The Venezuelan Llanos (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

: ''Llanos Venezolanos'') also simply known as Los Llanos (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: ''the Plains'') in Venezuela, is a

natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and ...

that consists of a very large, flat central depression of approximately 243,774 km² of extension, equivalent to 26.6% of the total continental territory of the country. It is the largest

sedimentary basin Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subside ...

of Venezuela of Quaternary origin, since the large volumes of sediments, which are fundamentally alluvial, were deposited during the last two million years of the geological history of the planet. Consequently, the sedimentary fill and its modeling in plain is very recent. It extends between the

Guiana Shield The Guiana Shield (french: Plateau des Guyanes, Bouclier guyanais; nl, Hoogland van Guyana, Guianaschild; pt, Planalto das Guianas, Escudo das Guianas; es, Escudo guayanés) is one of the three cratons of the South American Plate. It is a ...

, to the south; the

Venezuelan Coastal Range The Venezuelan Coastal Range ( es, Cordillera de la Costa or ), also known as Venezuelan Caribbean Mountain System ( es, Sistema Montañoso Caribe) is a mountain range system and one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela, that runs along the c ...

to the north; and the

Cordillera de Mérida The Cordillera de Mérida is a series of mountain ranges, or massif, in northwestern Venezuela. The Cordillera de Mérida is a northeastern extension of the Andes Mountains and the most important branch of the Venezuelan Andes. The ranges run sou ...

to the west. It presents two natural exits to the sea; the Unare Depression puts it in contact with the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

in the central-eastern part, and on the east it has access to the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, without interruption of continuity, through the

Orinoco Delta The Orinoco Delta is a vast river delta of the Orinoco River, located in eastern Venezuela. Location The Orinoco Delta is one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela. It covers the whole of Delta Amacuro State and a few square kilometers of ...

Geography

Although it is the region with the most uniform relief of the country, its detail study makes it possible to distinguish three large subregions, each with their own morphological and topographical characteristics that influence the possibilities of use and exploitation by the human groups that occupy them. These subregions are: * Western Venezuelan Llanos * Central Venezuelan Llanos * Eastern Venezuelan Llanos

Geology

It is surrounded by orography that date of different ages: to the south the

, of Precambrian origin; and to the north and northwest the

and

Venezuelan Andes The Venezuelan Andes (Spanish: ''Andes Venezolanos'') also simply known as the Andes (Spanish: ''Los Andes'') in Venezuela, are a mountain system that form the northernmost extension of the Andes. They are fully identified, both by their geologi ...

, whose genesis occur in the course of a long period ranging from the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

to the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

; this process of landfilling is still maintained today. This region suffered a

marine transgression A marine transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, which results in flooding. Transgressions can be caused by the land sinking or by the ocean basins filling ...

, where this primitive sea was a prolongation of the

that, like a wide channel, penetrated in Venezuelan territory; so it was until the

Upper Tertiary The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya ...

, and to a great extent until the Quaternary when there was a marine regression. At the bottom of this primitive interior sea giant quantities of organic matter were accumulated, formed by animal and plant remains. The process of decomposition of this matter for thousands and thousands of years came to form the immense oil wealth and coal deposits of this region. In it are located the

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

basins of Barinas-Apure and the Oriental , which includes the Orinoco Belt, also the

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

-basins of Guárico and Anzoátegui.

Relief

Although it does not present a completely uniform topography, the Llanos integrate the Venezuelan region of greater uniformity in its relief and the one that has greater extension of flat and low lands of the country. It has an almost imperceptible slope that is generally inferior to one meter per kilometer (70 cm per km). Los Llanos, therefore, are a broad plain, very flat or slightly undulating, that descends gently from north to south and from east to west, that is, from the mountainous alignments of the

and the Sierra del Interior of the Caribbean Mountain System to the

Orinoco river 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 ...

, to the south and the

to the east.

External links

Dawn on the Plains
Photo Feature, ''Havana Times'', Oct 1, 2010.
The llanos music

The llanos of Colombia and Venezuela
*

References

Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos Llanos {{Venezuela-geo-stub

Geography

Geology

Relief

See also

External links

References