|
California Desert Tortoise
The desert tortoise (''Gopherus agassizii''), is a species of tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species is native to the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, and to the Sinaloan thornscrub of northwestern Mexico. ''G. agassizii'' is distributed in western Arizona, southeastern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah. The specific name ''agassizii'' is in honor of Swiss-American zoologist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz. The desert tortoise is the official state reptile in California and Nevada. The desert tortoise lives about 50 to 80 years; it grows slowly and generally has a low reproductive rate. It spends most of its time in burrows, rock shelters, and pallets to regulate body temperature and reduce water loss. It is most active after seasonal rains and is inactive during most of the year. This inactivity helps reduce water loss during hot periods, whereas winter brumation facilitates survival during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Graham Cooper
James Graham Cooper (June 19, 1830 – July 19, 1902) was an American surgeon and naturalist. Cooper was born in New York. He worked for the California Geological Survey (1860–1874) with Josiah Dwight Whitney, William Henry Brewer and Henry Nicholas Bolander. He was primarily a zoologist, but he also made significant botanical collections from San Diego to Fort Mohave, Arizona in 1861. Cooper was active in the California Academy of Sciences, eventually becoming Director of the Museum. He obtained his medical degree in 1851 and practiced in New York City until 1853. Spencer F. Baird, the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at that time, helped Cooper work with the Pacific railroad survey parties working in the Washington Territory. He joined this survey under Captain George McClellan as a surgeon until 1854. In 1855 he visited San Francisco and the Panama Isthmus. He collected many birds during this expedition. In 1860, he returned west and joined the Blake Expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he received a PhD at Erlangen and a medical degree in Munich. After studying with Georges Cuvier and Alexander von Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel. He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after visiting Harvard University. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head its Lawrence Scientific School, and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology. Agassiz is known for observational data gathering and analysis. He made institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including multivolume research books running to thousands of pages. He is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loam
Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–silt–clay, respectively. These proportions can vary to a degree, however, and result in different types of loam soils: sandy loam, silty loam, clay loam, sandy clay loam, silty clay loam, and loam. In the , textural classification triangle, the only soil that is not predominantly sand, silt, or clay is called "loam". Loam soils generally contain more nutrients, moisture, and |
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North America, at below sea level. It is east-southeast of Mount Whitney — the highest point in the contiguous United States, with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). On the afternoon of July10, 1913, the National Weather Service, United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek, California, Furnace Creek in Death Valley, which stands as the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. This reading, however, and several others taken in that period are disputed by some modern experts. Lying mostly in Inyo County, California, near the border of California and Nevada, in the Great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil. Soil consists of a solid phase of minerals and organic matter (the soil matrix), as well as a porous phase that holds gases (the soil atmosphere) and water (the soil solution). Accordingly, soil is a three-state system of solids, liquids, and gases. Soil is a product of several factors: the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and the soil's parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, soil ecologists regard soil as an ecosystem. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canyon
A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces, eventually wearing away rock layers as sediments are removed downstream. A river bed will gradually reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water into which the river drains. The processes of weathering and erosion will form canyons when the river's River source, headwaters and estuary are at significantly different elevations, particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two mountain peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas or the Andes. Usually, a river or stream carves out such splits between mountains. Examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alluvial Fans
An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to semiarid climates, but are also found in more humid environments subject to intense rainfall and in areas of modern glaciation. They range in area from less than to almost . Alluvial fans typically form where flow emerges from a confined channel and is free to spread out and infiltrate the surface. This reduces the carrying capacity of the flow and results in deposition of sediments. The flow can take the form of infrequent debris flows or one or more ephemeral or perennial streams. Alluvial fans are common in the geologic record, such as in the Triassic basins of eastern North America and the New Red Sandstone of south Devon. Such fan deposits likely contain the largest accumulations of gravel in the geologic record. Alluvial fans have also been found on Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Mountains (Arizona)
The Black Mountains of northwest Arizona are an extensive, mostly linear, north-south trending long mountain range. It forms the north-south border of southwest Mohave County as it borders the eastern shore of the south-flowing Colorado River from Hoover Dam. The northwest and part of the western areas of the range are located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Three wilderness areas are within the range. The historic mining site of Oatman, 4 miles north of Boundary Cone, is nestled in the southern portion of the range between the Mount Nutt and Warm Springs wildernesses. Description The mountain range is generally 10-15 mi wide, narrower in the north, and west of the Detrital Valley northeast. The southern end of the range with the two wilderness areas is a larger block and the Warm Springs Wilderness is made of a mountain section called Black Mesa, separated from the north section by Sitgreaves Pass, on the route to Oatman, Arizona. The high point of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinaloa, Mexico
Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Sinaloa, 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán, Culiacán Rosales. It is located in Northwestern Mexico, and is bordered by the states of Sonora to the north, Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua and Durango to the east (separated from them by the Sierra Madre Occidental) and Nayarit to the south. To the west, Sinaloa faces Baja California Sur across the Gulf of California. The state covers an area of , and includes the Islands of Palmito Verde, Palmito de la Virgen, Altamura, Santa María, Saliaca, Macapule and San Ignacio. In addition to the capital city, the state's important cities include Mazatlán and Los Mochis. History Sinaloa belongs to the northern limit of Mesoamerica. From the Fuerte River ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonora
Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 municipalities; the capital (and largest) city of which being Hermosillo, located in the center of the state. Other large cities include Ciudad Obregón, Nogales, Sonora, Nogales (on the Mexico–United States border, Mexico-United States border), San Luis Río Colorado, and Navojoa. Sonora is bordered by the states of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua to the east, Baja California to the northwest and Sinaloa to the south. To the north, it shares the Mexico–United States border, U.S.–Mexico border primarily with the state of Arizona with a small length with New Mexico, and on the west has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of California. Sonora's natural geography is divided into three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> California Desert Tortoise")
.svg "Click for more on -> Sonora"){kind=logo}