Patagonia
PatagoniaSouth Patagonia | Map & Facts
Patagonia, a semi-arid bush plain that almost completely occupies the entire southerly part of the Argentine highlands. Covering an area of about 260,000 km2 (673,000 km2), it forms a huge steppes and deserts stretching from 37 to 51 degrees Centigrade. They are bordered to the south by the Patagonian Andes, to the West by the Colorado Rivers (except when the area stretches into the Andes just northern of the river), to the north by the Atlantic Ocean and to the southwest by the Straits of Magellan; the area to the southwest of the Straits Tierra del Fuego, which is shared between Argentina and Chile, is also frequently found in Patagonia.
Its name Patagonia is said to derive from Patagonia, like the Tehuelche Indians, the natives of the area, from sixteenth cent. A report says that Ferdinand Magellan, the Portugese sailor who was the leader of the first ever Europeans' exploration of the area, gave this name because the advent of the Tehuelche was reminiscent of Patagon, a dog-headed beast in Amadí's sixteenth -cent of the sixteenth centuries in Gaul's Spain.
Deserts and semi-deserts stretch across the Patagonia plateau, which stretches from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. This plateau's general appearance is one of wide steppe-like (i.e. almost treeless) plateaus that rise in terraces from high coastlines to the foothills of the Andes; but the real appearance of the plateaus is by no means as easy as such a general definition would suggest.
Landscapes along the Negro River rise in a number of fairly flat patios from about 90 meters along the coastline to about 1,300 ft at the crossroads of the Limay and Neuquén River and 3,000 ft at the foot of the Andes. This plateau reaches an elevation of 5,000ft.
Southwards of the Negro River the plain is much more erratic. Volcanoes have been erupting in this area until recent years, and basalt leaves cover the plateau eastward of the lakes Buenos Aires and Pueyrredón. Close to the Chico and Santa Cruz River, the plain stretches about 80 kilometers from the coastline and almost reaches the coastline just below the Coig and Gallegos Creeks.
Its coastline is mostly made up of high rocks divided from the ocean by a small coastline. All of the vast, steeply sloping gorges that cross the plateaus from north to south are riverbeds of ancient Andes to Atlantic Ocean flows, with few remaining enduring Andine ("Colorado, Negro, Chubut, Senguerr, Chico and Santa Cruz").
The majority of them have either intermediate brooks - such as the Shehuen, Coig and Gallegos which have their springs eastward of the Andes - or they contain brooks like the Deseado River, which dehydrate all or part and are so varied by the combination of the effects of wind vs. sands that they provide little proof of the surfaces of the rivers in them.
There is a line of ponds between the Patagonia plateau and the Patagonia Andes, which can be found in glaciers hollows or karsts backed up by morays and other forms of glaciers made up of unselected and unstacked soils. Lake Nahuel Huapí to the north, the Lácar lake being the exception, the lake flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
However, south of Lake Nahuel Huapí, all except Viedma and Argentino flow into the Pacific through gorges that have been eroded upwards from western to eastern via the Cordibles. Patagonia's best soil is situated just northern of the Negro River, especially where it is created from foam.
Towards the southward direction the soil becomes drier and stonier, and on flat soil there are often wide areas of river stones named gravelly. The Patagonia is affected by the Western airflow from the southern Pacific, which carries moist sea breezes to the north. However, these breezes loose their moisture (through chilling and condensation) when they are blowing over the western coasts of Latin America and the Andes, and they are completely dried when they arrive in Patagonia.
The Patagonia can be classified into two major climate areas - north and southward - by a line from the Andes at about 39°S to a point southward of the Valdés peninsula at about 43°S. The north area is semi-arid, with average seasonal temperature between about 54 and 68 F (12 and 20 C); the measured peak temperature varies from about 106 to 113 F (41 to 45 C) and minimal temperature from 12 to 23 °F (-11 to -5 C).
The sunlight, which is minimum along the coastline, is greatest in the interior of the country in the northeast. Southerly climates are very different from the wet Andes Cordilleras in the south. There are virtually no Atlantic influence in the north of the area - probably due to the relatively high elevation of the coastline around the San Jorge Gulf, which reaches 900 to 1,800 ft - although cool Pacific westerly wind and the cool Falkland Current off the Atlantic Ocean have a certain effect.
The Atlantic has a certain amount of impact in the south, which is becoming an ever more peninsula with a higher degree of latitude. 2. It has a cool, drier weather, with higher coastal temperature than in the interior and high westerly wind. There is less rainfall in the drier areas of the centre, which also get more sun than the coastline or the Andes area.
Patagonia's long, small stripe of west frontier helps the flora of the bordering Cordilleras, especially broadleaf and softwood. This extensive plateau is subdivided into northerly and southerly areas, each with its own distinctive flora. This is a large part of the steppes of the greater area, stretching southwards to about 46 degrees N. In the north are monte vegetation-xerophytic (drought-tolerant) bushwoods, which give way further southwards to open bush land with far apart undergrowth between 3 and 7ft high.
It is a drier, more southerly area, extending southwards from 46 S. The flora is low and much more scarce and requires almost no fresh sap. There are egrets and other wading bird species among the Paragonian bird species; carnivores such as the tall shield-eagles, the sparrowhawks and the kimango (or bug-eaters ); and the almost dead Rhine (Nandu).
This coastline is home to the nest sites of the Gentile ( "Spheniscus magellanicus") poenic. Armadillo, Pichi (small armadillos), fox, ferret, skunk, cat and puma are to be found as well as the Patagonia cave (or Mara) and different types of digging rodent, like the Viscacha and the Tuco-tuco. The Patagonia has a number of venomous snake varieties, as well as turtles and a wide range of iguanas.
Seafishes, shellfish and molluscs are abundant off the coastline. Valdés peninsula on the Atlantic coastline of Patagonia was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. Both the Comodoro Rivadavia and Neuquén areas contain the largest part of Argentina's deposits, and the two areas also contain the most precious resources of Patagonia.
Furthermore, in Sierra Grande steel ores are extracted and collieries are located in the southern part near Río Turbino. The Neuquén and Limay riverbanks were built to harness the hydropower potentials of the west of Patagonia. They have also built large artificial lakes that have enabled large-scale irrigation farming in the Negro River area.
Ovine farming is an important industry in Patagonia, although at the beginning of the twenty-first Century over grazing was a major problem. Since the end of the Second World War, the importance of tourist activities has increased as game preserves and nature trails along the Patagonian Andes attract more and more people looking for shelter.
Rivadavia Comodoro is linked to Buenos Aires by a highway that goes more than 1,860 leagues through the Patagonia Coast. There are several railway lines crossing the eastern to western part of the country, two of which connect the Andes with Buenos Aires. The main focus of aviation is on the cities of the coast.
Patagonia's indigenous population was mainly made up of Tehuelche Indians, probably from Tierra del Fuego. Earliest artefacts, such as spear guns, were found in the caverns along the Strait of Magellansuggest that these humans ascended the continental seaboard about 5,100 years ago. Towards the end of the sixteenth centuary, the Spaniards tried to colonise the Patagonia coastline to free it from English swindlers, but a Jesuit village on the Gulf of San Matías came to nothing.
The English tried to establish themselves in the same cove in 1778 and the Spaniards responded by establishing the first two cities of Patagonia, San José and Viedma (originally Nuestra Señora del Carmen). In Puerto Deseado, a Spaniard village was built between 1780 and 1807, but three years later the area was free of population.
Patagonia was largely abandoned after Argentina's independence until it was liberated by the conquest of the desert in the 1870s. Attempts were then made to populate the area and make it a nation state. Chile's richness in minerals in particular drew migrants from Chile, and Chile' s permanent and permanent workers now make up the majority of the people.
Aside from the high concentration in Comodoro Rivadavia and in the cities along the Negro River's top basin, Patagonia's sparsely populated area is mostly peasant.