The Glen Canyon Dam lies on the Colorado River, upstream of the Grand Canyon. Because the dam blocks sediment from upstream, the region’s only sediment sources are two tributary rivers Keep reading
Tag: sedimentation
Unifying Sediment Transport Theory
On windy days, streaks of snowflakes snake in the air above a mountaintop snowfield. And when snorkeling in the surf, you can watch the inbound waves sculpt underwater ripples in Keep reading
Arctic Swirls
These colorful swirls show sediment and organic matter carried into the Arctic Ocean. Like dyes or tracer particles in a lab experiment, this run-off reveals the complicated patterns of mixing Keep reading
Forming a Waterfall
Many factors can affect a waterfall’s formation – changes in bedrock structure, tectonic shifts, and glacial motion, to name a few. But a new study suggests that some waterfalls may Keep reading
Titan’s Dust Storms
Earth and Mars are well-known for their dust storms, but a new source of extraterrestrial dust storms is joining them: Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan already shares unusual similarities to Earth: Keep reading
Bringing Beavers Back
It’s easy sometimes to forget just how drastically humans alter landscapes. Before European fur trappers came to North America, its waterways were ruled by beavers, one of nature’s most impressive Keep reading
Sandy Wrinkles
Water flowing back and forth over sand quickly forms a field of dune-like wrinkles. On the upstream side, the flow is a little faster, and it picks up grains of Keep reading
Colorful Erosion
Wind, water, and gravity are great sculptors of our world. This false-color satellite image shows the Ga’ara Depression in Iraq, which formed some 300 million years ago beneath a shallow Keep reading
Fissures in Africa
Pictures of an enormous fissure in Kenya’s East African Rift Valley have gone viral in recent weeks along with breathless reports about how part of the African continent is splitting Keep reading
Water on Mars
Recurring slope lineae (RSL) are seasonal features on Mars that leave behind gullies similar to those left by running water on Earth. Their discovery a few years ago has prompted Keep reading