Guianan Marine Ecoregion
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Guianan Marine Ecoregion
The Guianan marine ecoregion stretches along the middle of the northeast coast of South America, touching Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It extends about 200 miles offshore, with the warm Guianan Current moving east-to-west through the region. This current brings in fresh, turbid waters from the mouth of the Amazon River to the east. As the current exits the ecoregion to the west it contributes an estimated 70% of the waters of the Caribbean Sea. A very large oil field has been recently discovered in the Guyana-Suriname Basin of the ecoregion. The Guianan is one of two ecoregions (the other being the Amazonia marine ecoregion) in the North Brazil Shelf province, a Large marine ecosystem (LME). The Guianan is thus part of the larger Tropical Atlantic realm. Physical setting The ecoregion is bounded on the west by entrances to the Caribbean Sea (at Trinidad), and extends 750 miles east to the Brazilian border, where the incoming North Brazil Current splits. The ...
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Tropical Atlantic
The Tropical Atlantic realm is one of twelve marine realms that cover the world's coastal seas and continental shelves. The Tropical Atlantic covers both sides of the Atlantic. In the western Atlantic, it extends from Bermuda, southern Florida, and the southern Gulf of Mexico through the Caribbean and along South America's Atlantic coast to Cape Frio in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state. In the Eastern Atlantic, it extends along the African coast from Cape Blanco in Mauritania to the Tigres Peninsula on the coast of Angola. It also includes the seas around St. Helena and Ascension islands. The Tropical Atlantic is bounded on the north and south by temperate ocean realms. The Temperate Northern Atlantic realm lies to the north on both the North American and African-European shores of the Atlantic. To the south, the ocean realms conform to the continental margins, not the ocean basins; the Temperate South America realm lies to the south along the South American coast, and the Temper ...
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Guianan Moist Forests
The Guianan moist forests (NT0125) is an ecoregion in the east of Venezuela, north of Brazil and the Guyanas (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana). It is in the Amazon biome. The climate is hot and humid, with two rainy seasons each year. As of 1996 the tropical rainforest habitat was relatively intact, although there were mounting threats from illegal logging and gold mining. Location The Guianan moist forests ecoregion covers most of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. It covers part of eastern Venezuela and parts of the north of the Brazilian states of Pará and Amapá. It has a total area of . Along the Atlantic coast to the east and northeast the ecoregion adjoins strips of Guianan freshwater swamp forests, Amazon-Orinoco-Southern Caribbean mangroves and Orinoco Delta swamp forests. To the northwest it adjoins the Llanos ecoregion, the Guianan piedmont and lowland moist forests and Guianan Highlands moist forest. Scattered patches of this last ecoregion are found on higher ...
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Lutjanus Purpureus
''Lutjanus purpureus'', the southern red snapper or Caribbean red snapper, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a snapper belonging to the family Lutjanidae. It is native to the western Atlantic Ocean as well the Caribbean Sea. Taxonomy ''Lutjanus purpureus'' was first formally described in 1867 as ''Mesoprion purpureus'' by the Cuban zoologist Felipe Poey, no type locality was given but it is most probably Cuba.It is not clear what species Poey was describing as he may have based his description on a painting with am ambiguous subject. It has been treated as a synonym of the Northern red snapper (''Lutjanus campechanus''). The specific name ''purpureus'' means “purple”, reinforcing the ambiguity of Poey's description, as this is not a purple coloured fish. Past authors have referred to this species as ''Lutjanus aya'' but it has been shown that ''Bodianus aya'' Bloch, 1790 is not a snapper, but is more likely to be a drum. Description ''Lutjanus purpureus'' has a moder ...
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Farfantepenaeus Brasiliensis
''Farfantepenaeus'' is a genus of prawns in the family Penaeidae. Its eight species were formerly included in the genus ''Penaeus''. It was first published as a genus name in 1972 by Rudolf N. Burukovsky, but without the necessary designation of a type species. That situation was corrected by the same author in 1997. The name ''Farfantepenaeus'' commemorates the Cuban carcinologist Isabel Pérez Farfante. Species *''Farfantepenaeus aztecus'' – northern brown shrimp *'' Farfantepenaeus brasiliensis'' – red-spotted shrimp, spotted pink shrimp *''Farfantepenaeus brevirostris'' – crystal shrimp, pink shrimp *''Farfantepenaeus californiensis'' – yellowleg shrimp, brown shrimp *''Farfantepenaeus duorarum'' – northern pink shrimp *''Farfantepenaeus notialis ''Farfantepenaeus notialis'' is a species of marine crustacean in the family Penaeidae. Distribution It is found off the east coast of South America from Yucatan,Roberto Pérez-Castañeda and Omar Defeo 2000. Populatio ...
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Xiphopenaeus Kroyeri
''Xiphopenaeus kroyeri'', commonly called the Atlantic seabob, is a commercially important prawn. It is up to long and is the most intensely fished prawn species in the Guianas and along much of the Gulf Coast of the United States. Description Adults grow to long, with males only reaching . The rostrum has five teeth near the base, but is smooth along the tip, which is greatly elongated and often curves upwards to varying degrees. Distribution and fishery ''X. kroyeri'' lives in the western Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina to Santa Catarina state, Brazil. It is the most important commercial prawn in parts of the United States from Pensacola (in the Florida Panhandle) to Texas, and in the Guianas. In other areas, such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Trinidad, the fishing effort is only locally intensive. In 2000–2007, the annual catch was greater than . Taxonomy ''Xiphopenaeus kroyeri'' was first described by Camill Heller in 1862, under the name ''Penaeus kroyeri'' ...
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Intertropical Convergence Zone
The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge. It encircles Earth near the thermal equator though its specific position varies seasonally. When it lies near the geographic Equator, it is called the near-equatorial trough. Where the ITCZ is drawn into and merges with a monsoonal circulation, it is sometimes referred to as a monsoon trough, a usage that is more common in Australia and parts of Asia. Meteorology The ITCZ was originally identified from the 1920s to the 1940s as the ''Intertropical Front'' (''ITF''), but after the recognition in the 1940s and the 1950s of the significance of wind field convergence in tropical weather production, the term ''Intertropical Convergence Zone'' (''ITCZ'') was then applied. The ITCZ appears as a band of clouds, usually thunderstorms, that encircle the globe near the Equator. In the ...
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Sverdrup
In oceanography, the sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non- SI metric unit of volumetric flow rate, with equal to . It is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm3/s or hm3⋅s−1): 1 Sv is equal to 1 hm3/s. It is used almost exclusively in oceanography to measure the volumetric rate of transport of ocean currents. It is named after Harald Sverdrup. One sverdrup is about five times what is carried by the world’s largest river, the Amazon. In the context of ocean currents, a volume of one million cubic meters may be imagined as a "slice" of ocean with dimensions × × (width × length × thickness). At this scale, these units can be more easily compared in terms of width of the current (several km), depth (hundreds of meters), and current speed (as meters per second). Thus, a hypothetical current wide, 500 m (0.5 km) deep, and moving at 2 m/s would be transporting of water. The sverdrup is distinct from the SI sievert unit or th ...
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Amazon River
The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of the Apurímac River on Nevado Mismi had been considered for nearly a century as the Amazon basin's most distant source, until a 2014 study found it to be the headwaters of the Mantaro River on the Cordillera Rumi Cruz in Peru. The Mantaro and Apurímac rivers join, and with other tributaries form the Ucayali River, which in turn meets the Marañón River upstream of Iquitos, Peru, forming what countries other than Brazil consider to be the main stem of the Amazon. Brazilians call this section the Solimões River above its confluence with the Rio Negro forming what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Meeting of Waters ( pt, Encontro das Águas) at Manaus, the largest city on the river. The Amazon River has an average discharge of about – ...
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South American Plate
The South American Plate is a major tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America as well as a sizable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African Plate, with which it forms the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The easterly edge is a divergent boundary with the African Plate; the southerly edge is a complex boundary with the Antarctic Plate, the Scotia Plate, and the Sandwich Plate; the westerly edge is a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca Plate; and the northerly edge is a boundary with the Caribbean Plate and the oceanic crust of the North American Plate. At the Chile Triple Junction, near the west coast of the Taitao–Tres Montes Peninsula, an oceanic ridge known as the Chile Rise is actively subducting under the South American Plate. Geological research suggests that the South American Plate is moving westward away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: "Parts of the plate boundaries consisting of alternations of relati ...
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Oyapock
The Oyapock or Oiapoque (; ; ) is a long river in South America that forms most of the border between the French overseas department of French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá. Course The Oyapock runs through the Guianan moist forests ecoregion. It rises in the Tumuk Humak () mountain range and flows into the Atlantic Ocean, where its estuary forms a large bay bordering on Cape Orange. The mouth of the Oyapock is the northern ''end'' of Brazil's coastline, as it is where the border between Brazil and French Guiana meets the ocean, but nearby Cape Orange, which separates the Bay of Oyapock from the Atlantic Ocean, is the northernmost ''point'' of the Brazilian coast. In Brazil, both the cape and the mouth of the Oyapock are often mistaken for the whole country's northernmost point (rather than just of its coastline), and in the past this information could even be found in geography schoolbooks. Yet the true northernmost point in Brazil is actually far inland, on M ...
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Maroni (river)
The Maroni or Marowijne (french: link=no, Maroni, nl, Marowijne, Sranan Tongo: ''Marwina-Liba'') is a river in South America that forms the border between French Guiana and Suriname. Course The Maroni runs through the Guianan moist forests ecoregion. It originates in the Tumuk Humak Mountains and forms the (disputed) border between France (region of French Guiana) and Suriname. In its upper reaches, it is also known as the Lawa, and close to its source it is known as the Litani. The total length of Litani, Lawa and Maroni is . There are two nature preserves located in the estuary region on the Surinamese side of the river, near the village of Galibi. They provide protection for the birds and the leatherback sea turtles that hatch there. Territorial dispute In 1860, the question was posed from the French side, which of the two tributary rivers was the headwater, and thus the border. A joint French-Dutch commission was appointed to review the issue. The Dutch side of th ...
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