While the mud-related Burning Man crisis is over and attendees are finally off the playa, the environmental impacts of 70,000 people on the unique and delicate ecosystem remain to be seen.
Environmental News Network - What Causes Pools below Waterfalls to Periodically Fill with Sediment? enn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from enn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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IMAGE: : Example of sediment filling and evacuation of sediment in a small waterfall plunge pool on Arroyo Seco, San Gabriel Mountains, California. Top: Plunge pool, free of sediment, in June. view more
Credit: Top photo credit: Kelin X. Whipple, bottom photo credit: Michael P. Lamb.
Boulder, Colo., USA: Deep pools below waterfalls are popular recreational swimming spots, but sometimes they can be partially or completely filled with sediment. New research showed how and why pools at the base of waterfalls, known as plunge pools, go through natural cycles of sediment fill and evacuation. Beyond impacting your favorite swimming hole, plunge pools also serve important ecologic and geologic functions. Deep pools are refuges for fish and other aquatic animals in summer months when water temperatures in shallow rivers can reach lethal levels. Waterfalls also can liquefy sediment within the pool, potentially triggering debris flows that can damage property and threate
May 2, 2021
As fall is to leaf-peeping, spring is to waterfall-watching, a seasonal pursuit now underway in the northern and higher regions of the United States.
Waterfalls can range from thunderous plunges to delicate mossy trickles. They can be backcountry pop-ups or the centerpieces of parks, like Great Falls Park in McLean, Virginia, and Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, Oregon.
There’s no agreed-upon definition of a waterfall, according to Joel Scheingross, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies those that detach from the bed of a river, creating an air pocket between the face and the water jet. Waterfalls, he explained, can be the result of glacial carving (as at Niagara Falls), or through faults in tectonic plates. Places where hard and soft rock mix often produce waterfalls pouring over a harder rock cap that carve away soft rock below.