earth science

Hamza River

Hamza River is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hamza River rather than just read about it. In short: The Hamza River (Portuguese: Rio Hamza) is an unofficial name for what appears to be a slowly flowing aquifer in Brazil and Peru, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) long at a depth of nearly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi). Its discovery was announced in 2011 at a meeting of the Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro.

Key takeaways

Hamza River belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hamza River to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hamza River from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Hamza River (Portuguese: Rio Hamza) is an unofficial name for what appears to be a slowly flowing aquifer in Brazil and Peru, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) long at a depth of nearly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi). Its discovery was announced in 2011 at a meeting of the Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro. The unofficial name is in honour of Indian scientist Valiya Mannathal Hamza, of Brazil's National Observatory, who has undertaken research on the region for four decades. The Hamza "river" and the Amazon River form a geologically unusual instance of a twin-river system flowing at different levels of the Earth's crust.

Description

The Hamza and the Amazon are the two main drainage systems for the Amazon Basin. The reported flow rate of the Hamza, at approximately 3,000 cubic metres (110,000 cu ft) per second, is 3% of the Amazon's. It runs west to east, some 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) below the Earth's surface, and follows roughly the path of the Amazon River. The Hamza is born in the Andes and empties in the Atlantic Ocean, deep under the surface. Its own water has a high salt content. It flows from the Andean foothills to the Atlantic coast in a nearly west-to-east direction like the Amazon River. A combination of seismic data and anomalous temperature variation with depth measured in 241 inactive oil wells helped locate the aquifer. Except for the flow direction, the Amazon and the Hamza have very different characteristics. The most obvious ones are their width and flow speed. While the Amazon is 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to 50 kilometres (31 mi) wide, the Hamza is 200 kilometres (120 mi) to 400 kilometres (250 mi) in width. The flow speed of the Amazon is 2 metres per second (6.6 ft/s) while the Hamza is less than 1 millimetre per second (0.039 in/s).

Geology Several geological factors have played a vital role in the formation and existence of these subterranean water bodies. The porous and permeable sedimentary rocks behave as conduits for the water to sink to greater depths. East–west trending faults and the karst topography present along the northern border of the Amazon basin may have some role in supplying water to the "river". If the impermeable rocks stop the vertical flow, the west-to-east gradient of the topography directs it to flow towards the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike the Hamza, the 153 km-long (95 mi) underground river in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and the 8.2 km-long (5.1 mi) Cabayugan River in the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park in the Philippines have come into being thanks to the karst topography. Water in these places has dissolved the carbonate rock to form extensive underground river systems.

Research status and debate The Hamza was discovered by a team of scientists led by Valiya Hamza using thermal data collected from 241 inactive oil wells in the area, drilled in the 1970s and 1980s, by the Petrobras oil company. Calculations from the data showed that a larger flow should exist. Direct observation of water movement at a very low rate can be difficult. The speed of flow is slower than that of an average glacier, and Hamza himself says that the team uses the term "river" in a general sense, not in the conventional sense. In the title to the original paper, the word "river" appears in quotation marks. The evidence was presented at the 12th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro and as of August 2011 has not yet been published, although the research team noted that the techniques used to predict the flowing aquifer's presence are not unusual for earth science. Scientists have explained that the research results are preliminary, and that the definite scientific validation of the existence of the flowing aquifer is to be expected in a few years.

See also Valiya Hamza Hydrogeology Amazon River Apurimac River

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hamza River

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hamza River claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hamza River before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hamza River ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hamza River

In research: Hamza River appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hamza River in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hamza River is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Amazon basin, Aquifers in Brazil, Aquifers of South America, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hamza River outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Hamza River in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hamza River means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hamza River out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hamza River in simple terms?

Why does Hamza River matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hamza River?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hamza River.