Do you think Amazon.com is a major force in the world?
The webcomic xkcd compared the outflow of the Amazon River to Amazon’s massive shipping powers, discovering that Mother Nature dwarfs the online retailer (comic embedded above).
If you want to extend the metaphor, here’s more about the Amazon River outflow from the National Science Foundation:
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume; it also has the largest drainage basin on the planet, accounting for some one fifth of Earth’s total river flow. Because of its vast dimensions, it’s sometimes called “the river sea.” The Amazon River’s outflow covers an area more than twice the size of the state of Texas for several months each year, said Ajit Subramaniam, a biological oceanographer at Columbia University
