Silver river

Silver river . It is the estuary that is formed by the union of the Paraná River and the Uruguay River , in the southeast of South America , at its mouth into the Atlantic Ocean . It forms a kind of triangular notch about 280 km long. It runs from northwest to southeast and measures 48 km wide at the point where the two rivers meet in the Paraná River delta. Its width increases progressively until the point at which the waters stop being fresh (and become the Argentine Sea , part of the Atlantic Ocean) where it is 230 km wide, making it the widest river in the world. It is part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay .

Summary

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• 1 River data
  • 1 Birth
  • 2 Route
  • 3 Basin
  • 4 Fauna
• 2 Physical geography
  • 1 Bed
  • 2 Costs
• 3 Treaty
• 4 Sources

River data

Birth

It is a triangular estuary that is formed by the union of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers , in southeastern South America, at its mouth into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Río de la Plata forms an arm of the sea (with 100% fresh water) that separates the countries of Uruguay and Argentina .

At its mouth into the Argentine Sea it is about 230 km wide, which progressively decreases inland along about 274 km until the end of the Paraná River delta .

The banks that occupy its bed are an ancient Paraná Delta that was devastated by a marine transgression, called Querandina, approximately 8,000 years ago. Baptized in 1516 as Mar Dulce by its discoverer, the Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís , it received its current name from the Italian navigator Sebastián Caboto .

Route

Run from Norwest to Southeast. The parallel of Punta Gorda marks kilometer zero of the Río de la Plata to the south and the Uruguay River to the north . To the south of this parallel is the island of Portugués and another located in front of Punta Gorda to the north of the Sauce River and south of the Paraná Bravo River, both belonging to the Argentine province of Entre Ríos .

Basin

Fishing

The river occupies the lower part of the second most important basin in South America: the Plata basin, formed by the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. Through these two rivers, it covers about 3.2 million km², which includes territories of Argentina , Bolivia , Brazil , Paraguay and Uruguay . It is a funnel-shaped body of water with a northwest-southeast orientation, 320 km in length and a width that varies between 2 km at its source and 230 km at its mouth, conventionally considered as the line that connects Punta del Este in Uruguay. with Punta Rasa in Argentina.

Its surface is 35,000 km² and its average depth is 5 m.

This river network is one of the areas with the greatest potential wealth in the world, derived from its climatic diversity, mining resources, agricultural aptitude and energy, industrial and communication possibilities.

Fauna

Both in the estuary and on the Atlantic coast you can find dolphins of the Franciscan species, a river species that prefers brackish waters. Sometimes the Franciscan dolphin soars through the waters of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers.

Physical geography

Physically, the Río de la Plata is divided into three geographical zones:

• Inland area, from Punta Gorda to the Colonia-La Plata line, which is characterized by a substrate of fine sand, silt and clay.
• Middle zone, from that line to another, Montevideo – Punta Piedras , where the marine influence is evident due to a greater importance of the tides and a high level of salinity in the waters, whose color is lighter.
• Exterior zone, from that second line to the outer limit, where the waters are already brackish with a varied salinity.

Litter

Every year, 57 million m³ of silt reaches the estuary, coming especially from the southeast of Bolivia and the northwest provinces of Argentina. The river bed is dominated by the presence of extensive shallow banks that make navigation with draft vessels difficult, which must be done following various natural and artificial channels, many of which, especially the route that connects Buenos Aires with the Ocean Atlantic, are subject to constant dredging to prevent the accumulation of sediments and thus keep them open to navigation.

The main banks are Ortiz, Arquímedes, Inglés and Rouen.

The bed morphology of the specific area of ​​Martín García Island is characterized by a shoal (the Playa Honda formation) crossed by channels and composed of gray-brown sediments, sandy towards the north, silty sands and sandy silts towards the south, and clayey silts (sludge) towards the Argentine margin. The delta suffers a continuous advance of 15 m per year and there is a decrease in the depths of the bed with the formation of banks that later become islands.

Coasts

As for the river’s coasts, they have very diverse characteristics.

• Uruguayan coasts:

The Uruguayan coast belongs to the geological formation of the Brasilia Massif, with high coasts and sandy beaches bordered by dunes separated by rocky capes.
The main tributaries along the Uruguayan bank are the San Juan, Rosario, Santa Lucía and Solís rivers.

• Argentine coasts:

The Argentine coast corresponds to the Pampa sedimentary basin, formed by silt plateaus that alternate with muddy plains. It is generally low, made up of silt, with reed beds being abundant. The Samborombón Bay stands out, whose coastline is about 180 km long. Several water courses flow into this bay, often channeled, the main ones being the Samborombón and Salado rivers.

Treaty

In accordance with the Treaty of the Río de la Plata , signed by Argentina and Uruguay , its outer limit is determined by the imaginary line of 219 km that connects Punta del Este (Eastern Republic of Uruguay) with Punta Rasa of Cape San Antonio (Republic Argentina ), although the Piedras-Montevideo tip line is usually considered the real outer limit from which oceanic waters predominate. According to the International Hydrographic Organization, its mouth is determined by the line that connects Punta del Este (Uruguay) with Cape San Antonio (Argentina).

The main ports are Buenos Aires , in the southwest and Montevideo , in the northeast.