Infographics, Maps, Music and More: Rivers

Showing posts with label Rivers. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

The Connecticut River

Did you know?

The Connecticut River is named after the Pequot word “quinetucket,” meaning long tidal river. The European corruption of that begat “Connecticut.”
The Connecticut River is tidal and navigable as far inland as Hartford, CT sixty miles from the Sound. Large oil barges with shallow drafts regularly make the trip upstream to Hartford.
410 miles long, the Connecticut River is New England’s longest river running through four states: New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
70% of all the fresh water entering Long Island Sound comes from the Connecticut River.

The Meandering River through the Glastonbury "Reach"

The Floodplain

The large area south of Hartford, Connecticut along the Connecticut River is known as the Great Meadows. It's a large inland wetland and a significant regional resource. The Connecticut River meanders through the Meadows and has shifted considerably over time. The fertile floodplain soils of the Meadows are an important agricultural resource and farmland and farms are abundant throughout the area.

Yellow areas are farmland
Source

Glastonbury Reach

The floodplain area is known geographically as the "Glastonbury Reach". Over time, this stretch of the river has shifted its course. One dramatic example occurred in occurred in 1692 when a flood altered the course of the river in Wethersfield. The flood shifted the course of the rover to the east and swept away all but one warehouse.

Ancient Glacial Lake Hitchcock

Lake Hitchcock was a glacial lake that formed approximately 15,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene epoch. After the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, glacial ice melt accumulated at the terminal moraine and blocked up the Connecticut River, creating the long, narrow lake. It stretched from present-day Rocky Hill, Connecticut to St. Johnsbury, Vermont: about 200 miles!

Part of the ancient sediment dam that contained Lake Hitchcock is still visible today as a sand pit at Dividend Pond Trails and Archaeological District in Rocky Hill. Sands dunes built up along the shore of the lake can also be seen today at Matianuck Sand Dunes Natural Area Preserve in Windsor.

Source

Part of the ancient sediment dam that contained Lake Hitchcock is still visible today as a sand pit at Dividend Pond Trails and Archaeological District in Rocky Hill:

Huh -- What's the deal re this square-shaped lake?

Crow Point Cove's shape is man-made. The cove was excavated for highway construction of the interstate 91 embankment nearby.

Further Info / Source Info

CT River Watershed Facts (Connecticut River Conservancy)
The Great Meadows of the Connecticut River (PDF)
Geomorphology of the Connecticut River - Glastonbury Reach
Glacial Lake Hitchcock (Wikipedia)
Getting to Know Glacial Lake Hitchcock (CT Science Center)
Glacial Lake Hitchcock Sediment Dam
Sedimentation in a proglacial lake: Glacial Lake Hitchcock

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Amazing Amazonia (Part 1)

Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 2,700,000 square miles, 2,100,000 square miles of which are covered by the rainforest.

This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in six other nations.

The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species.

Amazon size comparison

Amazon Watershed

Terrain / Mountains

Climate

Sahara Desert dust

More than 56% of the dust fertilizing the Amazon rainforest comes from the Sahara desert. The dust contains phosphorus, important for plant growth. The yearly Sahara dust replaces the equivalent amount of phosphorus washed away yearly in Amazon soil from rains and floods. Up to 50 million tons of Sahara dust per year are blown across the Atlantic Ocean.

Vegetation

Land Use

Where cocoa is cultivated

Population Density

Rocks - Geology

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest

The cattle business has been responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region, or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the world's largest single driver of deforestation.

The annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon region dramatically increased from 1991 to 2003. In the nine years from 1991 to 2000, the total area of Amazon rainforest cleared since 1970 was comparable to the land area of Spain, Madagascar or Manitoba. Most of this lost forest was replaced by pasture for cattle.

Deforestation

Indigenous People

Part Two will be focused on the Indigenous People and their surprisingly sophisticated culture (their prior cities recently discovered and their successful large scale agriculture techniques)...