In the late Cretaceous, around 80 million years ago, a mountain chain spanned the southern portion of the continent, blocking southbound water flows, so most North American rivers flowed to the Western Interior Sea or north to Canada’s Hudson Bay.
The last major change to the river’s course in the Vicksburg area occurred in 1876. On April 26 of that year, the Mississippi River suddenly changed courses, leaving Vicksburg high and dry.
There are several factors that contribute to the change in courses of the Mississippi River. The main factor is energy. The Mississippi is a very curvy, knowns as meandering, river.
It had a major impact in the growth of New York City. The Colorado River flows 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the Gulf of California. Along the way it passes through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Mexico. The river is famous for carving out the Grand Canyon over the course of millions of years.
Scientists know that the Colorado River carved Grand Canyon. The river is thus slightly older than the canyon, though the two are certainly close in age. Scientists have studied rock deposits along course of the present day Colorado River.
The great ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch gave the basin of the Upper Mississippi much of the shape that we consider characteristic today. Pre-existing river valleys were widened and deepened by the ice as it pushed its way south.
Glaciers are called "rivers of ice." Just like rivers, glaciers have fall lines where the bed of the glacier gets narrow or descends rapidly. Ice flows down the icefall just like water falls down a waterfall.
By around 6 million years ago, waters rushing off the Rockies had formed the mighty Colorado River. As the plateau rose, the river cut into it, carving the canyon over time. Smaller rivers eventually cut the side canyons, mesas and buttes that are so characteristic of the canyon today.
The Mississippi River has changed course to the Gulf every thousand years or so for about the last 10,000 years. Gravity finds a shorter, steeper path to the Gulf when sediments deposited by the river make the old path higher and flatter. It's ready to change course again.
The glaciers melted 12,000 years ago, forming an immense amount of water to create our current rivers.
GLACIERS AND PEOPLE Glaciers in the Himalayas contain the largest store of water outside of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, and feed seven major Asian rivers: the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Thanlwin, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers.
A proglacial river is a river that flows from the margin of a glacier. These rivers are strongly affected by the highly-seasonal water supply from the glacier and by the large supply of sediment that arrives at the glacier terminus.
AlaskaThe Glacier River is a river 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Whittier near the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. It rises in a remote valley from a glacial meltwater lake from Twentymile glacier and flows out into a large, wide valley where it receives the water of the Carmen River.
The Gunnison, White, Yampa, San Juan, Delores, Green, Little Colorado, Gila, and Virgin Rivers are major tributaries of the Colorado. From its headwaters, the river flows southwestward in a series of meanders across the high Colorado Plateau into south- eastern Utah and through northwestern Arizona.
The Colorado River, which means 'red' or 'reddish' river in Spanish, was frequently confused by Spanish explorers with the Brazos River to the north. The European discoverer of these two neighboring rivers called the present Colorado River the Brazos de Dios, and called the present Brazos the Colorado River.
Colorado River, major river of North America, rising in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, U.S., and flowing generally west and south for 1,450 miles (2,330 kilometres) into the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico.
The Columbia River dams inundated many of the river's dangerous rapids, well-described and named by early settlers and travelers on the river for their often treacherous passage — Dalles des Morts (Death Rapids), Hell Gate, White Cap, Rock Slide, Boulder, Surprise.
Toward the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, a series of catastrophic floods, perhaps the greatest floods ever in the history of the world, scoured the route of the Columbia through what is now Washington and the Columbia River Gorge.
The rocks of Celilo Falls were the remnants of the dam. Thus we have the Columbia River and salmon. There are other legends about the origin of the river and its people, legends that also coincide with the geology and ecology of the river as we know it today. There were cataclysms of volcanism, floods and earthquakes.
The Columbia itself was the work of Coyote in most oral traditions. Realizing that salmon were in the ocean and that people in the interior needed food, Coyote fought a battle with the giant beaver god Wishpoosh, backing him through the Cascade Mountains to the ocean and then killing him.
He gave the man instructions about hunting and fishing, and when the man became lonely the Great Chief Above made woman and taught her how to gather and prepare berries, and cook the salmon and game the man brought to her.
The river flows north for some 200 miles (322 kilometers) and then turns south and flows for about 270 miles (434 kilometers) before crossing the border into Washington at River Mile 749, that is, 749 miles (1,205 kilometers) inland from the Pacific Ocean. More precisely, according to the BC Freshwater Atlas, the Columbia River in British Columbia ...
Four years later, he would be proven wrong. At 4 a.m., April 29, 1792 , just inside the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca off the Northwest coast of present-day Washington, two great sea captains had a brief encounter that literally changed the course of Columbia River history.
The Colorado forms the border of California to the west and Arizona to the east for most of its course through the desert Lower Colorado River Valley (LCRV), where its character changes significantly from fast-flowing whitewater to a low gradient braided stream with a wide floodplain. Here, the Colorado River ranges in width from 700 to 2,500 ft (200 to 800 m) and from 8 to 100 ft (2 to 30 m) in depth. It becomes a losing stream, with a gradual reduction in volume both due to evaporation in the hot desert climate and massive diversions for irrigation, urban areas, industry and thermo-electric power generation. The average flow rate of 14,180 cubic feet per second (402 m 3 /s) at Davis Dam diminishes to just 2,060 cubic feet per second (58 m 3 /s) at the Mexican border.
Below here the Colorado flows through the last 16 miles (26 km) of Glen Canyon, passing the scenic Horseshoe Bend, before emerging briefly from its canyons at Lee's Ferry, where it is joined by the warm, shallow, muddy Paria River.
Route 93 at a height of 900 feet (270 m) above the Colorado River.
Historically a ford used by Native Americans, explorers and settlers, Lee's Ferry serves as the dividing point between the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins, which were each allocated one-half of the Colorado River flow in the Colorado River Compact of 1922.
Before an act of Congress changed the name in 1921 this confluence marked the official beginning of the Colorado River proper. The approximately 450 miles (720 km) of the Colorado above the confluence of the Green, including the entire section within Colorado, was known as the Grand River.
The Colorado River is a major river of the western United States and northwest Mexico in North America. Its headwaters are in the Rocky Mountains where La Poudre Pass Lake is its source. Located in north central Colorado it flows southwest through the Colorado Plateau country of western Colorado, southeastern Utah and northwestern Arizona where it flows through the Grand Canyon. It turns south near Las Vegas, Nevada, forming the Arizona– Nevada border in Lake Mead and the Arizona– California border a few miles below Davis Dam between Laughlin, Nevada and Needles, California before entering Mexico in the Colorado Desert. Most of its waters are diverted into the Imperial Valley of Southern California. In Mexico its course forms the boundary between Sonora and Baja California before entering the Gulf of California. This article describes most of the major features along the river.
Below the Green River the Colorado flows through Cataract Canyon, which contains some of its most difficult rapids. At Hite the Hite Crossing Bridge – the only bridge over the Colorado for nearly 300 miles (480 km) – carries Utah State Route 95 over the river.
Major Rivers in the United States. Mississippi. The Mississippi River is one of the most important rivers in the United States. It flows 2,340 miles north to south from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana. Together with the Missouri River, it forms the fourth largest river system in the world. The source of the Mississippi is Lake Itasca ...
The first explorers to travel the entire length of the Missouri River were Lewis and Clark. They used the Missouri to make their way west when exploring the Louisiana Purchase.
The Hudson River flows 315 miles north to south in eastern New York. It is a fairly short river when compared to many of the other rivers on this page. However, the Hudson played an important role in the early history of the United States. When the Erie Canal was opened in 1825, the Hudson was connected to the Great Lakes.
The Yukon River is the third longest river in the United States at 1,980 miles. It begins at Llewellyn Glacier in Canada and flows north to Alaska where it proceeds to travel west across the state to the Bering Sea. * The source for the length of the rivers in this article is the USGS.
Rio Grande. The Rio Grande flows 1,900 miles from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it travels through New Mexico and serves as the southern border of Texas between the United States and Mexico. Major tributaries of the Rio Grande include the Rio Conchos, the Rio Chama, and the San Juan River. Hudson.
Colorado. The Colorado River flows 1,450 miles from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the Gulf of California. Along the way it passes through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Mexico. The river is famous for carving out the Grand Canyon over the course of millions of years. Today the Colorado is an important source ...
The Missouri River is the longest river in the United States at 2,540 miles long. Together with the Mississippi River, it forms the fourth largest river system in the world. It begins in Western Montana and flows to the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. It travels through several states including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, ...