Scientists Discover Underground River in the Amazon Basin

The Amazon River (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

Turns out the Amazon River has a wider, slower, subterranean twin.

Brazilian scientists discovered the river about two and a half miles (4 kilometers) beneath the mighty Amazon in the South American Amazon Basin. It flows west to east, just like the Amazon, and is about the same length (3,728 miles/6,000 kilometers), according to The Guardian.

But that’s where the river’s twinularities end. For one thing, the Hamza River — named for one of the scientists who discovered it, Valiya Hamza — has never seen the light of day. For another, it’s a slow poke. It flows less than a millimeter per hour. Also, Hamza is much, much wider. While the Amazon is as many as 62 miles wide (100 kilometers) in some spots, the Hamza can be up to 250 miles wide (400 kilometers).

I wonder what kind of cool animals, if any, live in the Hamza’s dark waters.

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