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Awesome Peak
Awesome Peak is an mountain summit located 35 miles (56 km) east-northeast of Palmer, in the northern Chugach Mountains of Alaska. This peak of the Matanuska Valley is set midway between Anchorage and Glennallen, near mile 90 of the Glenn Highway. It is situated 15 miles (24 km) west of Matanuska Glacier and southwest of Amulet Peak. Precipitation runoff from the mountain drains into Monument and Coal creeks, which are tributaries of the Matanuska River. Topographic relief is significant as the summit rises above Coal Creek in 3.75 miles (6 km) and above Monument Creek in 1.9 mile (3 km). This mountain's toponym has not been officially adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names, so it is only marked as "8645" on USGS maps. Climate Based on the Köppen climate classification, Awesome Peak is located in a subarctic climate zone with long, cold, snowy winters, and mild summers. Weather systems coming off the Gulf of Alaska are forced up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chugach Mountains
The Chugach Mountains of southern Alaska are the northernmost of the several mountain ranges that make up the Pacific Coast Ranges of the western edge of North America. The range is about long and wide, and extends from the Knik and Turnagain Arms of the Cook Inlet on the west to Bering Glacier, Tana Glacier, and the Tana River on the east. It is bounded on the north by the Matanuska, Copper, and Chitina rivers. The highest point of the Chugach Mountains is Mount Marcus Baker, at , but with an average elevation of , most of its summits are not especially high. Even so, its position along the Gulf of Alaska ensures more snowfall in the Chugach than anywhere else in the world, an annual average of over 1500 cm (800 in).Steep, Freeskiing Documentary, 2007 The mountains are protected in the Chugach State Park and the Chugach National Forest. Near to Anchorage, they are a popular destination for outdoor activities. The Richardson Highway, Seward Highway, Por ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matanuska River
The Matanuska River ( Dena'ina: ''Ch'atanhtnu''; Ahtna: ''Ts'itonhna’'') is a 75-mile (121 km) long river in Southcentral Alaska, United States. The river drains a broad valley south of the Alaska Range eponymously known as the Matanuska Valley. Course Formed by the confluence of its east and south forks, the Matanuska River flows generally southwest to the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. Downstream of its source, the river is joined by meltwater from Matanuska Glacier in the northern Chugach Mountains. From there it continues through the Matanuska Valley, between the Chugach Mountains to the south and the Talkeetna Mountains to the north. Population centers along its course include Chickaloon, Sutton, Palmer, and Butte. It enters the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet about southwest of Palmer and about northeast of Anchorage. The Glenn Highway runs roughly parallel to the river for much of its length. Highway bridges over the river, listed from source to mouth, include Glacier Park Bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms Of Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, plateau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mountains Of Alaska
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher than a hill, typically rising at least 300 metres (1,000 feet) above the surrounding land. A few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in mountain ranges. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces, erosion, or volcanism, which act on time scales of up to tens of millions of years. Once mountain building ceases, mountains are slowly leveled through the action of weathering, through slumping and other forms of mass wasting, as well as through erosion by rivers and glaciers. High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level at similar latitude. These colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains: different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alabaster Peak
Alabaster Peak is an mountain summit located 35 miles (56 km) east of Palmer, in the northern Chugach Mountains of Alaska. This peak of the Matanuska Valley is set midway between Anchorage and Glennallen, and can be seen from the Glenn Highway. It is situated 15 miles (24 km) west of Matanuska Glacier and south of Awesome Peak. Precipitation runoff from the mountain drains into Coal, Monument, and Gravel creeks, which are tributaries of the Matanuska River. Topographic relief is significant as the summit rises along the west slope in one mile (1.6 km). The first ascent of the summit was made on July 4, 1970, by Robert Spurr, Bob Pelz, and Royce Purinton via the Spectrum Glacier and North Ridge. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geography Of Alaska
Alaska occupies the northwestern portion of the North American continent and is bordered only by Canada on the east. It is one of two U.S. states not bordered by another state; Hawaii is the other. Alaska has more ocean coastline than all of the other U.S. states combined. About of Canadian territory separate Alaska from Washington state. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States that is part of the continental U.S. and the U.S. West Coast, but is not part of the contiguous U.S. Alaska is also the only state, other than Hawaii, whose capital city is accessible only via ship or air, because no roads connect Juneau to the rest of the continent. The state is bordered by Yukon and British Columbia, Canada to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south, Russia (Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west, and the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Because it extends into the Eastern Hemisphere, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matanuska Formation
The Matanuska Formation consists of more than of sedimentary strata exposed in the northern Chugach Mountains, Matanuska Valley, and southern Talkeetna Mountains of South-Central Alaska. The Matanuska Formation contains strata from Early Cretaceous ( Albian) to Late Cretaceous (Maestrichtian). Parts of the formation contain abundant marine mollusks, foraminifera, and radiolaria. Fossils of non-marine plants are found in some beds. Fossils of two dinosaurs have been recovered from marine mudstones in the formation. The lower Matanuska Formation (MF) is several hundred meters thick and includes non-marine and marine sediments. Campanian-Maastrichtian graded sandstone, conglomerate, and mudstone comprise the upper 2000 meters of the Formation. Invertebrate paleofauna Annelida Calcareous worm tube fossils are known from the formation. Bivalves Cephalopods The formation's thin shelled heteromorphic ammonites probably lived at depths of 36–183 m. The formation's ammoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orographic Lift
Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and create clouds and, under the right conditions, precipitation. Orographic lifting can have a number of effects, including precipitation, rain shadowing, leeward winds, and associated clouds. Precipitation Precipitation induced by orographic lift occurs in many places throughout the world. Examples include: * The Mogollon Rim in central Arizona * The western slope of the Sierra Nevada range in California * The mountains near Baja California North – specifically La Bocana to Laguna Hanson. * The windward slopes of Khasi and Jayantia Hills (see Mawsynram) in the state of Meghalaya in India. * The Western Highlands of Yemen, which receive by far the most rain in Arabia. * The Western Ghats that run along India's western coast. * The Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf Of Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska (Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, where Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage are found. The Gulf shoreline is a combination of forest, mountain and a number of tidewater glaciers. Alaska's largest glaciers, the Malaspina Glacier and Bering Glacier, spill out onto the coastal line along the Gulf of Alaska. The coast is heavily indented with Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the two largest connected bodies of water. It includes Yakutat Bay and Cross Sound. Lituya Bay (a fjord north of Cross Sound, and south of Mount Fairweather) is the site of the largest recorded tsunami in history. It serves as a sheltered anchorage for fishing boats. Ecology The Gulf of Alaska is considered a Class I, productive ecosystem with more than 300 grams of carbon per square met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subarctic Climate
The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, generally at latitudes from 50° to 70°N, poleward of the humid continental climates. Subarctic or boreal climates are the source regions for the cold air that affects temperate latitudes to the south in winter. These climates represent Köppen climate classification ''Dfc'', ''Dwc'', ''Dsc'', ''Dfd'', ''Dwd'' and ''Dsd''. Description This type of climate offers some of the most extreme seasonal temperature variations found on the planet: in winter, temperatures can drop to below and in summer, the temperature may exceed . However, the summers are short; no more than three months of the year (but at least one month) must have a 24-hour average temperature of at least to fall into this category of climate, and the coldest month should a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notably in 1918 and 1936. Later, the climatologist Rudolf Geiger (1894–1981) introduced some changes to the classification system, which is thus sometimes called the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system. The Köppen climate classification divides climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on seasonal precipitation and temperature patterns. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (temperate), ''D'' (continental), and ''E'' (polar). Each group and subgroup is represented by a letter. All climates are assigned a main group (the first letter). All climates except for those in the ''E'' group are assigned a seasonal precipitation subgroup (the second letter). For example, ''Af'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topographic Relief
Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin word (the root of ''terrain'') means "earth." In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientation of terrain features. Terrain affects surface water flow and distribution. Over a large area, it can affect weather and climate patterns. Importance The understanding of terrain is critical for many reasons: * The terrain of a region largely determines its suitability for human settlement: flatter alluvial plains tend to have better farming soils than steeper, rockier uplands. * In terms of environmental quality, agriculture, hydrology and other interdisciplinary sciences; understanding the terrain of an area assists the understanding of watershed boundaries, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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