Sonora
Sonora Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora, is one of 31 states that, with Mexico City, comprise the 32 federal entities of United Mexican States. It is divided into 72 municipalities. Sonora is bordered by the states of Chihuahua to the east, Baja California to the northwest and Sinaloa to the south. To the north, it shares the U. S.–Mexico border with the states of Arizona and New Mexico, on the west has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of California. Sonora's natural geography is divided into three parts: the Sierra Madre Occidental in the east of the state, it is arid or semiarid deserts and grasslands, with only the highest elevations having sufficient rainfall to support other types of vegetation. Sonora is home to eight indigenous peoples, including the Mayo, the O’odham, the Yaqui, Seri, it has been economically important for its agriculture and mining since the colonial period, for its status as a border state since the Mexican–American War. With the Gadsden Purchase, Sonora lost more than a quarter of its territory.
From the 20th century to the present, industry and agribusiness have dominated the economy, attracting migration from other parts of Mexico. Several theories exist as to the origin of the name "Sonora". One theory states that the name was derived from Nuestra Señora, the name given to the territory when Diego de Guzmán crossed the Yaqui River on the day of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, which falls on 7 October with the pronunciation changing because none of the indigenous languages of the area have the ñ sound. Another theory states that Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, who had wrecked off the Florida coast and made their way across the continent, were forced to cross the arid state from north to south, carrying an image of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias on a cloth, they encountered the Opata, who could not pronounce Señora, instead saying Sonora. A third theory, written by Father Cristóbal de Cañas in 1730, states that the name comes from the word for a natural water well, which the Spaniards modified to "Sonora".
The first record of the name Sonora comes from explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who passed through the state in 1540 and called part of the area the Valle de la Sonora. Francisco de Ibarra traveled through the area in 1567 and referred to the Valles de Señora; the literal meaning of "sonora" in Spanish is "sonorous" or "loud." Evidence of human existence in the state dates back over 10,000 years, with some of the best-known remains at the San Dieguito Complex in the El Pinacate Desert. The first humans were nomadic hunter gatherers who used tools made from stones and wood. During much of the prehistoric period, the environmental conditions were less severe than they are today, with similar but more dense vegetation spread over a wider area; the oldest Clovis culture site in North America is believed to be El Fin del Mundo in northwestern Sonora. It was discovered during a 2007 survey, it features occupation dating around 13,390 calibrated years BP. In 2011, remains of Gomphothere were found.
Agriculture first appeared around 400 200 CE in the river valleys. Remains of ceramics have been found dating from 750 CE with diversification from 800 and 1300 CE Between 1100 and 1350, the region had complex small villages with well-developed trade networks; the lowland central coast, seems never to have adopted agriculture. Because Sonora and much of the northwest does not share many of the cultural traits of that area, it is not considered part of Mesoamerica. Though evidence exists of trade between the peoples of Sonora and Mesoamerica, Guasave in Sinaloa is the most north-westerly point considered Mesoamerican. Three archaeological cultures developed in the low, flat areas of the state near the coast: the Trincheras tradition, the Huatabampo tradition, the Central Coast tradition; the Trincheras tradition is dated to between 750 and 1450 CE and known from sites in the Altar and Concepción valleys, but its range extended from the Gulf of California into northern Sonora. The tradition is named after trenches found in a number of sites, the best known of, the Cerro de Trincheras.
The Huatabampo tradition is centered south of the Trincheras along the coast, with sites along extinct lagoons and river valleys. This tradition has a distinctive ceramic complex. Huatabampo culture shows similarities with the Chametla to the Hohokam to the north; this ended around 1000 CE. Unlike the other two traditions, the Central Coast remained a hunter-gatherer culture, as the area lacks the resources for agriculture; the higher elevations of the state were dominated by the Casas Grandes and Río Sonora tradition. The Río Sonora culture is located in central Sonora from the border area to modern Sinaloa. A beginning date for this culture has not been determined but it disappeared by the early 14th century; the Casas Grandes tradition in Sonora was an extension of the Río Sonora tradition based in the modern state of Chihuahua, which exterted its influence down to parts of the Sonoran coast. Climatic changes in the middle of the 15th century resulted in the increased desertification of northwest Mexico in general.
This is the probable cause for the drastic decrease in the number and size of settlements starting around this time. The peoples that remained in the area reverted to a less complex social organiz
Colorado Plateau
The Colorado Plateau known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of 336, 700 km2 within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico and eastern Utah, northern Arizona. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by its tributaries; the Colorado Plateau is made up of high desert, with scattered areas of forests. In the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau lies the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Much of the Plateau's landscape is related, in both appearance and geologic history, to the Grand Canyon; the nickname "Red Rock Country" suggests the brightly colored rock left bare to the view by dryness and erosion. Domes, fins, river narrows, natural bridges, slot canyons are only some of the additional features typical of the Plateau.
The Colorado Plateau has the greatest concentration of U. S. National Park Service units in the country outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Among its nine National Parks are Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, Mesa Verde, Petrified Forest. Among its 18 National Monuments are Bears Ears, Rainbow Bridge, Hovenweep, Sunset Crater Volcano, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Natural Bridges, Canyons of the Ancients, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and the Colorado National Monument; this province is bounded by the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, by the Uinta Mountains and Wasatch Mountains branches of the Rockies in northern and central Utah. It is bounded by the Rio Grande Rift, Mogollon Rim and the Basin and Range Province. Isolated ranges of the Southern Rocky Mountains such as the San Juan Mountains in Colorado and the La Sal Mountains in Utah intermix into the central and southern parts of the Colorado Plateau, it is composed of six sections: Uinta Basin Section High Plateaus Section Grand Canyon Section Canyon Lands Section Navajo Section Datil SectionAs the name implies, the High Plateaus Section is, on average, the highest section.
North-south trending normal faults that include the Hurricane, Grand Wash, Paunsaugunt separate the section's component plateaus. This fault pattern is caused by the tensional forces pulling apart the adjacent Basin and Range province to the west, making this section transitional. Occupying the southeast corner of the Colorado Plateau is the Datil Section. Thick sequences of mid-Tertiary to late-Cenozoic-aged lava covers this section. Development of the province has in large part been influenced by structural features in its oldest rocks. Part of the Wasatch Line and its various faults form the western edge of the province. Faults that run parallel to the Wasatch Fault that lies along the Wasatch Range form the boundaries between the plateaus in the High Plateaus Section; the Uinta Basin, Uncompahgre Uplift, the Paradox Basin were created by movement along structural weaknesses in the region's oldest rock. In Utah, the province includes several higher fault-separated plateaus: Awapa Plateau Aquarius Plateau Kaiparowits Plateau Markagunt Plateau Paunsaugunt Plateau Sevier Plateau Fishlake Plateau Pavant Plateau Gunnison Plateau and the Tavaputs Plateau.
Some sources include the Tushar Mountain Plateau as part of the Colorado Plateau, but others do not. The flat-lying sedimentary rock units that make up these plateaus are found in component plateaus that are between 4,900 to 11,000 feet above sea level. A supersequence of these rocks is exposed in the various cliffs and canyons that make up the Grand Staircase. Younger east-west trending escarpments of the Grand Staircase extend north of the Grand Canyon and are named for their color: Chocolate Cliffs, Vermillion Cliffs, White Cliffs, Gray Cliffs, the Pink Cliffs. Within these rocks are abundant mineral resources that include uranium, coal and natural gas. Study of the area's unusually clear geologic history has advanced that science. A rain shadow from the Sierra Nevada far to the west and the many ranges of the Basin and Range means that the Colorado Plateau receives six to sixteen inches of annual precipitation. Higher areas receive more precipitation and are covered in forests of pine and spruce.
Though it can be said that the Plateau centers on the Four Corners, Black Mesa in northern Arizona is much closer to the east-west, north-south midpoint of the Plateau Province. Lying southeast of Glen Canyon and southwest of Monument Valley at the north end of the Hopi Reservation, this remote coal-laden highland has about half of the Colorado Plateau's acreage north of it, half south of it, half west of it, half east of it; the Ancestral Puebloan People lived in the region from 2000 to 700 years ago. A party from Santa Fe led by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, unsuccessfully seeking an overland route to California, made a five-month out-and-back trip through much of the Plateau in 1776-1777. Despite having lost one arm in the American Civil War, U. S. Army Major and geologist John Wesley Powell explored the area in 1869 and 1872. Using wooden oak boats and small groups of men the Powell Geographic Expedition charted this unknown region of the United States for the federal government. Construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s and the Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s changed the character of the Colorado River.
Reduced sediment load changed its color from reddish brown t
Glenwood Canyon
Glenwood Canyon is a rugged scenic 12.5 mi canyon on the Colorado River in western Colorado in the United States. Its walls climb as high as 1,300 feet above the Colorado River, it is the largest such canyon on the Upper Colorado. The canyon, which has provided the routes of railroads and highways through western Colorado furnishes the routes of Interstate 70 and the Central Corridor between Denver and Grand Junction; the canyon stretches from near Dotsero, where the Colorado receives the Eagle River, downstream in a west-southwest direction to just east of Glenwood Springs, on the mouth of the Roaring Fork. Most of the canyon is with the upper portion near Dotsero lying in Eagle County. In 1906, the canyon provided the route of the Taylor State Road, a gravel road, the first route for automobiles through the Colorado Rockies; the canyon provided the route for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in the late 19th century. Through acquisitions, the line is part of the Union Pacific system.
As Glenwood Canyon was one of the iconic scenic views along the California Zephyr passenger train, a monument to the dome car design was installed in the canyon. In the 1990s, the monument was relocated to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden to make way for the construction on Interstate 70; the canyon is considered one of the most scenic natural features on the Interstate Highway System of the United States. Foot access to the canyon is available at four rest areas along Interstate 70 in the canyon; the Hanging Lake Rest Area provides access to the canyon along a stretch where I-70 is concealed in the Hanging Lake Tunnel. The freeway is prone to rockslides in the canyon, such as the one that closed it in February 2016; the canyon was formed recently in Pleistocene time by the rapid cutting of the Colorado down through layers of sedimentary rock. The upper layers of the canyon are sandstone from Mississippian. Sections of the lower canyon walls are made of Cambrian rock; the Mississippian layer, prominent throughout much of the upper rim sections of the canyon is part of the Leadville Formation.
Gore Canyon Roadside Geology of Colorado by Halka Chronic. Glenwood Canyon I70 motorway project 12 years later
Imperial National Wildlife Refuge
The Imperial National Wildlife Refuge protects wildlife habitat along 30 miles of the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California, including the last un-channeled section before the river enters Mexico. The Imperial Refuge Wilderness, a federally designated, 15,056-acre, wilderness area is protected within the refuge, it surrounds the Picacho State Recreation Area. This section of the Colorado River is popular for boating, fishing, exploring old mining camps and wildlife watching; the river and its associated backwater lakes and wetlands are a green oasis, contrasting with the surrounding desert mountains. It is a refuge and breeding area for local desert wildlife. Though it is located in the Sonoran Desert, the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge is home to a wetland environment. Wetland wildlife is most abundant in winter, when birds such as cinnamon teal and northern pintail use the refuge. During the summer months, permanent residents such as great egrets are abundant; the Colorado River plays a vital role in the lives of desert fauna.
It is the only water source for many miles. Small animals such as the black-tailed jackrabbit and western whiptail lizard are plentiful. Desert bighorn sheep and mule deer call the refuge home. A full list of birds found on the refuge can be found on the refuge website. At one time, the banks of the Colorado River were lined with cottonwood and willow forests, sustained by the river’s natural periodic flooding. Animals depended on this green forest oasis for breeding, resting and shade. Woodcutting during the steamboat era, clearing for agriculture, wild fire, exotic plants like salt cedar, use of dams for flood prevention have devastated cottonwood and willow stands along the lower Colorado River; some animals that depended the riparian forests, such as the southwestern willow flycatcher, have become endangered. The Painted Desert Trail is a 1.3-mile self-guided trail for an opportunity to see desert plants and wildlife. The trail takes you through a rainbow of colors left by 30,000-year-old volcanic activity and features a panoramic view of the Colorado River valley.
Colorado River Colorado Desert Yuma Desert Lower Colorado River Valley Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge "Imperial National Wildlife Refuge". United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Lake Havasu
Lake Havasu is a large reservoir formed by Parker Dam on the Colorado River, on the border between California and Arizona. Lake Havasu City sits on the lake's eastern shore; the reservoir has an available capacity of 619,400 acre feet. The concrete arch dam was built by the United States Bureau of Reclamation between 1934 and 1938; the lake's primary purpose is to store water for pumping into two aqueducts. Prior to the dam construction, the area was home to the Mohave Indians; the lake was named after the Mojave word for blue. In the early 19th century, it was frequented by beaver trappers. Spaniards began to mine the areas along the river. Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant pumps water into the Central Arizona Project Aqueduct. Whitsett Pumping Plant is located on the lake, lifts the water 291 feet for the Colorado River Aqueduct. Gene Pumping Plant is just south of Parker Dam, gives the water an additional boost of 303 feet; the Colorado River Aqueduct has three more pumping plants: Iron Mountain, Eagle Mountain, Julian Hinds.
The total lift is 1,617 feet. The shorelines are in the ecotone of the higher Mojave Desert to the lower Sonoran Desert and its Californian Colorado Desert ecoregions; the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge is located at upriver. Lake Havasu State Park is along the eastern shore in Arizona; the Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge extends southeastward up the riparian zone of the Bill Williams River canyon from the southeastern end of the reservoir and dam. Lake Havasu is well known for its recreational fishing and boating, which bring in around 750,000 visitors a year. Fishing tournaments are held on the lake, where bass are the main catch. Fish list: Largemouth bass, Smallmouth bass, Striped bass, Catfish, Crappie, Razorback sucker, Redear Sunfish, Sunfish. White sturgeon were stocked in Lake Havasu in 1967 and 1968 from stock obtained from San Pablo Bay, California. While some dead sturgeon were found downstream from Havasu, living fish have not been recorded, but may still exist along the southern end of Lake Havasu near Parker Dam.
Sturgeon have been known to grow upwards of 20 feet and can live in excess of 100 years and many in and around Lake Havasu continue in their efforts to catch a glimpse of the majestic animal. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has developed a safe eating advisory for Lake Havasu based on levels of mercury found in fish caught from this water body. Robert Paxton McCulloch was an American entrepreneur most notable for purchasing the old London Bridge and moving it to one of the cities he founded in Arizona. Lake Havasu sparked the imagination of McCulloch, who purchased 3,500 acres of lakeside property along Pittsburgh Point, the peninsula that would be transformed into "the island". Havasu Springs, Lake Havasu List of dams and reservoirs in California List of lakes in California List of largest reservoirs of California Site Six, Lake Havasu Windsor Beach, Lake Havasu Lake Havasu Main Marina United States Bureau of Reclamation Lake Havasu News "Metropolitan Water Department of Southern California".
Archived from the original on 2006-07-24. Arizona Boating Locations Facilities Map USGS - Real-time water data for Lake Havasu near Parker Dam Daily data of level and flow from US Department of the Interior | Bureau of Reclamation | Lower Colorado Region Lake Havasu Colorado River Interactive Map
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States of America. It is one of the Mountain States and shares the Four Corners region with Utah and Arizona. With a population around two million, New Mexico is the 36th state by population. With a total area of 121,592 sq mi, it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic locations and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder, alpine climate, while western and southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer, arid climate; the economy of New Mexico is dependent on oil drilling, mineral extraction, dryland farming, cattle ranching, lumber milling, retail trade. As of 2016–2017, its total gross domestic product was $95 billion with a GDP per capita of $45,465. New Mexico's status as a tax haven yields low to moderate personal income taxes on residents and military personnel, gives tax credits and exemptions to favorable industries; because of this, its film industry contributed $1.23 billion to its overall economy.
Due to its large area and economic climate, New Mexico has a large U. S. military presence marked notably with the White Sands Missile Range. Various U. S. national security agencies base their research and testing arms in New Mexico such as the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. During the 1940s, Project Y of the Manhattan Project developed and built the country's first atomic bomb and nuclear test, Trinity. Inhabited by Native Americans for many thousands of years before European exploration, it was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 as part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1563, it was named Nuevo México after the Aztec Valley of Mexico by Spanish settlers, more than 250 years before the establishment and naming of the present-day country of Mexico. After Mexican independence in 1824, New Mexico became a Mexican territory with considerable autonomy; this autonomy was threatened, however, by the centralizing tendencies of the Mexican government from the 1830s onward, with rising tensions leading to the Revolt of 1837.
At the same time, the region became more economically dependent on the United States. At the conclusion of the Mexican–American War in 1848, the United States annexed New Mexico as the U. S. New Mexico Territory, it was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. Its history has given New Mexico the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latino Americans, the second-highest percentage of Native Americans as a population proportion. New Mexico is home to part of the Navajo Nation, 19 federally recognized Pueblo communities of Puebloan peoples, three different federally recognized Apache tribes. In prehistoric times, the area was home to Ancestral Puebloans and the modern extant Comanche and Utes inhabited the state; the largest Hispanic and Latino groups represented include the Hispanos of New Mexico and Mexican Americans. The flag of New Mexico features the state's Spanish origins with the same scarlet and gold coloration as Spain's Cross of Burgundy, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Puebloan tribe.
These indigenous, Mexican and American frontier roots are reflected in the eponymous New Mexican cuisine and the New Mexico music genre. New Mexico received its name long before the present-day nation of Mexico won independence from Spain and adopted that name in 1821. Though the name “Mexico” itself derives from Nahuatl, in that language it referred to the heartland of the Empire of the Mexicas in the Valley of Mexico far from the area of New Mexico, Spanish explorers used the term “Mexico” to name the region of New Mexico in 1563. In 1581, the Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande "San Felipe del Nuevo México"; the Spaniards had hoped to find wealthy indigenous Mexica cultures there similar to those of the Aztec Empire of the Valley of Mexico. The indigenous cultures of New Mexico, proved to be unrelated to the Mexicas, they were not wealthy, but the name persisted. Before statehood, the name "New Mexico" was applied to various configurations of the U.
S. territory, to a Mexican state, to a province of New Spain, all in the same general area, but of varying extensions. With a total area of 121,699 square miles, the state is the fifth-largest state of the US, larger than British Isles. New Mexico's eastern border lies along 103°W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, 2.2 miles west of 103°W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that; the western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03'W longitude. The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel; the 37°N parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah come together at the Four Corners in New Mexico's northwestern corner. New Mexico has no natural water sources
Lower Colorado River Valley
The Lower Colorado River Valley is the river region of the lower Colorado River of the southwestern United States in North America that rises in the Rocky Mountains and has its outlet at the Colorado River Delta in the northern Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico, between the states of Baja California and Sonora. This north–south stretch of the Colorado River forms the border between the U. S. states of California/Arizona and Nevada/Arizona, between the Mexican states of Baja California/Sonora. It is defined as the region from below Hoover Dam and Lake Mead to its outlet at the northern Gulf of California, it is home to recreation activities from the river, the lakes created by dams and the home of various cities and towns along the river, or associated with the valley region. Five Indian reservations are located in the LCRV: the Chemehuevi, Fort Mojave and Colorado River Indian Reservations; some of the highest absolute air temperatures are recorded in the LCRV. Worldwide, only some deserts found in Africa and in the Middle East stand up with an hotter summer climate on average.
The LCRV is defined by three deserts. The Mojave Desert is in southeast California, southern Nevada, northwest Arizona. To the south is the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the Colorado River; however an ecozone delineation occurs in the transition from Arizona to southeast California. The Lower Colorado River Valley is located in the north, northwestern Sonoran Desert; the LCRV extends about 350 miles from Hoover Dam to the Colorado River Delta. The Sonoran Desert itself is more than twice as extensive north-to-south, about 450 miles in width. Two species, Desert Ironwood- and the Lesser Long-nosed Bat, have geographic ranges identical to the Sonoran Desert, are indicator species of the Sonoran Desert region; the spring flowering of Ironwood, the bat species migration arrivals become indicators of annual or multi-year climate trends for regions of the Sonoran Desert. The Lower Colorado River Valley subregion of the Sonoran Desert bioregion has multiple threats; some major threats include urbanization, clearing of land for agriculture, human occupancy – as a result of imported external resources, camping and camptrailers on BLM land.
Other threats include harvesting for fuelwood, etc. of desert ironwood, Olneya tesota, destruction of land by offroad vehicles in sand dunes, harvesting and manipulation of groundwater. Laughlin, Nevada in Clark County, Nevada Needles, California in San Bernardino County Bullhead City, Arizona Mojave Valley, Arizona Lake Havasu City, Arizona Vidal, California Parker, Arizona Blythe, California Quartzite, Arizona Winterhaven, California in Imperial County, California Yuma, Arizona in Yuma County, Arizona San Luis, Arizona San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora Rio Grande, the eastern river valley drainage of the Southwest USA Rio Grande Valley Category:Rio Grande Category:Fauna of the U. S. Rio Grande Valleys List of dams of the LCRV List of LCRV communities Little. Atlas of United States Trees, Volume 3, Minor Western Hardwoods, Elbert L, 1976, US Government Printing Office. Library of Congress No. 79-653298. Map 103, Olneya tesota. Journey of the Nectar Bats Map, Lesser Long-nosed Bat range. US Bureau of Reclamation, "Dams Along the Lower Colorado River"
