The Caura, is a tributary of the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

River, located in Bolívar State in

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Its flow is the second after the Caroni River among the affluents of the Orinoco River, with almost . The river is inhabited by both the

Ye'kuana The Ye'kuana, also called Ye'kwana, Ye'Kuana, Yekuana, Yequana, Yecuana, Dekuana, Maquiritare, Makiritare, So'to or Maiongong, are a Cariban-speaking tropical rain-forest tribe who live in the Caura River and Orinoco River regions of Venezuela ...

and Sanema indigenous groups.

Basin

The river drains the

Guayanan Highlands moist forests The Guayanan Highlands moist forests (NT0124) is an ecoregion in the south of Venezuela and the north of Brazil and in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. It is in the Amazon biome. It encompasses an upland region with diverse fauna and flora, which ...

ecoregion. The Caura River is about long. Its major tributary is the Erebato. Both rivers emerge from the Jaua- Sarisariñama Plateau, more than above sea level). The Caura is navigable up to

Pará Falls The Pará Falls (Salto Pará) are large waterfalls on the Caura River in Bolívar, Venezuela. The falls are located upstream from the confluence of the Caura and Orinoco, and are considered the boundary between the upper and lower sections of ...

(Salto Pará), an impressive waterfall formed by two branches of the river with an island in the middle Both branches have some rapids and join in one of the most remarkable waterfalls in the Orinoco basin, not because of its height, but because of the impressive flow of water. The Caura is a

blackwater river A blackwater river is a type of river with a slow-moving channel flowing through forested swamps or wetlands. As vegetation decays, tannins leach into the water, making a transparent, acidic water that is darkly stained, resembling black te ...

, like the Caroní, the

Ventuari River The Ventuari River is the largest tributary of the Orinoco in southern Venezuela. The Ventuari flows from south-central Venezuela in the Guiana Highlands southwest into the Orinoco River. It is long and its major tributary is the Manapiare River ...

and the upper Orinoco. The Caura is wide at Musinacio (Musiú Ignacio Musiú Ignacio was a pirate along the Orinoco Basin, having his hideaway on the Caura's mouth at the Orinoco), the point where it joins the Orinoco, wide at this point.

Microclimate

Satellite images in the Intertropical Zone show an interesting lack of clouds above the biggest rivers, such as the Caura and Orinoco, and also in the Amazon river. We need to take into account two facts: *Satellite images, like aerial ones, are taken in the morning, when there are fewer clouds in the atmosphere. *Sunshine heats up both water in rivers and land surface. However, water needs much more time to heating up than land does and atmosphere air is not heated by solar rays because it is diathermanous. It is heat coming up from soil and river waters, which in turn heat up the atmosphere. Therefore, difference of temperature between land and rivers is at its maximum at 10 a.m. (more or less). At that time, the land surface reflects heat to the atmosphere, making air ascend and condense, forming clouds, while water is still heating up and, thus, there is not outcoming heat to the atmosphere.

References

*Williams, Llewelin. ''Exploraciones botánicas en la Guayana venezolana. El medio y bajo Caura''. Caracas: Tipografía La Nación, 1942. *Chaffanjon, Jean. ''Voyage à travers les Llanos du Caura et aux Sources de l’Orénoque''. Paris: 1885-87. *Chaffanjon, Jean. ''L’Orénoque et le Caura. Relation de voyages exécutés en 1886 et 1887''. Paris, Hachette et Cie., 1889. Edición en castellano: ''El Orinoco y el Caura''. Caracas: Fondo Cultural Orinoco, Editorial Croquis S.R.L., 1986.

External links

{{Authority control Rivers of Venezuela Orinoco basin