Saturday, June 16, 2012

ESA Envisat Image: Juruá River in the Amazon rainforest

Snaking River

Credit: European Space Agency

The Juruá River snakes slowly through the half-flooded Amazon rainforest in western Brazil, leaving free-standing oxbow lakes in its wake, which form when a river changes course as it meanders through a floodplain.

The Juruá is the most winding river in the Amazon basin and one of the Amazon River's longest tributaries, exceeding 2,040 miles (3,283 kilometers) in length. Tropical rainforests have some of the largest rivers in the world because of the tremendous amount of precipitation their watersheds receive.

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