Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Limits of Lake Powell





These four photos show the upper end, the limit, of the giant Lake Powell. Here in Southern Utah, the lake extends hundreds of miles up the Colorado River into the canyon country. But as with all reservoirs, the level of the lake changes with the availability of water and the releases downstream. What the pictures show is a vast flood plain in the canyons. At the time of these pictures  the the river was running in its traditional channel, but all of the surrounding areas along the canyons show signs of the higher water level either in the form of a white bathtub ring type mark on the canyon walls or in the huge mud flats of sediment left high and not too dry. Almost all of the photos you see of the effect of the lake show the water marks, few focus on the upper reaches of the reservoir and the impact it has on the canyon bottoms.

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