Asia/Australia, probably would require tiny effort to look it up...
@@KuK137 I'm sorry if that is the case. I think this is a start, and since I'm Colombian, I'm happy to see a start here.
@@aaronmarks9366 Sort of an anthropologist. I wish I already was (I'm planning to study anthropology as a second degree), but as an environmental science master student, I'm on a paradigm about the environment that includes both ecosystems and culture and its complex interactions to define the environment (instead of just ecological studies and concepts) and a lot of the work includes things that do biologists and things that do anthropologists. For now, I'm also working on environmental education processes that have been born from the initiative of the communities themselves.
@@KuK137 Fossils are a scientific resource and while it's right to acknowledge the traditional owners, it also led to the incredible geological and evolutionary story retold in this video. I hope you got more out of this video than just whether there was a cultural acknowledgement or not? I think it's amazing that science can uncover this vast historical landscape from just a few mollusc fossils that seemed out of place and then tie it in with the uplift and subsequent erosion of the Andes.
And to this day, the amazon system is home to a variety of fish from marine families like stingrays, pufferfish, frogfish and croakers that now live constantly in fresh water.
When South America and Africa were still connected, i.e., on the continent of Pangaea and until the successor continent Gondwana split, the Amazon also flowed on what is now African soil. I once read a scientific article about this and looked it up myself. If you look at the opposite side of the current Amazon estuary on the African side, you can still see pretty much the course of the original Amazon on African soil, at least near the coast. This is particularly noticeable when you look at topographical maps of the African side, where the old riverbed is even more clearly visible. At that time, the source was probably where Chad is today, in the Ennedi Mountains. This means that the Amazon was around 14,000 km long, twice as long as today's Nile.
Fun Fact: the Nile used to flow backwards too, emptying in the Congo area
Who's to say these rivers aren't flowing backwards now? 🙃
Hmm, sounds sus to me. Do you have a source?
@@HMot-g2x Do a search on “did the Nile River used to empty out in the Congo region.” More speculative is that the Nile & the Amazon used to be the same river, as the Congo region fits nicely in where the Amazon is when the two continents were still together. But that’s still an unproven hypothesis at this point, I believe. I don’t think they’re definitely saying that… yet.
Yeah that wouldnt make much sense, much of north africa is below sea level. Maybe the pressure of the tethis sea could of forced it backwards but even still thats a lot of water to move backwards
Would be fun to travel back in time to see the instant the Amazon flow slowed & then switched direction from west to east!
Look up the "pororoca". It's the opposite, when the Atlantic flows into the Amazon.
And it wasn't an 'instant', but more likely a gradual process.
A similar story happened in North America during the mesozoic. The Western Interior seaway was formed by the creation of the Rockies, and was eventually filled in by sediment eroded from the mountains to create todays great plains.
Even today parts of the Amazon basin are barely above the current sea level. As sea level continues to rise (due to AGW), salt water will attempt to flow again, westward from the Atlantic, along the Amazon river, turning more and more of the river and basin brackish. So another big extinction event will occur.
Yeah and like 3 whole countries will dissappear
Considering the Amazon river's freshwater continues to flow well beyond the end of South America deep into the Atlantic ocean, it would take some deep climatological changes for that to happen. Not impossible, but just moderate sea level rise alone might not be enough to make a dent for a long time.
Sea level will only rise on the order of millimetres, if that.
Pacific Atolls are always naturally subsiding, and so are the Hawaiian islands that no longer host active volcanoes.
@@HMot-g2x source? Don't conflate a natural geological process with the results of human-induced climate change.
@@HMot-g2x Sea level rise is accelerating because ice loss at the poles is accelerating. And as the atmosphere warms the surface water down to at least 100 meters will warm more and thus expand!!
i wonder if same happened when the tethys sea was replaced by Himalayas..
could be all the rivers originating from himalayas and tibetan plateau could have been flowing backwards into same area…
fascinating 🎉
So interesting! I always remember when I lived in Southern Brazil and you would fly over the Amazon in the middle of the night. Several hours over this landmass and not a light on the ground to be seen. It makes you feel very small..
Wow. Ho visto decine di documentari sulla deriva dei contineneti che parlavavo di Eurasia, Africa, Nordamerica, persino Australia e Antartide ma mai del Sudamerica. Questa storia dei fiumi che scorrono dall'oceano verso l'interno per me è una novità assoluta ed è fantastica. 👍
I can't even imagine it, and yet, now I can. Thank you, PBS Eons!
Thank you Eons…I actually really need the distraction right now 😔
Omg!!! I've been looking for a video on the pebas system for ages and here yall make one!
Amazing!
Amazing explanation! I just love how Eons manages to tell a story while explaining some deep knowledge.
This was a great episode. Would never have imagined rising mountains could create an island sea!
The Mega Wetland of Pebas is very similar to a vast wetland biome in South America (Pantanal) that spans Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Its formation is quite similar, as it is located in a lower area, with all the rivers from the higher regions flowing into it, including the Paraguay River, and it boasts high biodiversity.
Thank you for the message about respecting indigenous people, time has come to learn from them.
My jaw just dropped. Thanks a lot for featuring our research in the Pebas Fm., Peruvian Amazonia (:
Congratulations on your recognition.
@@labellaflora....Do you ❤ Mega Man?
The acknowledgement at the end was super right of y'all to do. Love that immensely.
Fr not a lot of paleo youtubes do that but they should
You mean the natives one? If so, it's terribly america-centric and racist, they never do it for other colonized first people in Africa/Asia/Australia, probably would require some effort...
Indeed 🤓☝️ 6:11
Yes! A video about the Pebas System 🤩😄😄! I've been waiting for this moment for quite a while 😁🐊
Thank you for this! I've been fascinated by this for years.
Yessssss, Mourasuchus- my beloved!
Yeah I love em too
Thank you, this video is fantastic!!
i’ve been watching yall for years now, I first found the channel at a year old, never missed an upload since, I love yall content and appreciate the weekly knowledge!!!
It's spelled y'all.
@malkong2784 You were only a year old when you started watching Eons? It’s amazing that you could understand evolution at that age!
@@andrewscoppetta4944 that’s exactly what I thought he/she meant for a second, then I realized that they meant PBS EONS’s channel had been a year old when they found it, and it made me feel slow on the uptake.
Such a fantastic program.
Just like Amazon river dolphins there are actually two different species of river dolphins in Indian subcontinent as well-Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin both can be found deep inland subcontinent far from the Sea so now I wonder how they established their presence in such areas? maybe same kind of back flow of rivers?
A bit more complicated than that. Search for "Pebanista yacuruna" and the history of river dolphins will seem 10000 times more complicated.
Every thing I hear about the Amazon makes it more cool
ita insane how much we know but there is still so much to discover
thank you for another wondeful mini doco.
I know it's quite a lot smaller than the vast areas you have been discussing here, but I'd love to see a little about the Pantanal - allegedly currently "the world's largest tropical wetland area" according to Wiki.
This is amazing I was waiting for this episode since you mentioned it in the episode about the Andes 🤩🤩
3:16 who is this diva
IKR! Im like Oh My!... What a specimen of.... my brain screaming TEEEETH!
Ancient Lamma think its called the Tumennibig teefindamoufadatmomma Lammaa mamma
That was a Mourasuchas, famous for having the most perfect teeth in the land.
@@CrankyPantssrip king. he woulda loved the dentist
As a plant person, this is one of my favorites. The Amazon and its health always intrigues me
I cat sit for a semi feral cat and for some reason pbs eons videos help her calm down. she watches intently and purrs the whole time. if i try to turn them off she swats at me
Wow.
Wonderful video! My mind was filled with imaginative curiosity about what the world was like back then, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute.
So question: The andes lifted the west side up, essentially tilting the water to the east and causing it to flow towards the atlantic. Mountain growth is slow, so would there have been a time where it was essentially even? Would the flow have stagnated? Was there a time when the amazon was kinda just one big swamp with little water flow?
Yes. That was the Acre System, occurring approximately 7 million years ago, bridging the Pebas System and modern drainage.
Well done video. This subject about the Pebas and its place in the history of the Amazon os most imteresting. I did not know about this.
Learning is fun.
That is so cool.
Happy Thanksgiving Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Very cool! Never heard of it so once more thank you EONS for this great video
The rivers in the southwest of Brazil and Paraguay still run to the Prata river in the west.
Stunningly entertaining and educational video. Many thanks!
What a great video ❤
Always a delight seeing south america featured in the show. Such an amazing land!
Truly fascinating! Thanks.
Ah yes an upload just before bed. Wonderful. Beautiful. 😌
The mighty Nozama.
I don't remember where I first heard of the Amazon running westward. I do remember looking more information about it without being able to find anything, so this video is very welcomed.
And that also explains the fossils of acuatic animals in Villa de Leyva, up in the colombian Andes. (maybe you could make a video about it)
thank you
i always forget how long the Andes mountain range is. it's one thing to know it runs the length of my country, another thing entire to know it reaches all the way to Ecuador
The length of the continent, not just a country, but you probably meant that.
I did not know this. Unreal.
Another great video
I find it so weird that monkeys in SA never left the tree tops the same way our ancestors did, despite colonizing the continent this early.
Remember the astrapotherium from Ice Age? "No buts, you can play extinction later."
As a colombian the Magdalena has a lot of vestiges of the once super wet part of the pebas
Niko Robin 😂 one piece, nice name ❤👍
I love history.
But usually when mountains form where there's already a river, you simply get a valley or a gorge that cuts right through it, cause the river erodes the soil faster than a mountain can grow. So surely , if this is what happened, there must have been a very dry era that caused the river to dry up? Like the Wadi al Batin in Arabia, which was once a huge river.
I wish I found out about this when I was still teaching Brazilians. They would have loved to learn this.
Never realised I had so much in common with the ancient Earth as I too have been going through somewhat of a dry spell of late.
I helped clean a Purussaurus skull fossil! They are sooo big, beautiful animal, ignoring the sake human welfare, it is unfortunate they went extinct
I wonder if the insane amount of accumulated water somehow Kickstarted the jungle which would have otherwise not grown
There is proof that Everest was once under the sea.
Weird, I just randomly remembered yesterday that the Amazon used to empty into the Pacific, and I was trying to research it.
THIS IS JUST FREAKING COOL! (had to scream)
Huge water areas
im about to sign up to be an eontologist with the username of Steve, because i miss hearing and steve and the end
I miss the jokes and I miss “and Steve”. I have been watching you guys for a long time.
Fascinating!
How do we know it flowed backwards then? Maybe it flows backwards now and it was flowing the correct way then.
It's all relative is it not??
It's 3am an I can't shut my brain off. Time for Eons.
cool vid, thanks for sharing!
Fascinating video!! 😊😊❤❤
This is one of most fascinating world-building scenarios I've ever seen
DnD night is about to get interesting
Wait, THAT'S how we got river dolphins in South America?? That's wild.
What is the music of the intro? It´s amazing
This was super interesting, I never knew about this!❤
That aligator look like that titan
Question: we know what isostatic rebound looks like today after a period of glaciation(s), like the current Canadian shield and its millions of lakes, but would something similar happen after the appearance/disappearance of an inland sea? I imagine the sea has to be quite big (and deep I imagine), it also most likely will need to fill or empty relatively quickly, but I don't see why it would not happen. Maybe the Arctic ocean for instance would rebound if there was a big lowering of the sea levels?
The Earth has so many secrets.
Lol “left no otter descendants”
I would love more video on river pricracy。 It super intresting！
Also, does anyone know why they mention what studio they record in? I am just curious.
I'd love to see one about the Ancestral Rio Grande. That system underwent more piracy than Nintendo.
LoL Nico Robin is a sponsor
I love this ❤️👍👍