We usually think of the Grand Canyon in terms of its rocks, and the story and history that they can contain, spanning as far back as half of the Earth’s age. There is more to this canyon though than the rocks, as it is still active as a forever changing landform, due to the power of running water. The Colorado River has carved out the Grand Canyon in just the last nine million years. In fact, the river itself carries about half a million tons of sediment through the Grand Canyon each and every day. There are a number of different river types that will be talked about, and how exactly they have effected their environment and made changes in the landscapes. Valleys were once thought to have formed independently as water flowed down a channel within the area of the valley. What is now known, is that all rivers (located within valleys), combined with the power of mass wasting, have formed the valleys by picking up sediment from the …show more content…
A delta is when the water is calm from this loss of velocity, and the sediment can build up creating multiple dams and small river channels, in which the water and sediment can switch between which river channel has a greater flow. This switch can vary though, as these stronger flows on different branch-channels can last for long periods of time. Rivers have had enormous amounts of destructive power. They have caused mass floods that have damaged towns and cities surrounding them, and have also caused damage to families, taking lives. With all of this damage that has been caused by rivers though, they have given back, with thriving life and people surrounding them for their beauty and resources. One of the most important things they have done is carve out landscapes, which create legacies to their existence. In fact, these rivers are the largest formers of the Earth’s modern landscape (even in places where it does not seem
Beside these arguments, there is also a more quantitative side to the debate. The ecological detriments of the Glen Canyon Dam have been well-documented. Extensive changes were brought about in the Colorado River ecosystem by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Most of these alterations negatively affected the functioning of the system and the native aquatic species of the river. The reduced supply and transport of
The Sokoki Valley or Connecticut River Valley, was formed over 200 million years ago, when Pangea split and created all seven continents. The river was formed by the melted glaciers of the last Ice Age. The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. The land was stretched. Geologist are interested in Sokoki valley because of its old bedrock that sits in the river and along it sandy beaches.
By analyzing the structure (i.e. faults, folds, tectonic plates), we have one manner in which to answer this question. Internal forces of the Earth reach and break through the surface to form volcanoes, mountains, plateaus, and many other topographical features which may later cause these layers to tip, fold, warp, or fracture. Faults play a major role in the formation of landscapes. So, by first looking at faults, hopefully we can come closer to truly understanding how Canyonlands National Park has come to be. On plateaus such as the Colorado Plateau, faults and weak rock tend to be synonymous in their locations. Faults, which are cracks or fractures in Earth's crust, form when internal heat forces and pressure from underground forces shifts the plates, thus creating stress within the plate. Faults commonly occur in elevated regions such as the Rocky Mountain region (which includes the Colorado Plateau and Canyonlands National Park). As previously mentioned, faults tend to be surrounded by weak rock. Therefore, a river or other flowing water easily cuts through this
A description of the grand canyon rock layers would include the Colorado River running at the bottom of the inner gorge with flats on both sides which consist of tapeat sandstone layers. There is also the Vishnu Complex, consisting of rocks that have been changed by heat and are buried at the lowest layers. These are tilted and are called the “Grand Canyon Supergroup” the Grand Canyon supergroups are at least 12,000 ft in thickness. These rocks or (the “Inner Gorge”) are usally steep and narrow with hard deep cuts in the lower tilted layers which raise above sea level.
Time after time throughout history we see civilizations succeeding by rivers such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley and the Yellow River. One of the things the rivers provided in Mesopotamia was the “ground is extremely fertile”. The Mesopotamians used the river for irrigation and the rich soil to produce and abundance of resources to support a large population.
Running water moves sediment in the processes of erosion and deposition, causing different types of landforms. As you can tell in the picture above, Michigan’s topography plays a huge role on where the faster and slower flowing rivers are located and the transportation of the materials in the water depends on the speed of the rivers. Erosion is the breaking down of those materials by the agent, water. The water can erode the channel laterally and vertically, in the end, making the channel wider and deeper. There are different types of erosion: hydraulic action, corrasion, corrosion, cavitation, and attrition. Hydraulic action (above on the right) takes place at rapids and waterfalls because the force of the water removes rock particles from the bed and banks of the river. A great example of this in Michigan is Canyon Falls on the Sturgeon River. At the waterfall, the water is rushing at a high velocity, especially in the spring, causing rock particles to move downstream, creating a wider and deeper river. Eventually the rivers velocity begins to decrease and particles start to deposit. This could also occur because lack of precipitation or an increase in evaporation. The deposition of materials at different locations of the river that they began changes the shape of the river, and effects Michigan as a whole in the end. The particles can travel all the way to the mouth of the river, in this case, Lake Superior, causing
The Chattahoochee River is located in Georgia and flows southwesterly towards Alabama. Evidence indicates that humans have been inhabitants of the Chattahoochee River for an extremely long period.
The Colorado River Basin starts in the Rocky Mountains and cuts through 1500 miles of canyon lands and deserts of seven US states and two Mexican states to supply a collection of dams and reservoirs with water to help irrigate cropland, support 40 million people, and provide hydroelectric power for the inland western United States [1,2]. From early settlement, rights over the river have been debated and reassigned to different states in the upper and lower basin; however, all the distribution patterns lead to excessive consumption of the resource. In 1922, the seven US states signed into the Colorado River Compact, which outlined the policy for the distribution rights to the water [3], however, this compact was written during an exceptionally
Imagine about 100 years into the future, do you see a flourishing earth with sustained life and beautiful scenery or do you imagine a deserted waste land run dry of all natural resources? Which would you rather have? The book Saints at the River written by novelist Ron Rash explores how the single act of a small girl’s drowning can lead to a moral and ethical conundrum about whether alterations should be made to the river to retrieve her body and how this is essential to the families need to grieve over the loss of their child or how the additions of things like a temporary Dam causes more damage than its worth as expressed by those who advocate for the protection of this natural free-flowing river. The protection of natural rivers, like the
The present configuration of the Great Lakes basin is the result of the movement of massive glaciers through the mid-continent, a process that began about one million years ago. . . . Studies in the Lake Superior region indicate that a river system and valleys formed by water erosion existed before the Ice Age. The Glaciers undoubtedly scoured these valleys, widening and deepening the and radically changing the drainage of the area (Encyclopedia Britannica )
Colorado has a very rich history that often gets overlooked due to other big states that generally take up most of the headlines; however, that does not mean that there has not been big movements and big names to come through the Centennial State. Colorado has had many attractions, such as open land, beautiful landscapes, mining, and the hot springs to name a few. The ladder in that group of attractions brought to Colorado a man that was known in the west, and would forever be remember and one of the most famous gunman, Doc Holliday. Doc Holliday had a short, but eventful life and making his way towards Colorado at the end was what he had hope would save his life.
A river is the same way you can force it to irrigate your crops by creating irrigation canals. Also, they can be used for fishing and ships can trade goods over the water also. When Machiavelli wrote that rivers and men can’t be trusted I also agree with this too, because a man naturally will have a harder time keeping a secret because there is that thrill that only certain people know and they want to be the one to gossip about it. In a different way rivers can’t be trusted because rivers flood unpredictably (unless that river is the Nile) and when it floods it spreads havoc throughout the
With human development, industrial pollution and other factors all contribute to the deteriorated condition of the river, which makes it difficult to determine the dams’ environmental impact in isolation. CITE That said, the current operations of the dam hamper and potentially prevent environmental improvement of the Colorado. In order to preserve some semblance of the Colorado ecosystem, man must restore the natural processes that created the ecosystem. The real question is how to do that, whether via dam decommission or a less extreme policy change.
One of the largest geographic physical structures in the United States is the Colorado River. Human activity and its interaction with this great river have an interesting history. The resources provided by the river have been used by humans, and caused conflict for human populations as well. One of these conflicts is water distribution, and the effects drought conditions have played in this distribution throughout the southwestern region. Major cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other communities in the southwest depend on the river. It provides water for over 20 million people, irrigation for 2 million acres of land, four thousand megawatts of hydroelectric energy, and over twenty million annual visitors for
Colds, disease caused by the virus is easily transmitted, and usually is spread through coughing or sneezing of an infected person. There are about 200 kinds of flu viruses that can attack us.