Rio Grande
The Rio Grande is one of the principal rivers in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. The Rio Grande begins in south-central Colorado in the United States and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, it forms part of the Mexico–United States border. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, its total length was 1,896 miles in the late 1980s, though course shifts result in length changes. Depending on how it is measured, the Rio Grande is either the fourth- or fifth-longest river system in North America; the river serves as part of the natural border between the U. S. state of Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas. A short stretch of the river serves as part of the boundary between the U. S. states of New Mexico. Since the mid–20th century, heavy water consumption by farms and cities along with many large diversion dams on the river has left only 20% of its natural discharge to flow to the Gulf. Near the river's mouth, the irrigated lower Rio Grande Valley is an important agricultural region.
The Rio Grande's watershed covers 182,200 square miles. Many endorheic basins are situated within, or adjacent to, the Rio Grande's basin, these are sometimes included in the river basin's total area, increasing its size to about 336,000 square miles; the Rio Grande rises in the western part of the Rio Grande National Forest in the U. S. state of Colorado. The river is formed by the joining of several streams at the base of Canby Mountain in the San Juan Mountains, just east of the Continental Divide. From there, it flows through the San Luis Valley south into the Middle Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico, passing through the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos toward Española, picking up additional water from the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project from the Rio Chama, it continues on a southerly route through the desert cities of Albuquerque and Las Cruces to El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In the Albuquerque area, the river flows past a number of historic Pueblo villages, including Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo.
Below El Paso, it serves as part of the border between the United States and Mexico. The official river border measurement ranges from 889 miles to 1,248 miles, depending on how the river is measured. A major tributary, the Rio Conchos, enters at Ojinaga, below El Paso, supplies most of the water in the border segment. Other tributaries include the Pecos and the smaller Devils, which join the Rio Grande on the site of Amistad Dam. Despite its name and length, the Rio Grande is not navigable by ocean-going ships, nor do smaller passenger boats or cargo barges use it as a route, it is navigable at all, except by small boats in a few places. The Rio Grande rises in high flows for much of its length at high elevation. In New Mexico, the river flows through the Rio Grande rift from one sediment-filled basin to another, cutting canyons between the basins and supporting a fragile bosque ecosystem on its flood plain. From El Paso eastward, the river flows through desert. Although irrigated agriculture exists throughout most of its stretch, it is extensive in the subtropical Lower Rio Grande Valley.
The river ends in a sandy delta at the Gulf of Mexico. During portions of 2001 and 2002, the mouth of the Rio Grande was blocked by a sandbar. In the fall of 2003, the sandbar was cleared by high river flows around 7,063 cubic feet per second. Navigation was active during much of the 19th century, with over 200 different steamboats operating between the river's mouth close to Brownsville and Rio Grande City, Texas. Many steamboats from the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers were requisitioned by the U. S. government and moved to the Rio Grande during the Mexican–American War in 1846. They provided transport for the U. S. Army, under General Zachary Taylor, to invade Monterrey, Nuevo León, via Camargo Municipality, Tamaulipas. Army engineers recommended that with small improvements, the river could be made navigable as far north as El Paso; those recommendations were never acted upon. The Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge, a large swing bridge, dates back to 1910 and is still in use today by automobiles connecting Brownsville with Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The swing mechanism has not been used since the early 1900s, when the last of the big steamboats disappeared. At one point, the bridge had rail traffic. Railroad trains no longer use this bridge. A new rail bridge connecting the U. S. and Mexico was built about 15 miles west of the Matamoros International Bridge. It was inaugurated in August 2015, it moved all rail operations out of downtown Matamoros. The West Rail International Crossing is the first new international rail crossing between the U. S. and Mexico in 105 years. The Brownsville & Matamoros International Bridge is now operated by the Brownsville and Matamoros Bridge Company, a joint venture between the Mexican government and the Union Pacific Railroad. At the mouth of the Rio Grande, on the Mexican side, was the large commercial port of Bagdad, Tamaulipas. During the American Civil War, this was the only legitimate port of the Confederacy. European warships anchored offshore to maintain the port's neutrality, managed to do so throughout that conflict, despite occasional stare-downs with blockading ships from the US Navy.
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Flash flood
A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, tropical storm, or meltwater from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields. Flash floods may occur after the collapse of a natural ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam, as occurred before the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by having a timescale of fewer than six hours between rainfall and the onset of flooding; the water, temporarily available is used by plants with rapid germination and short growth cycles and by specially adapted animal life. Flash floods can occur under several types of conditions. Flash flooding occurs when it rains on saturated soil or dry soil that has poor absorption ability; the runoff collects in gullies and streams and, as they join to form larger volumes forms a fast flowing front of water and debris. Flash floods most occur in dry areas that have received precipitation, but they may be seen anywhere downstream from the source of the precipitation many miles from the source.
In areas on or near volcanoes, flash floods have occurred after eruptions, when glaciers have been melted by the intense heat. Flash floods are known to occur in the highest mountain ranges of the United States and are common in the arid plains of the Southwestern United States. Flash flooding can be caused by extensive rainfall released by hurricanes and other tropical storms, as well as the sudden thawing effect of ice dams. Human activities can cause flash floods to occur; when dams fail, a large quantity of water can destroy everything in its path. The United States National Weather Service gives the advice "Turn Around, Don't Drown" for flash floods. Many people tend to underestimate the dangers of flash floods. What makes flash floods most dangerous is their sudden nature and fast-moving water. A vehicle provides little to no protection against being swept away. More than half of the fatalities attributed to flash floods are people swept away in vehicles when trying to cross flooded intersections.
As little as 2 feet of water is enough to carry away most SUV-sized vehicles. The U. S. National Weather Service reported in 2005 that, using a national 30-year average, more people die yearly in floods, 127 on average, than by lightning, tornadoes, or hurricanes. In deserts, flash floods can be deadly for several reasons. First, storms in arid regions are infrequent, but they can deliver an enormous amount of water in a short time. Second, these rains fall on poorly absorbent and clay-like soil, which increases the amount of runoff that rivers and other water channels have to handle; these regions tend not to have the infrastructure that wetter regions have to divert water from structures and roads, such as storm drains and retention basins, either because of sparse population or poverty, or because residents believe the risk of flash floods is not high enough to justify the expense. In fact, in some areas, desert roads cross a dry river and creek beds without bridges. From the driver's perspective, there may be clear weather, when a river unexpectedly forms ahead of or around the vehicle in a matter of seconds.
The lack of regular rain to clear water channels may cause flash floods in deserts to be headed by large amounts of debris, such as rocks and logs. Deep slot canyons can be dangerous to hikers as they may be flooded by a storm that occurs on a mesa miles away; the flood sweeps through the canyon. 1889: Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania, U. S.: more than 2,200 people dead 1903: Heppner Flood of 1903. S.: 115 dead 1938: Kopuawhara flash flood of 1938, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand: 21 dead 1952: Lynmouth disaster, England: 34 dead 1963: Petra Flash Flood, Jordan: 23 dead 1963: Vajont dam disaster, Italy: 1910 dead 1967: Flash flood in Lisbon, Portugal: 464 dead 1969: Nelson County, Virginia, US: 123 dead 1971: Kuala Lumpur floods, Malaysia: 32 dead 1972: The Black Hills flood, South Dakota, U. S.: 238 dead 1976: The Big Thompson River flood, Colorado, U. S.: 143 dead 1997: Antelope Canyon, a popular tourist attraction north of Page, Arizona:11 dead 2003: Bukit Lawang in Indonesia 239 people were killed 2006: Jember Regency in Indonesia 59 people dead 2007: Sudan floods, 64 dead.
2009: September 26 in Metro Manila Marikina city, Taguig City, Pasig City. It submerged several municipalities under feet of deep water for several weeks. 2009: October 1, Messina, 37 dead. See 2009 Messina floods and mudslides. 2010: Madeira archipelago, 42 dead 2011: Lockyer Valley, Australia. 21 dead in the town of Grantham. 2011: Philippines, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City, 17 December 2011. At least 1200 dead 2012: May 5, Nearly three weeks of damming left 72 dead in the Seti Gorge in Upper Seti Basin. Rock and avalanche fall from the western part of Annapurna IV mountain in Nepal. 2012: Krasnodarskiy Kray, Russia. 172 dead following a flash flood that struck at 2 A. M. local time on 7 July. Main cities that were hit are Gelendzhik. 2013: Uttarakhand, India: 822 dead 2013: Novemb
Gillespie County, Texas
Gillespie County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U. S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 24,837; the county seat is Fredericksburg. It is located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Gillespie is named for a soldier in the Mexican -- American War. On December 15, 1847, a petition was submitted to create Gillespie County. In 1848, the legislature formed Gillespie County from Travis Counties. While the signers were overwhelmingly German immigrants, names on the petition were Castillo, Munos, a handful of non-German Anglo names. Gillespie County comprises TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Early native inhabitants were the Tonkawa, Comanche and Lipan Apache peoples. In 1842, the Adelsverein organized in Germany to promote emigration to Texas; the Fisher–Miller Land Grant set aside three million acres to settle 600 families and single men of German, Swiss, Danish and Norwegian ancestry in Texas. Henry Francis Fisher sold his interest in the land grant to the Adelsverein in 1844.
Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels secured the title to 1,265 acres of the Veramendi grant the next year, including the Comal Springs and River, for the Adelsverein. Thousands of German immigrants were stranded at port of Indianola, on Matagorda Bay. With no food or shelters, living in holes dug into the ground, an estimated 50% die from disease or starvation; the living began to walk to their destinations hundreds of miles away. About 200 German colonists, who walked from Indianola, founded the town of New Braunfels at the crossing of the San Antonio-Nacodoches Road on the Guadalupe River. John O. Meusebach arrived in Galveston; the first wagon train of 120 settlers arrived from New Braunfels. Surveyor Hermann Wilke laid out the town. Meusebach named it Fredericksburg, in honor of Prince Frederick of Prussia. In 1847, the Meusebach–Comanche Treaty was made. About 150 settlers petitioned the Texas Legislature to establish a new county, suggested names "Pierdenales" or "Germania"; the Vereins Kirche became the first public building in Fredericksburg.
It served as a nondenominational church, town hall, fort. Locals referred to it as “the Coffee Mill Church” for its shape. Wilhelm Victor Keidel was the county's first doctor. Mormon leader Lyman Wight founded the community of Zodiac; the Legislature formed Gillespie County from Bexar and Travis Counties in 1848. They named it after Tennessee transplant Capt. Robert Addison Gillespie, a hero of the 1846 Battle of Monterrey in the Mexican–American War. Fredericksburg became the county seat. Fort Martin Scott was established in 1848 at a Pedernales tributary. An angry mob of soldiers burned down the store-courthouse in 1850; the melee started when County Clerk John M. Hunter, who owned the store, refused to sell whiskey to a soldier. Words were exchanged, Hunter stabbed the soldier. Soldiers prevented townspeople from saving the county records. John O. Meusebach was elected to the Texas Senate in 1851 to represent Bexar and Medina Counties, in 1854, received a special appointment as commissioner from Governor Elisha M. Pease to issue land certificates to those immigrants of 1845 and 1846, promised them by the Adelsverein.
The Texas State Convention of Germans met in San Antonio and adopted a political and religious platform, including: Equal pay for equal work, direct election of the President of the United States, abolition of capital punishment, "Slavery is an evil, the abolition of, a requirement of democratic principles", free schools – including universities – supported by the state, without religious influence, total separation of church and state. In 1852, Bremen seaman Charles Henry Nimitz, grandfather of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, built the Nimitz Hotel in Frederickburg. In 1870, he added a steamboat-shaped façade. Surveyor Jacob Kuechler was commissioned as a captain by Sam Houston to enroll state militia troops in Gillespie County. Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, joined the Confederate States of America, Houston was dismissed from office in March by the Confederacy. Gillespie County voted 400 -17 against secession from the Union. Unionists from Kerr and Kendall Counties participated in the formation of the Union League, a secret organization to support President Abraham Lincoln’s policies.
Kuechler signed up only German Unionists in his frontier company, was dismissed by Governor Francis R. Lubbock. In 1862, 54 Gillespie County men joined the Confederate Army. 300 enlisted with the CSA to avoid conscription. The Union League formed companies to protect the frontier against Indians and their families against local Confederate forces. Conscientious objectors to the military draft were among Tejanos and Germans. Confederate authorities imposed martial law on Central Texas; the Nueces massacre occurred in Kinney County. Jacob Kuechler served as a guide for 61 conscientious objectors attempting to flee to Mexico. Scottish-born Confederate irregular James Duff and his Duff’s Partisan Rangers pursued and overtook them at the Nueces River. Jacob Kuechler survived the battle; the cruelty shocked the people of Gillespie County. About 2,000 took to the hills to escape Duff's reign of terror; the Treue der Union Monument in Comfort was dedicated in 1866 to the Texans slain at the Nueces massacre.
It is the only monument to the Union other than the National Cemeteries on Confederate territory. It is one of only six such sites allowed to fly the United States flag at half-mast
Brazos River
The Brazos River, called the Río de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers, is the 11th-longest river in the United States at 1,280 miles from its headwater source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a 45,000-square-mile drainage basin. Being one of Texas' largest rivers, it is sometimes used to mark the boundary between East Texas and West Texas; the river is associated with Texas history the Austin settlement and Texas Revolution eras. Today major Texas institutions like Texas A&M University and Baylor University are located close to the river, as are parts of metropolitan Houston; the Brazos proper begins at the confluence of the Salt Fork and Double Mountain Fork, two tributaries of the Upper Brazos that rise on the high plains of the Llano Estacado, flowing 840 miles southeast through the center of Texas. Another major tributary of the Upper Brazos is the Clear Fork Brazos River, which passes by Abilene and joins the main river near Graham.
Important tributaries of the Lower Brazos include the Paluxy River, the Bosque River, the Little River, Yegua Creek, the Nolan River, the Leon River, the San Gabriel River, the Lampasas River, the Navasota River. Running east towards Dallas-Fort Worth, the Brazos turns south, passing through Waco and the Baylor University campus, further south to near Calvert, Texas past Bryan and College Station through Richmond, Texas in Fort Bend County, empties into the Gulf of Mexico in the marshes just south of Freeport; the main stem of the Brazos is dammed in three places, all north of Waco, forming Possum Kingdom Lake, Lake Granbury, Lake Whitney. Of these three, Granbury was the last to be completed, in 1969; when its construction was proposed in the mid-1950s, John Graves wrote the book Goodbye to a River. The Whitney Dam, located on the upper Brazos, provides hydroelectric power, flood control, irrigation to enable efficient cotton growth in the river valley. A small municipal dam is near the downstream city limit of Waco at the end of the Baylor campus.
This impoundment of the Brazos through Waco is locally called Lake Brazos. A total of nineteen major reservoirs are located along the Brazos. In 1822, the lower river valley of the Brazos River became one of the major Anglo-American settlement sites in Texas; this was one of the first English-speaking colonies along the Brazos and was founded by Stephen F. Austin at San Felipe de Austin. In 1836, Texas declared independence from Mexico at Washington-on-the-Brazos, a settlement in now Washington County, known as "the birthplace of Texas". Brazos River was the scene of a battle between the Texas Navy and Mexican Navy during the Texas Revolution. Texas Navy ship, it is unclear when it was first named by European explorers, since it was confused with the Colorado River not far to the south, but it was seen by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Spanish accounts call it Los Brazos de Dios, for which name there were several different explanations, all involving it being the first water to be found by thirsty parties.
In 1842, Indian commissioner of Texas, Ethan Stroud established a trading post on this river. The river was important for navigation before and after the American Civil War, steam boats sailed as far up the river as Washington-on-the-Brazos. While attempts to improve commercial navigation on the river continued, railroads proved more reliable; the Brazos River flooded seriously, on a regular basis before a piecemeal levee system was replaced, notably in 1913 when a massive flood affected the course of the river. The river is important today as a source of water for power and recreation; the water is administered by the Brazos River Authority. The 2000 book and Sternwheelers: Steam Navigation on the Brazos by Pamela A. Puryear and Nath Winfield, Jr. with introduction by J. Milton Nance, examines the early vessels that attempted to navigate the Brazos. On June 2, 2016, the rising of the river required evacuations for portions of Brazoria County; the Brazos River watershed covers a total area of 119,174 square kilometers.
Within the watershed lie 42 lakes and rivers which have a combined storage capacity of 2.5 million acre-feet. The Brazos watershed has an estimated ground water availability of 119,275 acre-feet per year. 31% of the land use within the watershed is cropland. 61% is grassland shrubland and forest while urban use only makes up 4.6%. The population density within the watershed is 19.5 people per square kilometer. The main water quality issues within the Brazos Watershed are high nutrient loads, high bacterial and salinity levels and low dissolved oxygen; these water quality issues can be attributed to livestock and chemical run off. Sources of run off are croplands and industrial sites among others. Fracking is cause for concern regarding water quality within the Brazos Watershed; the Barnett Shale lies within the watershed, the second largest source of natural gas in the US. Studies have shown that the watershed receiving the most toxic pollution is the lower Brazos river which received 33.4 million pounds of toxic waste in 2012.
Canoeing is a popular recreational activity on the Brazos River with many locations favorable for launching and recovery. The best paddling can be found below Possum Kingdom Lake and Lake Granbury. Sandbar Camping is permitted since the entire streambed of t
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is dark grey, green, white or brown in colour, has a glassy or waxy appearance. A thin layer on the outside of the nodules is different in colour white and rough in texture. From a petrological point of view, "flint" refers to the form of chert which occurs in chalk or marly limestone. "common chert" occurs in limestone. Flint is durable and can be found along streams and beaches, its use to make stone tools dates back millions of years. Due to some properties of flint it breaks into sharp edged pieces making it useful for knife blades and other sharp tools. During the Stone Age access to flint was so important for survival that people would travel or trade to obtain flint. Flint Ridge in eastern Ohio was an important source of flint and Native Americans extracted the flint from hundreds of quarries along the ridge.
This "Ohio Flint" was traded across the eastern United States and has been found as far west as the Rocky Mountains and south around the Gulf of Mexico. The exact mode of formation of flint is not yet clear, but it is thought that it occurs as a result of chemical changes in compressed sedimentary rock formations, during the process of diagenesis. One hypothesis is that a gelatinous material fills cavities in the sediment, such as holes bored by crustaceans or molluscs and that this becomes silicified; this hypothesis explains the complex shapes of flint nodules that are found. The source of dissolved silica in the porous media could be the spicules of silicious sponges. Certain types of flint, such as that from the south coast of England, contain trapped fossilised marine flora. Pieces of coral and vegetation have been found preserved like amber inside the flint. Thin slices of the stone reveal this effect. Puzzling giant flint formations known as paramoudra and flint circles are found around Europe but in Norfolk, England on the beaches at Beeston Bump and West Runton.
Flint sometimes occurs in large flint fields for example, in Europe. The "Ohio flint" is the official gemstone of Ohio state, it is formed from limey debris, deposited at the bottom of inland Paleozoic seas hundreds of millions of years ago that hardened into limestone and became infused with silica. The flint from Flint Ridge is found in many hues like red, pink, blue and gray, with the color variations caused by minute impurities of iron compounds. Flint was used in the manufacture of tools during the Stone Age as it splits into thin, sharp splinters called flakes or blades when struck by another hard object; this process is referred to as knapping. The process of making tools this way is called "flintknapping". In Europe, some of the best toolmaking flint has come from Belgium, the coastal chalks of the English Channel, the Paris Basin, Thy in Jutland, the Sennonian deposits of Rügen, Grimes Graves in England, the Upper Cretaceous chalk formation of Dobruja and the lower Danube, the Cenomanian chalky marl formation of the Moldavian Plateau and the Jurassic deposits of the Kraków area and Krzemionki in Poland, as well as of the Lägern in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland.
Flint mining became more common since the Neolithic. In 1938, a project of the Ohio Historical Society, under the leadership of H. Holmes Ellis began to study the flintknapping "methods and techniques" of Native Americans. Like past studies, this work involved experimenting with actual flintknapping techniques by creation of stone tools through the use of techniques like direct freehand percussion, freehand pressure and pressure using a rest. Other scholars who have conducted similar experiments and studies include William Henry Holmes, Alonzo W. Pond, Sir Francis H. S. Knowles and Don Crabtree; when struck against steel, a flint edge produces. The hard flint edge shaves off a particle of the steel that exposes iron, which reacts with oxygen from the atmosphere and can ignite the proper tinder. Prior to the wide availability of steel, rocks of pyrite would be used along with the flint, in a similar way; these methods are popular in woodcraft and amongst people practising traditional fire-starting skills.
A major use of flint and steel was in the flintlock mechanism, used in flintlock firearms, but used on dedicated fire-starting tools. A piece of flint held in the jaws of a spring-loaded hammer, when released by a trigger, strikes a hinged piece of steel at an angle, creating a shower of sparks and exposing a charge of priming powder; the sparks ignite the priming powder and that flame, in turn, ignites the main charge, propelling the ball, bullet, or shot through the barrel. While the military use of the flintlock declined after the adoption of the percussion cap from the 1840s onward, flintlock rifles and shotguns remain in use amongst recreational shooters. Flint and steel used to strike sparks were superseded by ferrocerium; this man-made material, when scraped with any hard, sharp edge, produces sparks that are much hotter than obtained with natural flint and steel, allowing use of a wider range of tinders. Because it can produce sparks when wet and can start fires
Limestone
Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock, composed of the skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate. A related rock is dolostone, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg2. In fact, in old USGS publications, dolostone was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolostones or magnesium-rich limestones. About 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones; the solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, in which water erodes the limestone over thousands to millions of years. Most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. Limestone has numerous uses: as a building material, an essential component of concrete, as aggregate for the base of roads, as white pigment or filler in products such as toothpaste or paints, as a chemical feedstock for the production of lime, as a soil conditioner, or as a popular decorative addition to rock gardens.
Like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as foraminifera; these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, leave these shells behind when they die. Other carbonate grains composing limestones are ooids, peloids and extraclasts. Limestone contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, varying amounts of clay and sand carried in by rivers; some limestones do not consist of grains, are formed by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i.e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters; this produces speleothems, such as stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance; the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock building upon past generations. Below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone does not form in deeper waters.
Limestones may form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments. Calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits an unusual characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors with weathered surfaces. Limestone may be crystalline, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock; when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams where there are waterfalls and around hot or cold springs. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the water leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite.
Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls. Coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the mountain building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble. Limestone is a parent material of Mollisol soil group. Two major classification schemes, the Folk and the Dunham, are used for identifying the types of carbonate rocks collectively known as limestone. Robert L. Folk developed a classification system that places primary emphasis on the detailed composition of grains and interstitial material in carbonate rocks. Based on composition, there are three main components: allochems and cement; the Folk system uses two-part names. It is helpful to have a petrographic microscope when using the Folk scheme, because it is easier to determine the components present in each sample; the Dunham scheme focuses on depositional textures. Each name is based upon the texture of the grains. Robert J. Dunham published his system for limestone in 1962.
Dunham divides the rocks into four main groups based on relative proportions of coarser clastic particles. Dunham names are for rock families, his efforts deal with the question of whether or not the grains were in mutual contact, therefore self-supporting, or whether the rock is characterized by the presence of frame builders and algal mats. Unlike the Folk scheme, Dunham deals with the original porosity of the rock; the Dunham scheme is more useful for hand samples because it is based on texture, not the grains in the sample. A revised classification was proposed by Wright, it adds some diagenetic patterns and can be summarized as follows: See: Carbonate platform About 10% of all sedimentary rocks are limestones. Limestone is soluble in acid, therefore forms many erosional landforms; these include limestone pavements, pot holes, cenotes and gorges. Such erosion landscapes are known
Lipan Apache people
Lipan Apache are Southern Athabaskan Native Americans whose traditional territory included present-day Texas, New Mexico and the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas prior to the 17th century. Present-day Lipan live throughout the U. S. Southwest, in Texas, New Mexico and the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, as well as with the Mescalero tribe on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico. On March 18, 2009, the State of Texas legislature passed resolutions HR 812 and SR 438 recognizing the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, they are members of the National Congress of American Indians as a state-recognized tribe under court of claims. The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas is headquartered in Texas; the name Lipán is a Spanish adaption of their self-designation as Lépai-Ndé reflecting their migratory story. The Lipan are known as Querechos, Pelones, Nde buffalo hunters, Eastern Apache, Apache de los Llanos, Ipande, Ipandes, Lipanes, Lipanis, Lapane, Lapanas, Lipaw, Apaches Lipan, Apacheria Lipana, Lipanes Llaneros.
The first recorded name is Ypandes. By 1750, the Lipan Apache were driven from the Southern Great Plains by the Comanche and their allies, the so-called Norteños; the Lipan divided into the following groups or bands: Eastern Lipan Tséral tuétahä, Tséral tuétahäⁿ: merged with the Tche shä and Tsél tátli dshä, lived south of the Nueces River in Texas, about 1884 extinct. Tche shä, Tche shäⁿ: lived from San Antonio, south to the Rio Grande. Canneci N'de, Chawnechi Nde': made up of many bands and family groups that joined together after being forced into and escaping slavery. Lived from Louisiana to East Texas along the Red River. Sharing a kinship with the Kune Tsa Ndé. Kó'l kukä'ⁿ, Kó´l Kahäⁿ, Cuelcahen Ndé: lived on the Central Plains of Texas along the upper Colorado River and its tributaries southward to the Pecos River. Tchó'kanä, Tchóⁿkanäⁿ: merged with the Tcha shka-ózhäye, lived west of Fort Griffin, along the upper Colorado River towards the western side of the Rio Grande, about 1884 extinct.
Kóke metcheskó lähä, Kóke metcheskó lähäⁿ: lived south of San Antonio as far as northern Mexico. Tsél tátli dshä, Tsél tátli dshäⁿ: merged with Kóke metcheskó lähä, lived east of the Rio Grande along the lower Guadalupe River and Nueces River in Texas. Ndáwe qóhä, Ndáwe qóhäⁿ, Ndáwe ɣóhäⁿ: lived southeast of Fort Griffin, along the Colorado, San Saba and Llano Rivers towards the upper Nueces River and its tributaries the Frio River and Atascosa River in Texas. Shá i'a Nde, Shá'i'ánde, Nde'Shini, Shä-äⁿ: most northern group of the Lipan, sharing contacts with the Kiowa-Apache, they were forced to relocate 1884, when 300 people were moved to the Washita Agency in Oklahoma) Tsés tsembai: lived between the upper Brazos River and the Colorado River towards the west. Te'l kóndahä, Te'l kóndahäⁿ: lived west of Fort Griffin in Texas, along the upper Colorado River and its tributaries, were renowned and fierce warriors. Western Lipan Tu'tssn Ndé, Tùn Tsa Ndé, Tú sis Ndé, Kúne tsá, Konitsaii Ndé: a Natage band, they lived in the Gulf Coastal Plains towards both sides of the Rio Grande into Coahuila.
Their territory stretched deep into Coahuila, was called Konitsąąįį gokíyaa. Magoosh's band Tu' sis Nde would merge with the Mescalero as the "Tuintsunde". Tsésh ke shéndé, Tséc kecénde: lived former along the upper Brazos River moved down to live near Lavón, about 1884 extinct. Tindi Ndé, Tú'e Ndé, Tüzhä'ⁿ, Täzhä'ⁿ: lived along the upper Rio Grande, in southern New Mexico and in northern Mexico. Tcha shka-ózhäye, Tchaⁿshka ózhäyeⁿ: lived along the eastern shore of the Rio Pecos in Texas, were close allies of the Nadahéndé or Natage. Twid Ndé, Tú’é'diné Ndé: moved north and therefore away from the gulf area they lived between the Rio Grande and the Pecos River, near the juncture of the two. There they became much mixed with the Mescalero and merged as Tuetinini with the Mescalero; the Tú sis Ndé, who tried to remain nearer their old territory on the Gulf but who were driven over into Mexico, are sometimes quite critical of the Twid Ndé because of their apostasy and mixture and classify them as a Mescalero or part-Mescalero group.
Zit'is'ti Nde, Tséghát’ahén Nde, Tas steé be glui Ndé: wearing a red turban-like headdress like the neighboring Mescalero, lived in the deserts of northern Mexico. In addition the following bands were recorded: Bi'uhit Ndé, Buii gl un Ndé: lived in the deserts and high plains of New Mexico and northern Mexico. Ha'didla'Ndé, Goschish Ndé: lived from the lowe
