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Canyon
Canyon
Grand Canyon, Arizona Aerial view of canyons in western United States. origin (cañón). The word canyon is generally used in the United States, while the word gorge is more common in Europe and Oceania, though it is also used in some parts of the United States and Canada. The military derived word defile is occasionally used in England. A famous example is the Grand Canyon in Arizona. In the southwestern United States, canyon are important archeologically because of the many cliff-dwellings built there, largely by the earlier inhabitants, Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Sometimes large rivers run through canyons as the result of gradual geologic uplift. These are called entrenched rivers, because they are unable to easily alter their course. The Colorado River and the Snake River in the northwestern United States are two examples of tectonic uplift.. Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. Limestone is to a certain extent soluble, so cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse a canyon is left, for example in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire, England. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two mountain peaks such as those in ranges such as the Rocky
Noravank Monastery complex and canyon in Armenia. A canyon,[1] or gorge, is a deep valley between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river. Most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion and weathering remain exposed on the valley walls. Canyons are much more common in arid areas than in wetter areas because weathering has a greater effect in arid zones. Canyon walls are often formed of resistant sandstones or granite. Submarine canyons are those which form underwater, generally at the mouths of rivers. The word canyon is Spanish in
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas or the Andes. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve out such splits between mountains. Examples of mountain type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains or gorges that only have an opening on one side are called box canyons. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Canyon
Chicamocha Canyon, Santander, Colombia Blyde River Canyon, Mpumalanga, South Africa Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan Colca Canyon, Arequipa, Peru Cotahuasi Canyon, Arequipa, Peru Dirk River Canyon, Montenegro, Europe Fish River Canyon, Namibia, Africa Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Wyoming, USA Hells Canyon, Idaho and Oregon, USA Huasteca Canyon, Monterrey, Mexico Kings Canyon (Northern Territory), Australia Nine Mile Canyon, Utah, USA Nfeye Canyon, Portugal Ouimet Canyon, Ontario, Canada Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, USA Rugova Canyon, Kosovo, Europe Sumidero Canyon, Chiapas, Mexico Valla Canyon, Kure,Turkey Shnizow Canyon, Uşak, Turkey Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, Tibet Autonomous Region, China
Largest canyons
• Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA • Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico The definition of "largest canyon" is rather imprecise, as a canyon can be large by its depth, length, or the total area of the canyon system. Also the inaccessibility of the major canyons in the Himalaya contributes to their not being regarded as candidates for the biggest canyon. The definition of "deepest canyon" is similarly imprecise, especially if one includes mountain canyons as well as canyons cut through relatively flat plateaus (which have a somewhat well-defined rim elevation). The Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, China, is regarded by some as the deepest canyon in the world, and is even slightly longer than Grand Canyon. Hence it is regarded by many as the world’s largest canyon, followed by the Kali Gandaki Gorge[2] in Nepal, Polung Tsangpo Canyon in Tibet, Cotahuasi Canyon (3,535 m deep and the deepest in the Americas), and the Tekezé gorge (2000m+ deep and deepest in Africa).[3] Slot canyons are very narrow canyons, often with smooth walls.
List of gorges
Lists
List of canyons
Swaan gorge • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Avon Gorge, Bristol, England Bog Walk Gorge, Saint Catherine Parish, Jamaica Bued Gorge, Benguet, Philippines Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Australia Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England Columbia River Gorge, USA Galston Gorge, NSW, Australia Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire, England Kloof, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (The word Kloof means ’gorge’ in Afrikaans) Komati Gorge, South Africa Lanner Gorge, South Africa Manawatu Gorge, Manawatu, North Island, New Zealand Montalban Gorge, Philippines New River Gorge, West Virginia, USA
Gorges of Ak-Shur. • Horseshoe Canyon, Alberta, Canada • Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado, USA
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• Katherine Gorge of Nitmiluk National Park in Australia • Pankisi Gorge, Georgia (country) • Pine Creek Gorge, Pennsylvania, USA • Red River Gorge, Kentucky, USA • Royal Gorge, Colorado, USA • Samaria Gorge, Crete, Greece • Talari Gorges, Mali • Gorges du Tarn, France • Taroko Gorge of Taroko National Park, Taiwan • Three Gorges, Hubei, China • Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China • Verdon Gorge, Provence, France • Vikos Gorge of Vikos-Aoos National Park, Greece
Canyon
• Ithaca Chasma on Saturn’s moon Tethys Venus has many craters and canyons on its surface. The troughs on the planet are part of a system of canyons that is more than 6 400 km long.
See also
• • • • • Canyoning Geomorphology Gully List of landforms Ravine
Notes
[1] [2] occasionally spelt cañon If one measures the depth of a canyon by the difference between the river height and the heights of the highest peaks on either side, the Kali Gandaki Gorge is the world’s deepest. The portion of the river between the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna massifs is at an elevation of between 2000 metres and 2600 metres, 5500 to 6800 metres lower than the two peaks. See Annapurna (1:100,000 map), Nepal-Kartenwerk der Arbeitgemeinschaft für vergleichende Hochgebirgsforschung Nr. 9, Nelles Verlag, Munich, 1993. Also see Google Earth. Ethiopia’s Water DilemmaPDF (1.58 MiB)
List of other features causing gorges or canyons
• • • • Ardèche River, France Bued River, Philippines Danube River, Europe, including the Iron Gate Kings River of the Kings Canyon National Park, California, USA • South Nahanni River in Canada[1] • Steall Waterfall of Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland • Swaan River in the Pothohar Plateau, Pakistan
Canyons on other planetary bodies
• Valles Marineris on Mars, the largest known canyon in the solar system
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon" Categories: Canyons and gorges, Erosion landforms This page was last modified on 17 May 2009, at 21:17 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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