Colorado River Delta
Colorado River Delta ((tags: fluvial, delta, desert, earthquake))
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43416 ...And Matthew von der Ahe reminded the geopathologists of this obvious next step in a comment on Ian's Lena River Delta post:
geopathology So, here it is. The Colorado River Delta is an interesting place where the Colorado River used to pour into the Gulf of California (a.k.a. Sea of Cortez) in northwestern Mexico. The Gulf of California is a zone of fresh seafloor spreading associated with the transtensional nature of the North America-Pacific plate boundary in that area. The Baja California peninsula is essentially a freshly minted continental terrane, ripped off the west coast of Mexico by the relative motion of the Pacific Plate with respect to the North American Plate. The transtensional stress regime resolves itself into a series of pull-apart basins; low-lying areas in the continental crust. The Colorado River flows downhill, and as it flows, people siphon off water for use in agriculture or for drinking water. The volume of the Colorado River has been diminished to the point where only a fraction of its original discharge now makes it to the Gulf. In many years, no surface water at all can be seen completing the voyage to the river's mouth. All right... let's go. I promise not to drink the water:
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=31.951739&lon=-115.068966&z=9.8&r=0&src=msa
It seems only fitting that we get a few snaps of the Colorado River Delta up here, since it was host to a large earthquake (7.2 magnitude) earlier this week.
NASA Earth Observatory agrees with this philosophy, and has posted one of their own:http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43416 ...And Matthew von der Ahe reminded the geopathologists of this obvious next step in a comment on Ian's Lena River Delta post:
geopathology So, here it is. The Colorado River Delta is an interesting place where the Colorado River used to pour into the Gulf of California (a.k.a. Sea of Cortez) in northwestern Mexico. The Gulf of California is a zone of fresh seafloor spreading associated with the transtensional nature of the North America-Pacific plate boundary in that area. The Baja California peninsula is essentially a freshly minted continental terrane, ripped off the west coast of Mexico by the relative motion of the Pacific Plate with respect to the North American Plate. The transtensional stress regime resolves itself into a series of pull-apart basins; low-lying areas in the continental crust. The Colorado River flows downhill, and as it flows, people siphon off water for use in agriculture or for drinking water. The volume of the Colorado River has been diminished to the point where only a fraction of its original discharge now makes it to the Gulf. In many years, no surface water at all can be seen completing the voyage to the river's mouth. All right... let's go. I promise not to drink the water:
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=31.951739&lon=-115.068966&z=9.8&r=0&src=msa