GEOLOGY 111 ONLINE RIVERS AND GOOGLE EARTH (40 points) Water, one of the most pr
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Question
GEOLOGY 111 ONLINE
RIVERS AND GOOGLE EARTH (40 points)
Water, one of the most prolific weathering and transport agents on Earth, is constantly moving material from one location to another. Google Earth (GE) is an ideal tool for interpreting and appreciating this unique surface process. Large rivers such as the Mississippi illustrate how efficiently river systems can gather sediment from mountainous regions of a continent and transport it to the ocean, where deltas form. What kinds of drainage and channel patterns do you find in the Mississippi drainage basin? How does the slope of the river channel change as one moves downstream? These questions and many more can be explored by using the Google Earth (GE) interface.
This exercise modified from an exercise in the textbook Understanding Earth 6th edition by Grotzinger and Jordan.
Type “Ft. Benton, Montana, United States” into the GE search window. Once you arrive there, zoom out to an eye altitude of about 35 km (bottom right on image). You will be looking down on the Missouri River, the longest tributary of the Mississippi River. Examine the stretch of river that flows from the southwest to the northeast through the town and describe the channel pattern you observe.
(5 pts)
Meandering
Deltaic
Braided
Artificially straightened
Answer:
Using the cursor, determine the change in elevation of the Missouri River channel over the 525 kilometers between Ft. Benton, Montana and Williston, North Dakota. (You can determine elevation at each location by putting your cursor over the river channel near these two localities and reading elevation off the bottom of the screen given in meters). Now compare that value with the change in elevation of the Mississippi River channel over the same distance between Memphis, Tennessee, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the south. Which relationship is most accurate? (5 pts)
The gradient of the Missouri River is steeper than that of the Mississippi River
The gradient of the Mississippi River is steeper than that of the Missouri River
The gradient of the two river are nearly equal
The gradients of the rivers cannot be compared from the information given
Answer:
Which of the following cities is most vulnerable to flooding by the Mississippi River? To ascertain which city is most vulnerable, take the difference in elevation between the water level of the Mississippi River and the center of each city. The smallest difference will be the most vulnerable. (5 pts)
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Baton Rouge, LA
Saint Paul, MN
St. Louis, Missouri
Moline, IL
Answer:
Go to the Google Earth image of Greenville, Mississippi. What geologic feature is surrounding Archer Island to the north of the city? Must give the geologic term used in Chapter 16 of your textbook (5 pts)
Answer:
Using the Google Earth search window, navigate to New Orleans, Louisiana. Zoom out to an eye altitude of 310 km to appreciate the close relationship between the city and the Mississippi delta. Now zoom in on the delta itself to observe the deposition of sediment from the Mississippi River channel in the Gulf of Mexico. Why is sediment deposited in this location in particular, and why in such large quantities? (5 pts)
Hurricanes originating in the Gulf of Mexico drive sediment from Florida over to Louisiana, where they become blocked by the continent and settle out of the water.
The Army Corp of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the Mississippi, dumped all the sediment here when it dredged the river, trying to keep the channel open to ship traffic.
Sediments were shed from the Appalachian Mountains when they were uplifted during the Cretaceous period.
The Mississippi River meets the ocean here, so the river current slows down, and this decrease in current velocity causes the sediments in the current to be deposited.
Answer:
Looking a little closer to CPCC, let’s take a look at the Catawba River, our city’s main supply of freshwater.
Use Google Earth to navigate to Charlotte, NC. The Catawba River is just west of the city of Charlotte. What general direction is the river flowing in this region? (5 pts)
East
North
West
South
Answer:
Zoom in to an eye altitude of about 5 km on the stretch of the Catawba River just west of the Charlotte International Airport. Find the first lake upstream and downstream of the Catawba River from this location. Name both lakes. (5 pts)
Answers:
Why are these lakes located where they are? (Hint: Zoom in toward the edge of these lakes and you might be able to observe the cause) (5 pts)
Explanation:
Explanation / Answer
Missouri river is the second largest river of North America and the longest tributary of the river Mississippi. As we can see in the map we see that the course of the river from the SW to NE through the town is highly sinuous and the river is meandering.
The gradient is the difference of highest elevation-lowest elevation/ length of the distance travelled by the river. Since the total distance travelled by the Missouri river is 2500 km or 2,500,000m and the highest elevation where it starts is 14000 m above sea level and the lowest elevation at which it joins with the Mississippi river is 410 m above sea level. Therefore gradient of Missouri river is (14000-410)/2,500,000=13590/2,500,000=0.005. Whereas the gradient of Mississippi river is 2.22ft/mile=0.676/1609=0.0004. So the gradient of Missouri river is greater than the Mississippi river.
The city which is more vulnerable to flooding is the Baton Rouge, LA. Here the difference of water level of the city and the Mississippi is very low so this city more prone to flooding. In 2016 floods of Louisiana floods, the Baton Rouge was badly affected.
The Archer Island consists of natural sandstone archs. There are about 2000 natural archs highest in thw world. Since the sandstone of the natural park overlies the evaporite layer which was deposited 300 million years ago. These weak and less resistant beds of evaporite gets eroded whereas the sandstone is more resistant to weathering and thus forms unique archs.
The Catawba river has a length of about 220 miles. It originates in Blue Ridge mountains in the western North Carolina and then flows thorough Linvelle river and then passes to Lake Hickory and then into Lake Norman. From there the river flows towards south, west of Charlotte. So the direction of river flow in the Charlotte is south.
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