Geography Of The World
The Largest Lakes Created By A Single Dam
Lake Nasser, Kuybyshev Reservoir, and Lake Kariba lead this ranking of reservoirs formed behind one principal dam, compared by area, volume, and cost.
Why The Appalachians Are Older Than The Rockies
Collision built one range and a sinking ocean plate built the other, and that difference is why the Appalachians are far older than the younger Rockies.
What Happens If Flaming Gorge Is Drained To Save Lake Powell
To save Lake Powell, managers are draining Flaming Gorge upstream, up to 1M acre-feet. It buys time but drops the reservoir, hits its fishery, and can't last.
The Saltiest River In The United States
Meet the Pecos, the saltiest river in the US, plus the Red River's crab-filled spring and Arizona's honestly named Salt River. Why some rivers run briny.
How Lake Vostok Compares To The Great Lakes
Nobody has ever seen Lake Vostok. It is smaller than every Great Lake, deeper than all of them, and holds more water than four. How Antarctica's buried giant compares.
What Happens If Lake Roosevelt Drops Below Grand Coulee's Power Intakes
Lake Roosevelt is drawn down every year on purpose and the Columbia refills it. What happens when levels fall at America's largest power station, and the real constraint.
What Happens To Lake Havasu If Lake Mead Hits Dead Pool
Lake Havasu holds about 83 days of its own outflow and is legally required to stay full. What happens to it if Lake Mead hits dead pool, and why it looks fine either way.
The American Mountains With The Most Rattlesnakes
Rattlesnakes in American mountains, from the Guadalupes and Superstitions to Rocky Mountain foothills and the timber rattlers of the southern Appalachians.
The Native Fish Species That Depend On American Reservoirs
Reservoirs once disrupted native fish habitat. Now some of those same waters sustain species in one of conservation’s stranger reversals.
How Lake Erie Holds Less Water Than Lake Ontario Despite Being Larger
The bigger Great Lake by surface area holds far less water than the deeper one beside it, and the reason traces all the way back to the last ice age.
The Single Canal That Carries The Most Colorado River Water
The All-American Canal moves 3.1 million acre-feet a year, more than the Central Arizona Project and Colorado River Aqueduct combined, without a single pump.
The Oldest River In The United States
The oldest river in the US is ironically named the New River, older than the Appalachians and the dinosaurs. Why this ancient river flows north, and its age debate.
What Happens If A Major Dam Fails In The American West
The flood is only the first hour. A major Western dam holds back power, drinking water, farm irrigation, and flood storage, each failing on its own clock.
The Busiest Shipping Routes On The Great Lakes
The heaviest freight on North America's inland seas funnels through a handful of locks, rivers, and canals. Here is where the tonnage piles up.
The Great Lakes Ranked By Number Of Beaches
Lake Michigan leads the Great Lakes with 535 monitored US beaches, while Lake Ontario has 55, showing that shoreline length does not predict beach counts.
The Parts Of The Ocean Where Almost Nothing Lives
The ocean has places so hostile that fish disappear, microbes barely function, and life survives only at the edge of what seems possible
Why Great Lakes Freighters Race To Beat The Soo Locks' Winter Closing
Every January, Great Lakes freighters race to beat the Soo Locks' winter closing. Why the Jan 15 shutdown turns the end of the shipping season into a dash.
Why The Rockies Are Still Rising
Long after the mountains finished forming, the Rockies keep climbing. Hot mantle, a slow-tearing rift, and steady erosion are quietly lifting them.
Why Lake Mead Has A White Bathtub Ring
Lake Mead's white bathtub ring is calcium carbonate left on the rock as the water drops. Why it's there, why it's 160 feet tall, and what it says about the West.
Why King Tides Flood Coastal Towns Every Fall
King tides are not getting bigger. The baseline under them is rising, so a tide that cleared the seawall fifty years ago now arrives in the street.
The First Lake To Freeze Each Year In The Lower 48
Nobody knows, because nobody is checking. The first lake to freeze in the Lower 48 is an unnamed alpine pond, and here is how we narrow down where it is.
How Much Water Sits Behind America's 10 Biggest Dams
See which 10 American dams hold back the largest reservoirs by total storage capacity, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
What Happens If Lake Mead Drops Below Its Power Intakes
Hoover Dam has already lost half its output since 2000 without anyone noticing. What happens if Lake Mead falls below the turbines, and why it is a slope not a cliff.
The Tallest Mountain In America From Base To Summit
Measured from its deep-sea base, one American peak beats Everest by thousands of feet. See how nine giants rank when height starts at the bottom.
What Happens When A River Meets The Ocean
See what happens when a river meets the ocean, and why fresh water floats, salt water pushes upstream underneath it, and the mud never makes it out to sea.
The Longest Stretch Of The Mississippi With No Bridge
Between Helena, Arkansas and Greenville, Mississippi, the Mississippi River runs 131 miles with no bridge and no ferry. Here's why nobody has ever spanned it.
How Great Bear Lake Compares To The Great Lakes
Great Bear Lake is bigger than two Great Lakes, deeper than all five, and home to just 500 people. How Canada's Arctic giant stacks up against the famous five.
How Long It Takes Invasive Mussels To Cover A Lake Bottom
A few invasive mussels can carpet a lake bottom in two years or take over a decade. Depth, food, and the species involved decide how fast it happens.
The Most Powerful Storms The Great Lakes Have Ever Seen
Wind speeds, wave heights, and death tolls decide the ranking of the six worst storms ever recorded across the Great Lakes, worst first.
The Only Coral Reef In The Continental United States
Warm Gulf Stream water gives southern Florida the only living coral barrier reef on the US mainland, third-largest on Earth and 8,000 years old.
The Widest River In The United States
The widest river in the US is the Mississippi, over 11 miles across at Lake Winnibigoshish. But there's a catch, and the widest navigable stretch is much narrower.
The Lakes With The Largest Snapping Turtles
Field studies pin down a handful of US lakes with the densest, best-documented snapping-turtle populations scientists have actually managed to measure.
Why Great Lakes Waves Are More Dangerous Than Ocean Waves
Ocean waves arrive every 10 to 12 seconds. Great Lakes waves arrive every three. That single difference is why swimmers drown in conditions that look calm
The Invasive Species Costing US Lakes The Most Money
The biggest repair bills in US lakes rarely come from the biggest species. See what zebra mussels, hydrilla, and sea lampreys cost to control each year.
The Lakes America Built And Then Regretted
From Hetch Hetchy and Glen Canyon to flooded tribal homelands and dams now torn down, these are the lakes America built and came to regret.
The Colorado River Tributary That No Longer Reaches It
The Colorado River's largest tributary, the Gila, is so heavily dammed and diverted that it no longer reaches the Colorado, except during rare desert floods.
How Many Dams Hold Back America's Largest Lakes?
America’s largest lakes rely on massive dams to hold back enormous volumes of water, with the total number of structures varying by reservoir.
How The Great Lakes Compare To The World's Largest Lakes
One landlocked lake dwarfs all five Great Lakes put together. Here's how North America's giants measure up against the world's largest lakes.
What Happens If The Ohio River Floods Louisville Again
The wall holds the river back; the aging pumps behind it are the weak point. Here is what a major Ohio River flood would actually do to Louisville today.
What Actually Separates One Ocean From Another
Most ocean boundaries are invisible lines someone drew on a chart. A few are real geography. Here is what actually separates one ocean from another.