There are already known facts about the Amazon and it is not the home for 10% of world's known species for nothing. Popularly, the biome is known to be twice the size of India while its river runs 6600 kilometers. While these quick trivia for the Amazon have been cracked for many years, a new study revealed that vast part of Amazon rainforest was an ocean before, something that could tickle people's mind.
Suggesting that a vast part of the Amazon Rainforest was an ocean before, Science Mag reported that a large portion of it was soaked underwater and was covered by the Caribbean Sea. There has been an unending debate about the history of the rainforest but the recent study found out that this previously-ocean 10 million years ago spurred the evolution of fresh species.
To further provide more pieces of evidence on proving that a vast part of the Amazon rainforest was an ocean before, the team used jungle floor-drilled cores, which preserved million years old environmental records. Two cores that came from Colombia and Brazil respectively, containing marine plankton and seashells, revealed that these Brazilian and Colombian fossils were from the ocean of Caribbean, from a so-called "lost ecosystem." Talking about the lost ecosystem, the Amazon has lost 17% of the covered forest in the past 50 years, based on Panda.
The chief author of the study Carlos Jaramillo admitted believing that a vast part of amazon Rainforest was an ocean before is such a tough act but the proponents have such a stern conviction that it was once underwater, only they were not sure on where the water came from. One strong foundation about their belief was the Amazonian residues discovered in the 1990s. Scientists stressed that these sediments of marine organisms found more than three decades ago were drowned by the ocean.
