Scientists Find Huge Underground River Below Amazon

IBTimes ^ | 26 August 2011

[cashless]

NEWS FLASH: The headwaters of this newly discovered river has been pinpointed to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since it was earlier discovered that the river consisted of bile and BS and scientists traced it back to its source.

[DManA]

The geology/physics of aquifers are so different from rivers it seems worthy of a different name. Calling them rivers obfuscates what’s going on rather than informing.

[tlb]

I believe Professor Challenger discovered and charted this river in 1895, but lost all his data in a shipwreck. Everybody called his story a lie. The prof was used to that sort of thing.

[marktwain]

One of the first things they teach you in engineering college (for those that didn’t learn it before Kindergarten) is: “Water runs down hill”. Stories of underground rivers, 3 miles below the surface, violate that rule. The author is misrepresenting the data, either through lack of understanding, or over simplification, in my opinion.

You are correct. However, it would be possible, because of the flow in the Amazon, that there would be sufficient pressure for the underground movement of the water toward the ocean.

The article doesn't say how much flow there is, only that there is flow. It only has to overcome the salinity gradient and the friction of movement through the porous rocks underground. If it moves very slowly, say in meters per year, this could be possible.

[Loud Mime]

Dr. Phibes is interested...

[marktwain]

The geology/physics of aquifers are so different from rivers it seems worthy of a different name. Calling them rivers obfuscates what’s going on rather than informing.

Bingo! We have a winner!

[Chode]

so this means there is more fresh water on the planet than they thought... specially if other major rivers have the same underground twin

[TexasFreeper2009]

I want to buy some of it bottled :P

[Maverick68]

Outstanding, one of my favorites!
BTW, I once saw a great special about the Oceans that actually feaured a lake beneath the ocean.
Somehow, the water at the bottom of the ocean was heavier and formed a lake on the bed of the sea.

[cpdiii]

One of the first things they teach you in engineering college (for those that didn’t learn it before Kindergarten) is: “Water runs down hill”. Stories of underground rivers, 3 miles below the surface, violate that rule. The author is misrepresenting the data, either through lack of understanding, or over simplification, in my opinion.

I think the author of the story misinterpreted the data. What is really there is a massive aquifer that is moving tremendous amounts of water to the ocean and it will be released on the margins of the the continental shelf in the ocean.

[Hootowl99]

Actually, water runs from high pressure to low pressure and this may or may not be downhill. This holds accurate for both non-compressable fluids such as water and for compressible fluids, ie. a gas.

[RikaStrom]

As I recall from that episode, that particular body of water was super salinated (really salty) and that was what made it heavier. I remember that it was ringed with muscles, wasn’t it?

It looked so cool, I wanted to visit... but you know, that psi issue and such. :-)

[DManA]

They've got one of those in Bikini Bottom. Sponge Bob and Patrick go there alot.

Somehow, the water at the bottom of the ocean was heavier and formed a lake on the bed of the sea.

[Bernard Marx]

One of the first things they teach you in engineering college (for those that didn’t learn it before Kindergarten) is: “Water runs down hill”. Stories of underground rivers, 3 miles below the surface, violate that rule.

One of the first things they teach you in geology courses is that vast underground aquifers exist. When the strata where they're located tilts (as from the high Andes east to the Atlantic) they flow "downhill." I'm very familiar with one similar aquifer right here in the U.S.A. The author perhaps oversimplifies when he calls the aquifer a "river." It is, in a sense, but most of his readers probably don’t know what an aquifer is so he uses a familiar term instead.

[null and void]

Say hi to her for me....

[FroggyTheGremlim]

I don't know if it's true or not, but,

Pittsburgh, PA Point Park Fountain,

"t draws its water supply not from the visible waters which pass by it, but from an unnamed fourth river, subterranean, passing from the north to the south 54 feet below the surface of the Pittsburgh Point."

[Chode]

better hurry, the treehuggers will prolly soon find some way to make it untouchable...

[Ole Okie]

One of the first things they teach you in engineering college (for those that didn’t learn it before Kindergarten) is: “Water runs down hill”.

Must have one heck of an hydraulic jump there.

My engineering education in fluid dynamics also causes me to believe that water flows from higher to lower elevations.

But I'm sure there's a computer model which shows the foolishness of our old-fashioned learning.

[fnord]

“The width of the Hamza is said to be 3,700 miles long”

Ahh, to be a science journalist ... neither literacy nor numeracy required.

[Quix]

Now, now.

Trying to crimp a naysayer’s rant with the truth only upsets them

. . . if they register the truth, at all.