World's Largest Gorge - The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River

World's Largest Gorge - The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River
The Grand Canyon (Spanish: Gran Cañón) is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) and attains a depth of over a mile (1.83 km) (6000 feet). Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While the specific geologic processes and timing that formed the Grand Canyon are the subject of debate by geologists, recent evidence suggests the Colorado River established its course through the canyon at least 17 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River continued to erode and form the canyon to the point we see it as today.

Before European immigration, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon ("Ongtupqa" in Hopi language) a holy site and made pilgrimages to it. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.


The Grand Canyon is a massive rift in the Colorado Plateau that exposes uplifted Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata, and is also one of the six distinct physiographic sections of the Colorado Plateau province. It is not the deepest canyon in the world; Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal is far deeper, nor the widest (Capertee Valley in Australia is about 1 km wider and longer than Grand Canyon) — but the Grand Canyon is known for its visually overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape. Geologically it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.

Uplift associated with mountain building events later moved these sediments thousands of feet upward and created the Colorado Plateau. The higher elevation has also resulted in greater precipitation in the Colorado River drainage area, but not enough to change the Grand Canyon area from being semi-arid. The uplift of the Colorado Plateau is uneven, and the north-south trending Kaibab Plateau that Grand Canyon bisects is over a thousand feet higher at the North Rim (about 1,000 ft/300 m) than at the South Rim. Almost all runoff from the North Rim (which also gets more rain and snow) flows toward the Grand Canyon, while much of the runoff on the plateau behind the South Rim flows away from the canyon (following the general tilt). The result is deeper and longer tributary washes and canyons on the north side and shorter and steeper side canyons on the south side.

Temperatures on the North Rim are generally lower than the South Rim because of the greater elevation (averaging 8,000 ft/2,438 m above sea level). Heavy rains are common on both rims during the summer months. Access to the North Rim via the primary route leading to the canyon (State Route 67) is limited during the winter season due to road closures. Views from the North Rim tend to give a better impression of the expanse of the canyon than those from the South Rim.

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World's Most Dangerous Places To Live Cause By Mother Nature

World's Most Dangerous Places To Live Cause By Mother Nature

Nature is the home in which you can find out many exiting and dangerous places. Most dangerous places on the earth include volcano eruption valleys, cold places, mountains, lakes and thick dense forests. All these places make life incredible difficult for human beings. It is important to know about all these places before going there. In recent years, many people relocated from these places to safe areas. Our mother nature has many things which are not known to most people and dangerous places are one among those unknown things. This article gives best information on nine most dangerous places on the earth.

Mt Vesuvius Volcano, Campania, Italy

It is one of the world’s most dangerous and worst volcanoes. Normally a volcano erupts or explodes once in twenty years, but the last eruption of this volcano was in 1944. Mount Vesuvius is located in Campania, Italy. Millions of people are living close to this volcano. By chance, if volcano erupts, then many people will lose their lives. So in recent years, an attempt has been made to relocate some residents to non explosive location. In 79 AD an explosion of this volcano destroyed Pompeii and remains as popular tourist location in south of Napoli.

The Cold Pole, Verkhoyansk, Russia

Verkhoyansk is treated as coldest city in the world. It is also called as the Cold Pole. It best suits its nickname as Cold Pole especially from September to March. In this period, its average sunlight is lesser than 5 hours a day. In December and January, there is no sunlight at all. Temperature in winter ranges from minus 40 to minus 60 Fahrenheit. Nowadays, this city is attracting many “extreme tourists,” because of its cold nature. The population of Verkhoyansk is nearly 2500 residents.

Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Mount Merapi is famously called as mountain of fire. Even at peace time, smoke continuously comes from its entrance at the height of 10,000 feet in the blue sky. It is located on the island of Java, smolders. Its name gets changed to “Fire Mountain,” when it is translated to English language. In the past 500 years, it has exploded around 60 times. Its recent explosion is in the year 2006.When it was exploded in 1994, it released dangerous cloud of warm gas that took 60 people in to d-e-a-t-h. In the year of 1930, this Merapi spread lava more than 8 square miles and succumbed 1000 people in to d-e-a-t-h.

Every time Merapi erupts, death toll increases. This is because many people are living very close to this volcano. The bad news is that approximately 2 lakh villagers live within 4 miles of this volcanic mountain. It is the best example for active volcanoes.

 Haiti

It is the first tropical storm struck on August 16. A week after the first storm, Hurricane Gustav blew Gonaïves city causing great damage. Two storms Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike followed this. With in the time of one month, the Gonaïves is one of the largest cities of Haiti, and receiving end of 4 unforgettable tropical cyclones. At the end of last storm, the Gonaïves city practically cleaned out to sea. Whole city was filled with mud and dirty water and became Mini Island. In some areas of the city, the amount of water is up to 12 feet height. The number of people died in this event was close to 500. The d-e-a-d-l-i-e-s-t hurricane that Gonaïves come across in recent history is in the year 2008. In the year of 2004, the Gonaïves city took great damage from Hurricane Jeanne making 104,000 people homeless. It affected almost 100 percent population. 3000 people d-i-e-d in this incident.

Addition: This year (2010) Haiti earthquake left 100,000 d-e-a-d in 60 seconds - and toll could reach 500,000!!!

Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo/Rwanda

Lake Kivu, popularly called as D-e-a-t-h Lake of Africa is located along the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Its depth is 2700 square miles. At this depth below the earth there is 2.3 trillion of methane gas, along with 60 cubic miles of carbon dioxide under the pressure of both water and earth. In case if this gas explodes it causes great damage to 2 million African people who are residing close to this lake. Approximately 1700 people k-i-l-l-e-d in this incident by exposing to toxic gases. It is found that these activities occur due to the volcanic activities below the lake, which release dangerous hot gases.

The Ephemeral Isles, the Maldives

Maldives consists of 1190 islands and are close to the Indian Ocean. An ephemeral isle is one mini island and its highest is little more than 6 feet. In near future it is likely to be swallowed by the rising sea levels. After tsunami in Indian Ocean in 2004, the United States Geological Survey conducted an assessment and called Maldives is one the earth’s youngest land masses with lesser life time.

Hurricane Capital of the World, Grand Cayman

The Cayman Islands, Hurricane Capital of the World is a British territory located 150 miles south of Cuba. According to the reports from the tropical-storm-tracking website hurricanecity.com, Grand Cayman is the largest among three Cayman isles. It is hit by at least one hurricane every 2.16 years. Since 1871, 64 storms have battered this location. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 storm struck this city at a speed of 150 miles per hour, dumping a foot of rain on Grand Cayman.70 percent of the island’s buildings were destroyed in this event.

The I-44 Tornado Corridor, Oklahoma City/Tulsa, Oklahoma

Since 1890, more than 120 cyclones struck Oklahoma City which has a population of 700,000 approximately. In 1999, 70 tornados struck the Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas destroying 9000 homes altogether. It caused damage more than 1 billion in addition to the lost lives. One more city called Tulsa is present at the north east of Oklahoma which is experiencing its own share of cyclones. 69 tornados struck this city between 1950 and 2006. Tulsa is extremely vulnerable to rain water which is accompanied by Oklahoma’s bad weather.

China’s Creeping Sandbox, Minquin County, China

Minquin County, the creeping sandbox of china is located in the northwest Gansu province of china. Decade long drought and upriver diversion of water from Shiyang River have left Minquin in to tengger desert. Since from 1950, this desert swallowed more than 100 square miles. Studies in 2004 showed that it is swallowing at the rate of 10 meters per year. It produces dust and wind for more than 130 days in a year making it most d-e-a-d-l-y desert in the china. Due to its rapid desertification, the Chinese government ordered his farmers to relocate to safer places.

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The Most Dangerous Roads of the World

1. Bolivia's "Road of Death"

North Yungas Road is hands-down the most dangerous in the world for motorists. If other roads could be considered impassable, this one clearly endangers your life. It runs in the Bolivian Andes, 70 km from La Paz to Coroico, and plunges down almost 3,600 meters in an orgy of extremely narrow hairpin curves and 800-meter abyss near-misses.

A fatal accident happens there every couple of weeks, 100-200 people perish there every year. In 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank named the La Paz-to-Coroico route "the world's most dangerous road."

Among the route there are many visible reminders of accidents, wrecked carcasses of lorries and trucks lie scattered around at the bottom.

The buses and heavy trucks navigate this road, as this is the only route available in the area. Buses crowded with locals go in any weather, and try to beat the incoming traffic to the curves.

It does not help that the fog and vapors rise up from the heavily vegetated valley below, resulting in almost constant fogs and limited visibility. Plus the tropical downpours cause parts of the road to slide down the mountain.

Apparently some companies make business on the road's dubious fame by selling the extreme bike tours down that road. "Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking" is one of them. (you can read one such biker's account here.) If you are nuts enough to consider it, please be advised that you will be only adding to the road hazards, as it's hard to spot a cyclist on the road's hairpin curves, and your shrieks (as you fall down the abyss) will disturb the peace and quiet of the villagers nearby.

Note: The Bolivian road of death has been closed to regular traffic for a year or two now. There is a newer, much much safer road connecting La Paz to the Yungas now. The road of death is now open only to tour buses, hikers, and bikers. The traffic now is so low that others are not really an issue.

2. Russian Siberian Road to Yakutsk

This is the official federal-government highway to Yakutsk, and it is also the only one to get there. As there are no other roads, the intrepid motorists are doomed to wallow in this dirt, or wait in week-long 100 km car line-ups (they say women even gave birth there while waiting).

This can turn into a major humanitarian disaster during rainy spells, when the usual clay covering of the road turns into impassable mud blanket, swallowing trucks and tractors alike. In the meantime the city has to partly airlift food products.

Here is an aerial shot of this road in winter:

The "Haunted Road" in Russia

There are also rumors of seemingly quite normal 30 km stretch of Russian country road, which nevertheless gets an unexplained amount of car accidents; the locals suspect underground gas seepage which causes motorists to fall asleep...

This creepy tale is supported by the evidence of car crash statistics and the tales of survivors, who do not remember anything prior to the crash and act strangely "drugged" afterwards. Hopefully this will be properly investigated before the road claims more victims.

3. Magnificient Guoliang Tunnel Road in China

- Road that does not tolerate any mistakes

The road shown here is the Guoliang Tunnel in Taihang mountains (China). It has been built by villagers themselves, which is an inspiring story in itself:

"Before 1972, the path chiseled into the rock used to be the only access linking
the village with the outside world. Then the villagers decided to dig a tunnel through the rocky cliff. Led by Shen Mingxin, head of the village, they sold goats and herbs to buy hammers and steel tools. Thirteen strong villagers began the project. It took them five years to finish the 1,200-metre-long tunnel which is about 5 meters high and 4 meters wide. Some of the villagers even gave their lives to it. On May 1, 1977, the tunnel was opened to traffic."

The wall of the tunnel is uneven and there are more than 30 "windows" of different sizes and shapes. Some windows are round and some are square, and they range from dozens of metres long to standard-window-size. It is frightening to look down from the windows, where strange rocks hanging form the sheer cliff above and a seemingly bottomless pit lying below. A village, opposite the tunnel, appears to hang on the precipice.

4. Nepal, Tibet & Bangladesh Roads

Those bound for Mount Everest will know what we talk about. There are some hair-raising, hardly maintained roads in the area - which bus and truck drivers have to negotiate to get to small villages. A road in Nepal, leading from From Katmandu to Everest Base Camp:

A typical India-Nepal Road:

5. Most Dangerous Tourist Hiking Trail (China)

Not a car road, but the most hair-raising experience you can have on your own two legs. This is a heavy-tourist traffic area in Xian (Mt.Huashan); this link explains more about the area.

The hanging wooden planks are a real tourist hike path, which hundreds of daredevils navigate - with no safeguards in sight. Try to step on them in slippery / snowy conditions... or better not.

This is the original article, as written by Avi Abrams in November, 2006. All rights reserved, @ Ian Media.

Source: www.darkroastedblend.com, BBC, ochevidec.net, turkontakt.ru, www.cualquiera.com.ar, kartograff.ucoz.ru/f, MarkoP, Pasiki Journal, www.skyscrapercity.com, blog.china.com, rickmccharles.com, www.topspeed.com, weblinks.ru

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