Editing Apure (section)

=== Geology ===
[[File:Caiman del Orinoco.JPG|thumb|right|Caiman of the Orinoco River, Hato El Frio, Apure State]]
Originating in the [[Tertiary]] ([[Neogene]]) and [[Quaternary]] ([[Pleistocene]]) periods, the [[Llanos]] (plains) of Apure are formed by sediments of little or no consolidation, with sandy and clayey deposits built up by floods in recent times.  On the banks of the [[Orinoco]] one finds outcroppings of rocks, from the [[Archean]] era, which are part of the [[Guiana Shield]] and appear at heights called galleys.  Likewise, in the [[Andes|Andean]] foothills, rocks from the Tertiary Period form hills and short slopes in the mountain range.

A large part of the state of Apure is constituted by an extensive field of dunes (occupying some 30,000&nbsp;km²), which has the peculiarity of not being a desert climate but a savannah, with natural grasslands alternating with corridors of jungle and voluminous rivers with sand dunes of more than {{cvt|100|km}} in length and 20 m in height.  Some of these dunes are used by [[llanero]]s to establish dairy farms, which, in addition to processing milk, prepare a group of cattle to go to the head of the pack (which in the llanos is referred to as the godmother of the herd), according to the work of Calzadilla Valdés.  

Also, they allow the livestock to take refuge from the floods. The ecosystem in the savanna is the result of having been modeled by the wind ([[aeolian processes]]).  It is not, as noted in the ''Atlas of Venezuela: A Spatial Image'' (''Atlas de Venezuela: Una imagen espacial'', also known as ''El Atlas de Petróleos de Venezuela''), an ecosystem of "paleodunas", literally 'old dunes,' formed in an environment with a much drier climate than the current one, but a mechanism of dune formation that acts only in the dry season since the lowering of the water level of the Orinoco at the rivers' lowest point, especially that of those that originate in the llanos, extensive beaches of fine sand are left behind, that the [[trade winds]] very quickly will transfer to the southeast, forming what now constitutes el Parque Nacional Santos Luzardo (the Santos Luzardo National Park), which takes its name from one of the main characters in the novel ''[[Doña Bárbara]]'' by [[Rómulo Gallegos]].
[[File:Sabanas vestidas de Garzas Blancas.jpg|thumb|Hato El Cedral, Apure State]]