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Places
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| This aerial photograph shows the confluence
of the Paria and Colorado Rivers. The appropriately named Paria, which
is Paiute for "muddy water," is visible as the narrow waterway
in the upper left corner of the photo. The waters of the Paria are
highly alkaline, and heavily loaded with silt. The silt is deposited
into the clear waters of the Colorado, and is visible in the photo
as a fan of sediment downstream from the confluence. Since the completion
of Glen Canyon Dam, large amounts of silt carried by the Colorado
that were once deposited along the river corridor, scouring and re-shaping
the river banks, are now trapped behind the dam. The Paria and the
Little Colorado Rivers both deliver significant amounts of sediment
into the Colorado, making them important contributors to what is left
of the the natural systems of the Colorado River. |
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