Glaciers in Oregon
Glaciers are a big part of life in Oregon. Glaciers supply drinking water, they irrigate crops and they help generate hydroelectric power. They are also a tourist attraction in areas that have more mountains. Glaciers are a natural resource that are so rare that people all over the world are trying to get these “frozen streams.” People want the power of glaciers because they can provide drinking water and people living in the city of La Paz, Bolivia rely on the melting of the glaciers. Glaciers irrigate crops and thousands of years ago people in Russia and Asia knew that dark colors promoted melting. This is how they watered their crops during dry periods. Even though this method has been proven very costly, India has created artificial glaciers to provide people with more water. Scientists have been damming glacial meltwater to help generate hydroelectric power. Glaciers supply drinking water to the community and are running low because they are continuing to melt.
Glaciers have drastically changed over time because on average, “glaciers worldwide have been losing mass since at least the 1970s”. The melting of glaciers has been contributing to the rise in sea level because the glaciers have been shrinking faster in the last decade. Three of the major glaciers in the us have shown an overall drop in mass since the 1950s and 1960s and an accelerated rate of decline in recent years. An ice cap covered Mt. Hood during the Ice Age, from about 1.8 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago. These ice caps covered the Oregon Cascades, a series of mountains in Oregon, with glaciers going down on the east and west sides of the range. These glaciers melted into smaller glaciers as the weather proceeded to get warmer...
... middle of paper ...
...ollapsed, but the Nile continued to grow and Great Britain took control of the Nile in the 19th century. Around 60 years ago the Africans gained control of the Nile.
Rivers and fields affected the people who lived in the Fertile Crescent throughout the years because of the fertile soil and water. Many people lived in the Fertile Crescent and prospered from the fertile soil by growing an abundance of crops. Once it was abandoned, the Fertile Crescent became cracked soil and vacant land.
Works Cited
"Service Interruption." Do Glaciers Affect People? NSIDC, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
"Glaciers in Oregon | Oregon Encyclopedia - Oregon History and Culture." Glaciers in Oregon | Oregon Encyclopedia - Oregon History and Culture. Portland State University, 2008-2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
"Fertile Crescent." Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 2009-2013. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
Before Lake Coeur d’Alene existed, the St. Joe River ran through the present lakebed northward and up through the Rathdrum Prairie before turning west and into the Spokane Valley. About 15,000 years ago, during the peak of the last glacial period, huge glaciers covered much of British Columbia. This ice, which was almost 4,000 feet thick, unimaginably covered all but the highest mountain peaks. The glacier slowly crept down into North Idaho, stopping just north of Coeur d’Alene (Wuerthner, 30, 32).
Conscious of the geographical region, Egyptians settled around the Nile, as the Nile provided substance (agriculture, irrigation, trading routes, etc.). The Egyptians noticed that the Nile would flood regularly, and exploited this natural flooding by building an irrigation system to support their agriculture, as well as their society. “Hymn to the Nile” depicts this prosperous age of agriculture, “Lord of the fish, during the inundation, no bird alights on the crops. You create the grain, you bring forth the barley, assuring perpetuity to the temples.” ("Ancient History Sourcebook: Hymn to the Nile, c. 2100 BCE."). However, the Nile might have contributed to the eventual collapse of ancient Old Kingdom Egyptian civilization. The Nile partially destroyed the society that it had once nurtured. A series of low or high floods over the course of a few years immensely impacted their agriculture, which in turn created epidemics of famine and civil unrest. The Egyptian civilization eventually prospered once more, only centuries later and with new social
Glaciers are an integral part of the world’s climate. In fact, as Richard Armstrong of the University of Colorado says, “Glaciers are key indicators in monitoring and detecting climate change” (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, 2003, p. 1). Not only are they an important part of monitoring current climate, they can hold many keys to the past. Glaciers are in fact, “a source of paleoclimate data…” (Meier and Dyurgerov, 1980, p. 37). This paleoclimate data can give geologists information on the conditions that were present at the time of the glaciers birth, as well as the approximate age. This has an important role in the geologic time scale of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. These Glaciers played a role in the carving of the present day Rocky Mountains in Colorado, which will be the primary focus of this paper. In addition, glacial formations will be discussed to give the reader background information and the future of the Glaciers in Colorado will close this paper.
Scientists believe that the ice in Glacier bay during the first ice age could have been nearly 1000 feet thick! And as the original glacier has diminished in size from that time, it has left 20 separate glaciers, of which two are tidewater glaciers that calve into the bay. And as recently as 200 years ago, in almost all of Glacier Bay, a fjord was covered by the Grand Pacific Glacier; since then the ice has been retreating and Glacier Bay, now 65 miles long, has taken it’s present form. When Captain Lester A. Berdslee of the U.S. Navy was in it in 1980, its beauty took him away. He gave it the name “Glacier Bay” because of it’s striking locality. This was also the same year when it was declared an national park and preserve. Though years earlier it was proclaimed a national monument in 1925. And then in 1992 it was designed a UNESCO World Heritage site. Today, the park’s headquarters are at Gustavuas, near the mouth of the bay. The bay, which is studded with many largely treeless islands that are used a rookeries by thousands of seabirds, has fjord like inlets that terminate at ice cliffs or sheer faces of the glaciers. It contains at 16 active glaciers that descend from the St. Elias Mountains to the east and Fair-weather Rage to the west. The park and reserve cover an area of 5,129 square miles and includes Glacier Bay itself, the northern, southern, and western slopes of Mount Fairweather, and the U.S. portion of the Alsek
The glaciers have been through a minimum of four glacial periods. They’ve been through the Little Ice age, which commenced around 4,000 years ago. Marks of retreating glacier ice are seen in the rock-strewn and sculpted peaks valleys. The land and bodies of water that the retreating ice has created a new display of animal and plant communities.
All of Maine was once covered by glaciers, the last of which receded about 10,000 years ago. Because of the glaciers, much of Maine is covered with stones, boulders, and clays. Many of the hills and mountains have been rounded, lakes have been formed, and river courses have been changed. Although glaciers covered all of Maine, there are nevertheless substantial physiographic differences in the regions of the state. Maine can be divided into three major natural regions: the White Mountain section, the New England Upland, and the Seaboard Lowland. These three regions are part of the New England province, which in turn forms part of the Appalachian Region.
The Wisconsin glacier made the Connecticut River, Long Island Sound, Jobs Pond, and Hammonasset State Park. Jobs Pond was formed by a piece of the Wisconsin Glacier that fell of and created a kettle hole, which then melted and created a pond which filled with rain water. Long Island Sound was formed by a glacier. The glacier reached long island and the glacier could not move any farther. So this would mean that Long Island Sound the glacier could not move any farther so Long Island Sound was a terminal moraine. A terminal moraine mean that this was as far as the glacier could move. Then when the glacier was melting in Long island Sound the water levels got high and then the water went over the dam blocking the Atlantic ocean from Long Island Sound but then this two bodies of water mix creating an estuary. So the glacier made Long Island sound mix with Atlantic Ocean. The Connecticut River was formed by a glacier that covered the entire state of Connecticut. Some of the glacier melted and the water formed The Hitchcock Lake. The lake then pushed through the dam and went into the CT River Valley which formed the Connecticut River. Hammonasset State Park was formed when a mile and a half of ice from the Wisconsin Glacier covered the beach. When the ice reached the water the glacier melted leaving rocks on the shore which is called plucking. These rocks that were left came from different
The foundation of the Great Lakes began around three billion years ago, which is known as the Precambrian Era. The Precambrian Era contains numerous ecological events, which consists of volcanic activity to erosion to the mountains and hills seen today being formed. Then during the Pleistocene Epoch or known as the “Ice Age, occurred between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. At least four times during the Pleistocene Epoch, large masses of ice advanced and retreated over the surface of what is now North America. As the glaciers advanced, giant sheets of ice flowed across the land, leveling mountains and carving out massive ...
The article “Bigger, Faster Avalanches, Triggered by Climate Change” shows the unusual behaving of the glaciers in the Tibet. Glaciers move very slow over time. However, In the Tibet, snow and ice collapsed of the glaciers move in very fast speed in short time. The speed may reach 200 miles per an hour. Scientists are surprised by how they move in a such fast speed, and they believe this crisis is caused by the global warming. As we produce more heat on the Earth, more collapses of the snow happen, which lead to global warming. The collapses may impact both animal and human lives. I think we will have the climate change for a long time. If we do not want to deal with the original problem, which is greenhouse gases emission, we should handle
Jacob, T., Wahr, J., Pfeffer, T. W., & Swenson, S. (2012). Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise. Nature, 514-518. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10847
Providing extremely fertile soil is one, if not the most important, roles the Nile River played in the life of the ancient Egyptians. By providing fertile soil, the Nile made it easy for cities and civilizations to grow alongside the banks of the river. This fertile soil comes from the annual flooding of the Nile. This replenishes the top soil with silt deposits that hold much needed nutrients for crops to grow. Ancient Egyptians developed highly complex irrigation methods to maximize the effect of the Nile waters. When the Nile overflows in mid summer, Egyptians divert the waters through the use of canals and dams. As the water seeped into the farm land, rich deposits of silt ensured a good harvest for the year. This allows the civilizations of Egyptians to grow enough food to feed the community. Without the annual flooding of the Nile, Egyptians would have a very difficult time growing necessary amount food to sustain life. Most of the land in the Egyptian nation is dry desert. Very little rain falls year round here. The river provides the needed water to grow the crops as well as provide drinking water for the people. Th...
The conditions of river valleys favored farming in these and other such river valleys. Floodwater spread silt across the valley renewing the soil and keeping it fertile. Animals that drank from the river were also a source of food. The river also supplied the people with a regular source of drinking water and the means of transportation. However rivers also posed challenges. Farmers had to control flooding and channel waters to the fields. Early farmers built dikes, dug canals and also made irrigation ditches. Such projects required leadership and a well-organized government.
The Nile, is the longest river in the world, and is located in northeastern Africa. Its principal source is Lake Victoria, in east central Africa. The Nile flows north through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, with a total distance of 5584 km. From its remotest headstream in Burundi, the river is 6671 km long. The river basin covers an area of more than 3,349,000 sq km. Not only is the Nile considered a wonder by Herodotus, but by people all over the world, due to its impotance to the growth of a civilization.The first great African civilization developed in the northern Nile Valley in about 5000 BC.
As the Earth warms sea levels rise. Melting glaciers add to the problem by dumping even more fresh water into the oceans. “The IPCC estimates that melting ice caps and glaciers accounted for about 25% of sea level rise from 1993 to 2003” (edf, 2014). Rising seas threaten to destroy low areas and islands, erode shorelines, damage property and destroy ...
Glaciers have disappeared due to increasing in global temperatures because of which the water level had drastically increased and its causing flood all over the world