COLORADO:

Location- mainly within the USA, flowing from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California.

Length- 1,450 miles

Vertical fall- 14,200 ft

Basin area- 244,000 square miles

Main tributaries- Green, Little Colorado, Gila.

The Colorado, which drains the arid south-western quarter of the USA, is the world’s most formidable canyon-cutter. In response to the tilting uplift of the Colorado Plateau, the river has cut more than 1,000 miles of deep canyons, the most spectacular stretch of which is the 220 mile long Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. The Colorado River rises from snowmelt high in the Rocky Mountains in the northern Colorado, on the westward slopes of the continental divide. It flows southwest across the Colorado Plateau into Utah, where the confluence with the Green River in the Canyon lands region brings waters from the northernmost reaches of its drainage basin in Wyoming. Downstream in northern Arizona, the main trunk of the Colorado’s branching canyon system- the Grand Canyon- reaches 18 miles in width and cuts down through layers of sedimentary rock that record 2 billion years of geological history. Below the canyon after exiting the plateau, the course turns southwards, forming the California- Arizona state line.  

Join now!

        Along its lower course the Colorado is a slow, meandering river, laden with fine silt and subject to flooding. The last 80 miles run through Mexico to a shrinking delta. The Colorado River is the most managed river in the world. Large-scale engineering began in the northern part of the drainage basin in the 1920s, with great tunnels cut beneath the Continental Divide to divert some of the river’s water eastwards to the Great Plains. Subsequent attention has focused on the lower course. The 726ft high Hoover Dam created Lake Mead in 1935, and provides both electricity and irrigation water. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay