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San Luis Closed Basin
The San Luis Closed Basin is a endorheic basin in the Alamosa and Saguache counties of south-central Colorado. It includes San Luis Creek and its tributary, Saguache Creek. While the basin is east of the majority of the Rocky Mountains, it lies west of the Sangre de Cristo Range. An elevated plateau in Alamosa County, the San Luis Hills, separates the San Luis Closed Basin drainage from most of the San Luis Valley, which is southward-flowing and drains through the Rio Grande. Hydrology The San Luis Closed Basin forms a major segment of the eastern slope of the Colorado section of the Continental Divide. Historically, all of the waters that naturally entered the basin through hydrologic processes were disposed of by evapotranspiration, of which the endpoint was a playa adjacent to the Great Sand Dunes. Starting in the 1970s, part of the water that had previously flowed toward the playa was diverted to the Rio Grande drainage through a canal constructed in the 1970s as par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continental Divide Of The Americas
The Continental Divide of the Americas (also known as the Great Divide, the Western Divide or simply the Continental Divide; ) is the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas. The Continental Divide extends from the Bering Strait to the Strait of Magellan, and separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain into the Atlantic and (in northern North America) Arctic oceans (including those that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and Hudson Bay). Although there are many other hydrological divides in the Americas, the Continental Divide is by far the most prominent of these because it tends to follow a line of high peaks along the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains and Andes, at a generally much higher elevation than the other hydrological divisions. Geography Beginning at the westernmost point of the Americas’ mainland (Cape Prince of Wales, just south of the Arctic Circle), the Conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms Of Alamosa County, Colorado
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, Stratum, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic Waterbody, waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, Plateau, plat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endangered Species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and invasive species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List lists the global conservation status of many species, and various other agencies assess the status of species within particular areas. Many nations have laws that protect conservation-reliant species which, for example, forbid hunting, restrict land development, or create protected areas. Some endangered species are the target of extensive conservation efforts such as captive breeding and habitat restoration. Human activity is a significant cause in causing some species to become endangered. Conservation status The conservation status of a species indicates the likelihood that it will become extinct. Multiple factors are considered when assessing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southwestern Willow Flycatcher
The willow flycatcher (''Empidonax traillii'') is a small insect-eating, neotropical migrant bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. There are four subspecies of the willow flycatcher currently recognized, all of which breed in North America (including three subspecies that breed in California). ''Empidonax'' flycatchers are almost impossible to tell apart in the field so biologists use their songs to distinguish between them. The binomial commemorates the Scottish zoologist Thomas Stewart Traill. Description and ecology Adults have brown-olive upperparts, darker on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have an indistinct white eye ring, white wing bars and a small bill. The breast is washed with olive-gray. The upper part of the bill is gray; the lower part is orangish. At one time, this bird and the alder flycatcher (''Empidonax alnorum'') were considered to be a single species, Traill's flycatcher. The willow and alder flycatchers were considered the same species u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baccharis Sarothroides
''Baccharis sarothroides'' is a North American species of flowering shrub known by the common names broom baccharis, desertbroom, greasewood, rosin-bush and groundsel in English and "escoba amarga" or "romerillo" in Spanish. This is a spreading, woody shrub usually sticky with glandular secretions along the primarily leafless green stems. The small, thick leaves are a few centimeters long and are absent much of the year, giving the shrub a spindly, twiggy appearance. It flowers abundantly with tiny green blooms on separate male and female plants. Native to the Sonoran Desert of northwestern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora) and the Southwestern United States (southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, western Texas), it is common in gravelly dry soils and disturbed areas. Uses The Seri refer to desert broom as , and make a decoction by cooking the twigs. This drink is used to treat colds, sinus headache, and general sore achey ailments. The same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Luis State Park
San Luis State Park is a former state park located in Alamosa County, Colorado, United States. In 2017, the property lost its status as a state park, and management of it was transferred to the San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area. San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area is located east of the town of Mosca, south off State Highway 150 near the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The state wildlife area contains an intermittent lake which is sometimes allocated small quantities of water from the hydrologically managed San Luis Closed Basin drainage. Wildlife A variety of wildlife makes its home in the area, including coyotes, kangaroo rats, rabbits, elk, various kinds of songbirds, raptors, reptiles and amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...s. References Exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Basin Project
The Closed Basin Project is a groundwater extraction project in the San Luis Valley in Colorado, United States, that began in the 1970s, and remains in operation in the 2020s. The project is managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Location A closed basin is a hydrologic basin that has no outlet for the water. Precipitation can only leave through evaporation or seepage. The closed basin of the San Luis Valley covers between the San Luis Hills in the south, the San Juan Mountains to the west, Poncha Pass to the north and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east. The basin is separated by a hydraulic divide at the southern end from the Rio Grande watershed. It contains the towns of Center, Hooper, Moffat, Mosca and Saguache and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Streams that flow into the basin include irrigation diversions from the Rio Grande, the Carnero, La Garita, and Saguache creeks from the west, San Luis Creek from the north, and the North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Sand Dunes National Park And Preserve
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is an American national park that conserves an area of large sand dunes up to tall on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley, and an adjacent national preserve in the Sangre de Cristo Range, in south-central Colorado, United States. The park was originally designated Great Sand Dunes National Monument on March 17, 1932, by President Herbert Hoover. The original boundaries protected an area of ."Antiquities Act 1906-2006: Maps, facts and figures" . ''nps.gov''. National Park Service. Retrieved December 12, 2017. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sink (geography)
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes or swamps, permanent or seasonal, that equilibrate through evaporation. They are also called closed or terminal basins, internal drainage systems, or simply basins. Endorheic regions contrast with exorheic regions. Endorheic water bodies include some of the largest lakes in the world, such as the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water. Basins with subsurface outflows which eventually lead to the ocean are generally not considered endorheic; they are cryptorheic. Endorheic basins constitute local base levels, defining a limit of erosion and deposition processes of nearby areas. Etymology The term was borrowed from French ''endor(rh)éisme'', coined from the combining form ''endo-'' (from grc, ἔνδον ''éndon'' 'with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the combined processes by which water moves from the earth’s surface into the atmosphere. It covers both water evaporation (movement of water to the air directly from soil, canopies, and water bodies) and transpiration (movement of water from the soil, through roots and bodies of vegetation, on leaves and then into the air). Evapotranspiration is an important part of the local water cycle and climate, as well as measurement of it plays a key role in agricultural irrigation and water resource management. Definition Evapotranspiration is a combination of evaporation and transpiration, measured in order to better understand crop water requirements, irrigation scheduling, and watershed management. The two key components of evapotranspiration are: * Evaporation: the movement of water directly to the air from sources such as the soil and water bodies. It can be affected by factors including heat, humidity, and wind speed. * Transpiration: the move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio Grande is . It originates in south-central Colorado, in the United States, and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Rio Grande drainage basin (watershed) has an area of ; however, the endorheic basins that are adjacent to and within the greater drainage basin of the Rio Grande increase the total drainage-basin area to . The Rio Grande with Rio Grande Valley (landform), its fertile valley, along with its tributaries, is a vital watersource for seven US and Mexican states, and flows primarily through arid and semi-arid lands. After traversing the length of New Mexico, the Rio Grande becomes the Mexico–United States border, between the U.S. state of Texas and the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua and Coahuila, Nuevo León a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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