In the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in the west, in the Maracaibo Lake, an unusual phenomenon occurs, characterized by an area that flashes several times a day, most of the days of the year (it increases in the period when the La Niña Phenomenon is present). This phenomenon is called the Catatumbo Lightning. A series of lightning flashes from cloud to cloud and from cloud to the water surface of the wetlands where they develop. Corresponds geographically to the wetlands Juan Manuel de Aguas Blancas and Juan Manuel de Aguas Negras, the development of clouds and lightning..
This local Catatumbo storm generates lightning five kilometers high, several times in a day, almost three hundred per hour, generating four hundred thousand amperes each time, for more than one million and one hundred times in a year. The lightning can be seen in the distance of four hundred kilometers, being able to be appreciated from the Gulf of Venezuela and it is also reported from the neighboring Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire)..
February 2 of every year is the International Wetlands Day. The state of Zulia is a land of water and wetlands, as it is the seat of a vast basin that flows into Lake Maracaibo and our Caribbean Sea (in the Gulf of Venezuela). It can be said that if February 2 is International Wetlands Day, it is Zulia Day. And even more so for what we try to convey in this article, the importance of some Zulian wetlands in the regeneration of the ozone layer and therefore protector of life on our planet..
Many people ask us where is the Ray of Catatumbo and if it can be visited, well yes, there are even pre-designed tours and with all the logistics to go to some palafitos (construction or housing built on the lake), to see the phenomenon of lightning at night. We invite you to come to Zulia to see the Rayo del Catatumbo..
The importance of wetlands is learned with a good Environmental Education to form environmentalist individuals, families and communities. An education that tells us how to relate to humanity and the environment in a respectful way, to know nature in order to respect it.
Wetlands are swamps, flooded forests, waterlogged sites, mangroves. They are flooded lands without oxygen in their soil, whose water comes from the sea, from the lake, from rain or in the form of groundwater manna. Wetlands are constituted at the interface between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, born naturally or artificially, occurring permanently or seasonally, stagnant or flowing, with freshwater or saltwater.
Wetlands have been studied and their innumerable services are recognized. They are part of the water cycle, they are a seat for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, they are the hatchery and daily nursery for fish, shellfish and crustacean species. They are home to a diversity of birds and mammals, nesting site for birds. They are a source of water, food, recreation and tourism, protection against tsunamis, storm winds and hurricanes..
What is never mentioned is the development of lightning. Such is the case of the Juan Manuel de Aguas Blancas and Juan Manuel de Aguas Negras wetlands. In wetlands of the Congo River Basin, in Africa, there is also a lightning phenomenon. Another case mentioned is in the United States in Lakeland, with a series of lightning strikes in its wetland. The vast majority of the scientific community is in favor that lightning creates ozone (molecule of three oxygen atoms), contributing this material to the ozonosphere. This service of the wetlands is never named, the wetlands according to this scientific knowledge, are an ozone factory. If so, wetlands repair the ozone layer..
In the case of this wetland of the origin of the Catatumbo Ray, it is an interesting wetland that occupies an extensive area of more than three hundred thousand hectares, with two hundred and seventy thousand hectares protected. They are located in the deltas of two rivers, the Santa Ana River and the Catatumbo River. The second, the Catatumbo River, contributes more than half of the water that enters Lake Maracaibo and its basin corresponds to more than forty-one thousand hectares, Father River of the state of Zulia. The discussion of the origin of the lightning is as varied as the confluence of the winds from the north with those coming from the south or by the high content of nitrogen in the water.
In conclusion, every time we talk about wetlands, let us include the formation of lightning that helps our planet, Mother Earth. It has a function of preservation of the ozone layer and therefore, the preservation of life of the biological diversity of the existing ecosystems in the emerged lands of the sea..