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submitted 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by Yuritopiaposadism@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

It took six million years for the forests to return to the level of diversity they had before the meteorite, and the species that slowly grew back were completely different than what came before. Legumes—plants that form symbiotic relationships with bacteria that allow them to fix nitrogen from the air—were the first to appear, and they enriched the formerly nutrient-poor soil. This influx of nitrogen, along with phosphorus from the meteorite’s ash, enabled other flowering plants to thrive alongside the legumes and to displace conifers. As flowering species competed for light, they formed dense canopies of leaves and created the layered Amazon rain forest we know today, which is characterized by a blanket of productivity up top and a dark understory at the bottom.

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[-] Quai@hexbear.net 4 points 5 hours ago

No mention of the candiru? Boo

[-] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 12 hours ago

This isn't wrong exactly, but i want to make sure we don't do accidental indigenous erasure here. The Amazon rain forest did come about naturally, but it's current full extent is due in part to indigenous peoples in the area working to expand it over time. It's not just a natural wonder, and was heavily shaped by human intervention over millenia.

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adh8499

https://rainforestfoundation.org/the-ancestral-forest-how-indigenous-peoples-transformed-the-amazon-into-a-vast-garden/

A couple articles about it ^.

Many of the species that dominate the amazon are domesticated ones. And it's most nutrient rich soils were made by humans. There used to be entire civilizations in there, but when the europeans came they were hit hard by disease, and the cities got abandoned and taken over by the forest. More recently we have started to find them using LIDAR tech.

Even just 2k years ago much of the land area that is now the Amazon was plains and savannah. Not rain forest. So while an asteroid 66 million years ago can set it on a new course that allows for it to come about. Saying that it directly caused the current amazon we see today is a bit of a stretch imo.

Humans have been in the area for atleast 10k years, and probably longer if you listen to indigenous stories. It's very likely that along with the Indus, Tigris & Euphrates, Nile, and Yellow river valley civilizations there was one along the Amazon too. But they were almost wiped out by the diseases brought by europe, and their cities hidden under the forest as it grew into them. We know there were more recent city networks, and are just starting to figure out how long they might have been there. There are even areas of the Amazon that are entirely dominated by agriculture tree species. Like nuts, and fruits. Which are areas that were once managed by indigenous peoples but got overgrown post colonization.

(I hope this is coherent i am very sleep deprived rn)

[-] WrongOnTheInternet@hexbear.net 15 points 11 hours ago

It is coherent, and to add, the soils of the Amazon are famously quite poor, aside from the human made soils like terra preta

[-] D61@hexbear.net 5 points 11 hours ago

Alternate universe HP Lovecraft version of The Color Out of Space... alien rock falls from sky demolishing a huge chunk of the land. Whatever extradimensional intelligence inside of the rock does a "oh shit, what have I done!" and spends a million years slowly trying to repair the damage.

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 2 points 1 hour ago

star trek voyager?

[-] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 5 points 14 hours ago

That's a hard working asteroid

this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
51 points (100.0% liked)

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