Huge Underground River discovered under the Amazon River.

SAO PAULO (AP) — A huge underground river appears to be flowing thousands of feet beneath the Amazon River, Brazilian scientists said Thursday.
Valiya Hamza of Brazil's National Observatory said researchers found indications the subterranean river is 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long, about the same length as the Amazon on the surface.
Hamza said the discovery of the possible underground river came from studying temperature variations at 241 inactive oil wells drilled in the 1970s and 1980s by Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras.
He said the "thermal information" provided by Petrobras allowed his team of researchers to identify the movement of water 13,100 feet (4,000 meters) under the Amazon River.
Their findings were presented last week in Rio de Janeiro at a meeting of the Brazilian Geophysical Society.
The apparent underground river has been named after Hamza, honoring him as the head of the research team that found the signs of the flowing water.
He said the existence of an underground river that also flows west to east would mean that the Amazon rain forest has two drainage systems — the Amazon and Hamza rivers.
Hamza stressed that the studies indicating the underground river were still in their preliminary stage but added that he expected to confirm the subterranean flow by the end of 2014.
He declined to comment on the economic and environmental impact of an underground river in the Amazon rain forest.

The flow is measurable in cm per year. It is not a river, caves have faster flow.

Exceptionally interesting though.

Yeah I read the comments and they seem to say that as well. But still, the thing is huge and it's quite surprising that it's just been found.

Yeah, I'm not sure about how relevent the whether it flows or not thing is, I'm guessing that if it doesn't flow it's just an underground well whereas if it's a river it is... More important?

http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-scientists-signs-underground-river-202430241.html




Interesting stuff, brb finding huge blind sea creatures. But really, it's quite weird to think we didn't know about this until now. Unless this is old news that I haven't heard before.