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The future of the Colorado is uncertain, leaving the water source and the cultures along its shores in danger.

The Colorado River is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 km) long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows from the Continental Divide at La Poudre Pass in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, into the Gulf of California between the Baja California peninsula and mainland Mexico. Large irrigation diversions for California's Imperial Valley through the All-American Canal, and to a much lesser extent irrigation diversions for Arizona, have dewatered the lower course of the river below Yuma, Arizona, resulting in it no longer consistently reaching the Gulf of California.

As reported on the Global Post, the Colorado River is a shell of its former self; a victim of overpopulation, pollution, damming, climate change and apathy.
Click on the link above to read the full article.

An abandoned house boat sits idle at Lake Meade, Nevada.

Lake Meade, a reservoir fed by the Colorado, has seen its water level drop more than 100 feet in recent years as a result of drought, increased agricultural use, a booming Las Vegas population and climate change.

The Hoover Dam tamed the mighty Colorado River and now regulates water flow.

Once a flowing, lush river, the Colorado runs dry in Sonora, Mexico.

Sitting on her family's failing farm, a grandmother is comforted by her daughter in Sonora, Mexico. The farm, with its this cows and now arid land, sits only yards from where the Colorado River once ran.

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia page for Colorado River.

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Amazing Sinkholes

November 22nd 2010 01:23

A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the Earth's surface. Sinkholes may vary in size from less than 1 to 600 meters (3.3 to 2,000 ft) both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. They may be formed gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide.

The images below of some famous sinkholes are taken from the Mother Nature Network. Read the full article here.

The Great Ravenna Boulevard Sinkhole

One of the largest and most expensive sewer collapses in the United States occurred on the night of Nov. 11, 1957 in Seattle, Wash. The sewer trunk collapsed 145 feet below the street, but the massive sinkhole that resulted was just 60 feet deep. Repairs took two years to complete.

Neversink Pit

Neversink Pit is a limestone sinkhole in Alabama, and it’s one of the most-photographed sinkholes in the world because of its beautiful fern-covered ledges and waterfalls. The hole is about 40 feet wide at the top, but it expands to 100 feet at its bottom, which is 162 feet from the ground. Neversink is home to bats and several rare and endangered fern species.

Guatemala City sinkhole

The sinkhole that occurred in Guatemala City in June 2010 is unique because human activity — not nature — was the likely cause of it. A burst sewer pipe probably created the underground cavity, which is 60 feet wide and 300 feet deep, according to Sam Bonis, a geologist at Dartmouth College.

Guatemala City was built in a region where the earth is composed mostly of pumice fill from past volcanic eruptions. The ground isn’t solid rock and can be easily eroded when heavy rains occur, such as during Tropical Storm Agatha, which is when this sinkhole formed.

Daisetta, Texas sinkhole

On May 7, 2008, a 20-foot-wide sinkhole in Daisetta, Texas, began swallowing everything in its path and had expanded to 900 feet by the next day with a depth of 260 feet. The former oil town sits on the Hull Salt Dome, a four-mile-in-diameter geologic formation of compacted salt, and geologists speculate that years of storing saltwater waste — a by-product of oil production — caused the massive pit.

El Zacatón

The El Zacatón sinkhole is the deepest water-filled sinkhole in the world. It was long considered to be bottomless, but in 1997 NASA solved the pit’s mystery when it sent an underwater robot into the waters and found the depth of El Zacatón to be 1,112 feet.

The clear, blue water is highly mineralized and has a sulphurous odour, and it’s quite warm — averaging 86 degrees Fahrenheit. The sinkhole’s name comes from the free-floating islands of zacate grass that blow across the lake in the wind.

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia page for Sinkhole.

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Water Drop Desktop Backgrounds

November 8th 2010 02:15

Macro or close up photography is becoming increasingly popular as technology continues to improve through the years.
Nature macro photography is by far the most common form of the art.
In today's post we look at some very high quality water drop close-ups which are large enough to use as desktop wallpapers.
Click on each image to open a downloadable version, or visit Photoity.com (link above), who are the source of these images.

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Everglades National Park

August 18th 2010 02:53

The Everglades National Park in the U.S. state of Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It has been declared an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site, and a Wetland of International Importance.

Unlike most U.S. national parks, Everglades National Park was created to protect a fragile ecosystem instead of safeguarding a unique geographic feature. The Everglades are wetlands created by a slow-moving river. The park protects an interconnected network of marshland and forest ecosystems that are maintained by natural forces.

Thirty-six species designated as threatened or protected live in the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee. The park protects the largest U.S. wilderness area east of the Mississippi River, is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America, and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere. More than 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles live within Everglades National Park.

Below are pictures of flora and fauna that can only be found in the Everglades.
These were sourced from OddityCentral here.

Florida Panther

American Crocodile (not Alligator)

Mangroves

Snail Kite

Orchids

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for the Everglades National Park.

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The Worst Forms of Pollution

August 6th 2010 02:48

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring.

The Mother Nature Network put together this sobering article on the worst forms of pollution our planet is faced with today. Read the full report here.

Oil Spills

In the wake of the Gulf oil spill, the harmful effects of marine oil spills are obvious. Birds, fish and other marine life can be devastated from a spill, and the ecosystems often take decades to recover. The oil is ingested by some animals, allowing pollutants to enter the food chain, harming fisheries and other industries in the region. Many people don't realize that most oil pollution actually comes from land-based activity. One way or another, oil has seeped into nearly all of Earth's ecosystems.

Urban air pollution

According to the World Health Organization, 2.4 million people die every year primarily because of air pollution. Urban areas such as Los Angeles, Mumbai, Cairo, Beijing and many of the world's most populated cities have the worst air quality. Air pollution has been strongly correlated with increased rates of asthma, and pollution from automobiles has a strong link to pneumonia-related deaths. One of the worst cases of urban air pollution happened in London in 1952, when about 8,000 people died over the course of a few months because of a single smog event.

Greenhouse gases

The most common greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels has greatly increased since the Industrial Revolution. As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they cause overall warming and climate change. A few of the profound effects of rapid climate change include rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity and the melting of snowpack, which could threaten the world's fresh water supply.

antibiotic pollution and the evolution of superbugs

Pharmaceutical pollution

Pharmaceutical waste is becoming one of the world's biggest pollution concerns. Millions of doses of drugs are prescribed to people annually, and even more antibiotics are given to livestock. Those chemicals eventually make their way into the water supply. There is a natural risk to human health, but the bigger fear is that the pollution will ease the evolution of superbugs — bacteria that are immune to antibiotics.

Plastics

Many plastics are toxic. Vinyl chloride (PVC), is a known carcinogen, and bisphenol A (BPA) can disrupt endocrine function, can cause insulin resistance and it has been linked to heart disease. Plastics biodegrade slowly, in some cases lasting for hundreds of thousands of years. Waste accumulated from excessive use of plastics has become a worldwide problem. Gigantic islands of plastic trash have been known to accumulate in the North Pacific Gyre, the most famous of which is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia page for Pollution.

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Washed Up

July 26th 2010 02:15

Whether it be by the action of winds, tides, waves or man, all manner of items can wash up on the sea shore. Everything from marine creatures, to driftwood and other marine debris will make there way to our beaches.
These Spectacular Examples of Washed Up Photography are from a photoset at the Digital Picture Zone.

[ Click here to read more ]

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Iceland's Volcanic Eruptions of 2010

May 14th 2010 03:46

Planes sit on the tarmac at Gatwick airport on April 15, 2010 in London, England.

The second 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland on 14 April 2010 caused extensive air travel disruption. In response to fears that ash ejected by the volcano would damage aircraft engines, the controlled airspace of many countries was closed to instrument flight rules (IFR, flying on instruments only) traffic in what became the largest air traffic shut-down since World War II. This action caused millions of passengers to be stranded not only in Europe, but across the world

[ Click here to read more ]

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Lake Kaindy

April 9th 2010 02:45

Kaindy Lake is a 400 meter long lake in Kazakhstan that reaches depths near 30 meters in some areas. It is located 129 km ESE of the city of Almaty and is 2,000 meters above sea level. It was created by the result of an enormous limestone landslide last century. The track to Kaindy lake has many scenic views to the Saty Gorge, the Chilik River valley and the Kaindy gorge. Dried-out trunks of submerged Schrenk’s Spruce trees rise above the surface

[ Click here to read more ]

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Volcanic Eruptions

March 12th 2010 01:50

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in the Earth's surface or crust, which allows hot magma, ash and gases to escape from below the surface.

Below are some pictures of volcanic eruptions and the associated lava and ash. See the full photoset at fiveprime.org here
[ Click here to read more ]

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How Cities Heal After Disasters

February 10th 2010 01:44

Haiti Earthquake 2010

With the earthquake in Haiti still fresh in our minds we may ask the question how do cities come back from natural disasters

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Fire and Ice

February 3rd 2010 01:42

Ice is the natural state of things, cold, still and lifeless. Fire on the other hand breathes life into our world, but can be powerfully destructive if uncontrolled. This article on boston.com has many pictures dealing with both. Below is a sample.

Members of the public enjoy a late afternoon walk on the frozen Lake of Menteith, on January 4, 2010 in Scotland

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Most Magnificent Trees in the World

January 11th 2010 01:19

There are about 100,000 different species of trees on our planet, making up a large percentage of all living things. However, there are some trees which either by luck or design become very sepcial to us. Here is a list of such trees, sourced from neatorama.com. Read the full article here.

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Iceberg Photography

November 27th 2009 07:12

David Burdeny is an architect and interior designer. He is also a skilled photographer.

His iceberg series shows that these frozen giants are far more than platforms for penguins: They are floating sculptures that are becoming increasingly endangered

[ Click here to read more ]

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Extreme Lakes

September 21st 2009 08:39

What classifies as a lake? Any body of water that is not part of the ocean, fed by at least one river and large enough not to be called a pond. Lakes constitute some of the most beautiful natural landmarks on the earth, even man-made lakes are popular for walking, riding, picnics, living beside and much more.

Today let’s take a look at some lakes with a difference! As reported in this article with the Women's Day, here are a selection of the most extraordinary lakes in the world

[ Click here to read more ]

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