Marine snow – though it sounds like magical ice snowflakes drifting through the ocean is actually made up of many more particles than its land counterpart. When things happen in the ocean such as dying/decomposing animals particles of these events break up, and slowly drift down to the sea floor. These biological components and additional […]
Month: March 2017
The Fastest Eroding Coast in Europe
Along the Yorkshire coast from Flamborough Head to Spurn Head, the coast is eroding faster than anywhere else in Europe. The coastline loses an average of 5 feet of land every year and about 29 villages have been lost to the sea since the Roman Empire. This area is bounded by the North Sea with […]
Assateague Island
Assateague Island and Ocean City have been losing land from sea level rise, extreme weather events, and subsidence. Since 1960 the sea level has risen 5 inches and storms have been becoming more intense in recent years. On Google timelapse you can see how the coastline has receded on Assateague Island, while long shore drift has […]
Barrier Island Evolution
https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/ Google Earth Engine Time Lapse: Gargathy Bay, Wallops Island, VA, United States Zoom to this location and look at the changes of the northern barrier island as it progrades to the southwest. The barrier island has grown by a substantial amount. This is due to wave defraction eroding sediment from the barrier island and displacing it […]
Gleying
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6CGtXcavSuo/S-wH-dT28nI/AAAAAAAAAS0/WiTeWCZFDOQ/s1600/gleyed+soil.JPG) The image above is an example of gleying in soil. What is gleying? It is when low oxygen soil conditions (such as a high water table) cause iron and manganese to reduce, and make the soil gray. There are some cases where plants grow in soils that have low oxygen, and the roots that go […]
Mother Nature Reclaims the Land
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/10/battered-by-winter-storms-big-sur-is-cut-off-from-california/ California received some much needed precipitation over this past winter, lifting it out of a severe drought. This was not without its problems however, as the sharp increase in precipitations have led to landslides in parts of the state. One notable example of this was the small town of Big Sur, which has essentially […]
Increase in Precipitation Provides Hope for Colorado River Basin
Colorado River Delta Restoration Efforts
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/special-features/2014/12/141216-colorado-river-delta-restoration-water-drought-environment/ This article described restoration efforts of the Colorado River Delta, a joint US-Mexico attempt to restore biodiversity to the region. The delta had dried up as hydroelectric dams had been installed along the river, leading to desertification of the region. This is a region incredibly rich in nutrients due to the amount of sediment […]
Major Rivers without Deltas
Narmada River in India The Narmada River flows east to west, and is 815.2 miles long. It originates in a small reservoir called Narmada Kund at a fairly high elevation, and empties into the Gulf of Khambhat. The high source elevation gives the water a lot of force, as the flow of the water […]
Mississippi Delta Restoration
Engineered levees are preventing deposition of sediment on the Mississippi Delta marshes and floodplain. This is leading to subsidence and land loss as sediment is no longer escaping the Mississippi River. Here is a link that looks at projects which will aid in preventing land loss: http://mississippiriverdelta.org/restoration-solutions/
Yukon River Delta
This is the Yukon River Delta. It is a river dominated delta where the Yukon and the Kuskokwim rivers meet and empty into the Bering Sea in Alaska. It is one of the largest deltas in the world (129,500 sq km) and 25,000 people live on the delta. A lot of the delta is a wildlife refuge of […]
Yellow River Delta
I learned ( In my Natural Resources of China class) that much of the lowlands of China are a delta formed by the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China. This is where they do much of their agriculture, because most everywhere else in the country is too mountainous. The Yellow River Delta is a river […]
The Potential Effects of Climate Change on Sediment Transport
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/drained-bone-dry-battling-15-years-of-drought-colorado-river-could-decline-by-35-by-end-of-century In the article above, the work of several researchers and the predictions from multiple climate models was discussed. The research done focused on the effects of climate change on the flow of the Colorado River, particularly the decrease in flow. Due to drought and rising temperatures, the flow of the Colorado River has been […]