1.
Adirondack Mountains
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The Adirondack Mountains /ædᵻˈrɒndæk/ form a massif in the northeast of Upstate New York in the United States. Its boundaries correspond to the boundaries of Adirondack Park, the mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles in diameter and about 1 mile high. The current relief owes much to glaciation, the earliest written use of the name, spelled Rontaks, was in 1724 by the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He defined it as tree eaters, in the Mohawk language, Adirondack means porcupine, an animal that may eat bark. The Mohawks had no written language at the time so Europeans have used various phonetic spellings, an English map from 1761 labels it simply Deer Hunting Country and the mountains were named Adirondacks in 1837 by Ebenezer Emmons. People first arrived in the following the settlement of the Americas around 10,000 BC. The Algonquian peoples and the Mohawk nation used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel, european colonisation of the area began with Samuel de Champlain visiting what is now Ticonderoga in 1609, and Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues visited the region in 1642. In 1664 the land came under the control of the English when New Netherland was ceded to The Crown, after the American Revolutionary War, the lands passed to the people of New York State. Needing money to war debts, the new government sold nearly all the original public acreage about 7 million acres for pennies an acre. Lumbermen were welcomed to the interior, with few restraints, resulting in massive deforestation, for the history of the area since industrialization, see The History of Adirondack Park. In 1989, part of the Adirondack region was designated by UNESCO as the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, the rocks of the mountains originated about two billion years ago as 50,000 feet deep sediments at the bottom of a sea near the equator. Because of continental drift these collided with Laurentia in a mountain building episode known as the Grenville orogeny, during this time the sedimentary rock was changed into metamorphic rock. It is these Proterozoic minerals and lithologies that make up the core of the massif, such minerals of interest include, wollastonite, mined near Harrisville magnetite and hematite, formerly mined at the Benson Mines, Lyon Mountain, Mineville, Tawahus, and Witherbee. Graphite, mined near Hague and Ticonderoga, garnet, mined at the Barton Mine, north of Gore Mountain. Anorthosite, visible in road cuts on the New York State Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, marble zinc, The Balmat-Edwards district on the northwest flank of the massif also in St. Lawrence County was a major zinc ore deposit titanium was mined at Tawahus. Around 600 million years ago the area began to be pulled apart, as Laurentia drifted away from Baltica, faults developed, running north to north east which formed valleys and deep lakes. Examples visible today include the grabens Lake George and Schroon Lake, by this time the Grenville mountains had been eroded away and the area was covered by a shallow sea. Several thousand feet of sediment accumulated on the sea bed, trilobites were the principal life-form of the sea bed, and fossil tracks can be seen in the Potsdam sandstone floor of the Paul Smiths Visitor Interpretive Center
2.
Franklin County, New York
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Franklin County is a county in the U. S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 51,599, the county is named in honor of American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Franklin County comprises the Malone, NY Micropolitan Statistical Area, much of Franklin County is within the Adirondack Park. Its Canadian borders are the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, when counties were established in New York in 1683, the present Franklin County was part of Albany County. This was a county, including the northern part of New York State as well as all of the present State of Vermont and, in theory. This county was reduced in size on July 3,1766 by the creation of Cumberland County, on March 12,1772, what was left of Albany County was split into three parts, one remaining under the name Albany County. One of the pieces, Charlotte County, contained the eastern portion. In 1784, the name Charlotte County was changed to Washington County to honor George Washington, in 1788, Clinton County was split off from Washington County. This was a larger area than the present Clinton County. Franklin County is part of Macombs Purchase of 1791, in 1799, Clinton County was reduced in size by the splitting off of Essex County. In 1802, Clinton County was reduced in size by a part of Clinton, in 1808, Franklin County was split off from Clinton County. In the late 1800s, Franklin County was home to three of the largest resort hotels in the Adirondacks, Paul Smiths Hotel, Loon Lake House, the history of Franklin County is preserved at the Franklin Historical and Museum Society in Malone, New York. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 1,697 square miles. It is the fourth-largest county in New York by land area, Franklin County is in the northeastern part of New York State. The northern edge is the border with Canada, Clinton County - east Essex County - southeast Hamilton County - southwest St. The population density was 31 people per square mile, there were 23,936 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 84. 03% White,6. 63% Black or African American,6. 20% Native American,0. 38% Asian,2. 07% from other races,4. 01% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 31. 0% were of French,13. 6% Irish,10. 6% American,9. 8% French Canadian,9. 2% English and 5. 4% German ancestry according to Census 2000
3.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Inflow (hydrology)
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In hydrology, the inflow of a body of water is the source of the water in the body of water. It can also refer to the volume of incoming water in unit time. All bodies of water have multiple inflows, but often, one inflow may predominate, however, in many cases, no single inflow will predominate and there will be multiple primary inflows. For a lake, the inflow may be a river or stream that flows into the lake. Inflow may also be, strictly speaking, not flows, but rather precipitation, inflow can also be used to refer to groundwater recharge. The dictionary definition of inflow at Wiktionary
7.
Saranac River
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Saranac River is an 81-mile-long river in the U. S. state of New York. In its upper reaches is a region of flat water. The river has more than three dozen source lakes and ponds north of Upper Saranac Lake, the highest is Mountain Pond on Long Pond Mountain. In the last third of its length it drops two-thirds of its total drop, and is known for having navigable rapids, the Saranac River empties into Lake Champlain at the City of Plattsburgh in Clinton County, New York. The river flows in a direction from the Adirondack Mountains. Thirty-three miles further northeast, the flows through the Town of Saranac, before winding through Plattsburgh. The river is part of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Jamieson, Paul and Morris, Donald, Adirondack Canoe Waters, North Flow, Lake George, NY, Adirondack Mountain Club,1987
8.
Discharge (hydrology)
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In hydrology, discharge is the volume rate of water flow that is transported through a given cross-sectional area. It includes any suspended solids, dissolved chemicals, or biologic material in addition to the water itself, GH Dury and MJ Bradshaw are two hydrologists who devised the models showing the relationship between discharge and other variables in a river. The units that are used to express discharge include m³/s, ft³/s and/or acre-feet per day. For example, the discharge of the Rhine river in Europe is 2,200 cubic metres per second or 190,000,000 cubic metres per day. A commonly applied methodology for measuring, and estimating, the discharge of a river is based on a form of the continuity equation. In storm hydrology, an important consideration is the streams discharge hydrograph, the stream rises to a peak flow after each precipitation event, then falls in a slow recession. Because the peak flow also corresponds to the water level reached during the event. The amount of precipitation correlates to the volume of water that flows out of the river. The relationship between the discharge in the stream at a given cross-section and the level of the stream is described by a rating curve, average velocities and the cross-sectional area of the stream are measured for a given stream level. The velocity and the give the discharge for that level. After measurements are made for different levels, a rating table or rating curve may be developed. Once rated, the discharge in the stream may be determined by measuring the level, if a continuous level-recording device is located at a rated cross-section, the streams discharge may be continuously determined. Larger flows can transport more sediment and larger particles downstream than smaller flows due to their greater force, larger flows can also erode stream banks and damage public infrastructure
9.
Drainage basin
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A drainage basin or catchment area is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at elevations in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins. Other terms used to describe drainage basins are catchment, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin and water basin. In closed drainage basins the water converges to a point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake. The drainage basin acts as a funnel by collecting all the water within the covered by the basin. Each drainage basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins by a perimeter, drainage basins are similar but not identical to hydrologic units, which are drainage areas delineated so as to nest into a multi-level hierarchical drainage system. Hydrologic units are defined to allow multiple inlets, outlets, or sinks, in a strict sense, all drainage basins are hydrologic units but not all hydrologic units are drainage basins. Drainage basins of the oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the oceans, the following is a list of the major ocean basins, About 48. 7% of the worlds land drains to the Atlantic Ocean. The two major mediterranean seas of the world also flow to the Atlantic, The Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico basin includes most of the U. S. The Mediterranean Sea basin includes much of North Africa, east-central Africa, Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the areas of Israel, Lebanon. Just over 13% of the land in the world drains to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Oceans drainage basin also comprises about 13% of Earths land. It drains the eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, antarctica comprises approximately eight percent of the Earths land. The five largest river basins, from largest to smallest, are the basins of the Amazon, the Río de la Plata, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. The three rivers that drain the most water, from most to least, are the Amazon, Ganga, endorheic drainage basins are inland basins that do not drain to an ocean. Around 18% of all land drains to endorheic lakes or seas or sinks, the largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, which drains into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, and numerous smaller lakes. Some of these, such as the Great Basin, are not single drainage basins but collections of separate, in endorheic bodies of standing water where evaporation is the primary means of water loss, the water is typically more saline than the oceans. An extreme example of this is the Dead Sea, drainage basins have been historically important for determining territorial boundaries, particularly in regions where trade by water has been important
10.
Coastline paradox
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The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the properties of coastlines. The first recorded observation of this phenomenon was by Lewis Fry Richardson, more concretely, the length of the coastline depends on the method used to measure it. Various approximations exist when specific assumptions are made about minimum feature size, the basic concept of length originates from Euclidean distance. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, a straight line represents the shortest distance between two points, this line has only one length, the length of basic curves is more complicated but can also be calculated. Using shorter and shorter lines will produce sums that approach the true length. A precise value for this length can be established using calculus, the following animation illustrates how a smooth curve can be meaningfully assigned a precise length, However, not all curves can be measured in this way. A fractal is by definition a curve whose complexity changes with measurement scale, whereas approximations of a smooth curve get closer and closer to a single value as measurement precision increases, the measured value of fractals may change wildly. However, this relies on the assumption that space can be subdivided indefinitely. The Planck length, many orders of magnitude smaller than an atom, is proposed as the smallest measurable unit possible in the universe, coastlines differ from mathematical fractals because they are formed by numerous small events, which create patterns only statistically. In reality, permanent features of the coastline of order of size 1 cm or less do not exist, because of erosion, in most places the minimum size is much larger than this. Thus the concept of a fractal is not applicable to the coastline. For practical considerations, a choice of minimum feature size is on the order of the units being used to measure. If a coastline is measured in kilometers, then small variations much smaller than one kilometer are easily ignored, to measure the coastline in centimeters, tiny variations the size of centimeters must be considered. Using different measurement methodologies for different units also destroys the usual certainty that units can be converted by a simple multiplication, extreme cases of the coastline paradox include the fjord-heavy coastlines of Norway, Chile and the Pacific Northwest of North America. Coastline problem Fractal dimension Gabriels Horn, a figure with infinite surface area. Post, David G. and Michael Eisen, how Long is the Coastline of Law. Thoughts on the Fractal Nature of Legal Systems, journal of Legal Studies XXIX, January 2000
