Physical geography of louisiana usa term paper

Physical Geography, Man Geography, Geography, Animal Farm

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Topography of Louisiana

Louisiana involves an area of 51, 844 square kilometers, and is the 31st major state. The elevations of Louisiana range from 8 feet below ocean level at New Orleans to a maximum of 535 foot at Driskill Mt, with a mean elevation of 100-ft (Buchanan, Watts. C., 1957, pp1-6). Over the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana’s coastline is 397 kilometers long. Most of Louisiana is situated within the Gulf Coastal Ordinary. There are three subregions from the Gulf Seaside Plain; the East Gulf Coastal Simple, the West Gulf Seaside Plain, and the Mississippi Limoneux Plane. The Florida Parishes are a part of the East Gulf Coastal Basic, and western Louisiana can be described as part of the Western Gulf Coastal Plain. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain isolates the East and West Plains. Louisiana has a range of geographic parts, which are described on the basis of environment, soil, pain relief, and vegetation (Buchanan, 1957, pp1-6). These kinds of regions happen to be termed (1) coastal marshes, (2) the Mississippi floodplain, (3) the Red Riv valley, (4) terraces, and (5) slopes.

The coastal marshes stand for the change zone between land and ocean. Both elevation and relief will be low in the coastal marshes however cheniers and sodium domes go above the low floors. Both freshwater and deep sea marshes can be found in the seaside wetlands.

The Mississippi floodplain dominates the North-South conjunction of Louisiana. The Mississippi floodplain is definitely divided into (1) the goes, (2) organic levees, and (3) swamps. The passes (delta) have got specific features that include mudlumps and bars. Natural levees are riverbanks built up after some time by flood-deposited sediments and stand over a surrounding floodplains. Swamps occupy low-lying areas such as the Tensas Basin as well as the Atchafalaya Basin.

1 . The terraces area comprises these ancient constructions formed by ice age Mississippi over the flanks with the present floodplain. Three sub-regions comprise the terraces: (1) the blufflands, (2) the flatwoods, and (3) the prairies. The blufflands have the highest relief and more top to bottom slopes. The flatwoods as well as the prairies have lower alleviation, and can be known based on the vegetation. The flatwoods are characterized by longleaf pine forest, whereas the prairies are characterized by grasslands (Kniffen and Hilliard, late 1960s, pp 11-16).

The slope country of western and north central Louisiana and the Florida Parishes represents the best elevations in the state. These hills are associated with tiers of rock, which have been folded away upward. Inside the Florida Parishes the slope country comes from an upwarping (rock strata upwardly twisting along a line) referred to as Wiggins Anticline (Buchanan, 1957, pp1-6). Up and down bluffs form in the hilly area, which will create a steeper terrain. In this field, relief are at its finest, and the slopes and valleys support a forest of mixed pine and wood.

The area throughout Louisiana is extremely abundant with mineral methods, of which petroleum and gas are the foremost important (U. S. Geologic Survey, State of Louisiana, 1968). Main oil domains are located in the southern portions of the condition, offshore inside the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to the southwest region. Significant salt and sulfur build up are found throughout the coastal marsh region, as are commercial volumes of fine sand, stone, and clay essential (U. S. Geologic Study, State of Louisiana, 1968).

Louisiana includes a number of estuaries and rivers and fields that navigate the state. At least twenty-nine streams will be classed as navigable by U. H. Army Corps of Technical engineers. The Mississippi River and its major tributaries, which include the Red, Ouachita, and Atchafalaya rivers, possess deposited a whole lot material that their beds are now higher than much of the encircling land. All-natural flood-control drainage takes place within a series of bayous (swampy retailers of rivers). The Dark-colored, Pearl, and Sabine estuaries and rivers are also essential to the state’s drainage system. Lake Pontchartrain is the california’s largest inland water physique. Oxbow ponds (freshwater ponds occupying older river channels) are found along the Mississippi Water and its tributaries.

Natural wetlands are also dispersed throughout the point out (Louisiana Almanac, 1992-1993)

The Mississippi River dominates not only the state although also the continent, having a drainage basin touching thirty-one states and two Canadian provinces and encompassing over 1, 245, 000 square miles. In the Arkansas boundary to the Gulf of mexico the water flows some 569 kilometers, but with the average gradient of only two and one-half inches per mile. Within Louisiana the river is usually widest in East Carroll Parish (7, 600 feet) and narrowest at Irvine Light close to Bayou Sara in West Feliciana Parish (1, seven hundred feet). Work have been made to stabilize the river in the present study course by means of levees and manufactured floodways by which excess drinking water is redirected. Other riv systems drain various parts of the states. The 2nd largest water in Louisiana is the Crimson River. The Red River’s headwaters will be in New Mexico, and the river makes its way into Louisiana inside the northwest nook. The river then goes southeastward to its raccord with the Atchafalaya and Mississippi. Tributaries to the Red include Bayou Caillou, Bayou Dorcheat, Saline Bayou, Black Lake Bayou, and Little River. In the northeast the Ouachita-Black flows southward from Arkansas to the Reddish colored. The Ouachita-Black receives water from the Tensas River-Bayou Macon system, Boeuf River, Marais D’Arbonne, Bayou de L’Outre, and Bayou Bartholomew. Freebie southwest Louisiana is usually drained by simply two primary systems – the Sabine and the Calcasieu. The Sabine’s headwaters will be in north central Arizona, and the water receives a lot of small tributaries in Louisiana before streaming into the Gulf. The Sabine forms the Louisiana-Texas line for approximately 3 hundred miles. The Calcasieu, which will lies completely within Louisiana, flows initially to the east then back in the west before emptying into Calcasieu Lake. Additional major streams in the region would be the Mermentau and Vermilion. The south Louisiana streams are the Teche, Atchafalaya, and Lafourche, all of in whose courses lay totally inside the state. The Atchafalaya emerges from the passageway of the Reddish and Mississippi, thence flows southward to the Gulf.

2 . In the Fl Parishes several streams movement out by Mississippi generally southward to Lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain, or Borgne. Coming from west to east these streams are the Amite, Tickfaw, Tangipahoa, Tchefuncte, Bogue Chitto, and Gem. The Intracoastal Waterway, a largely artificial watercourse, stretches across Louisiana as part of a process that operates along the Ocean and Gulf of mexico coasts. The 318-mile waterway provides an East-West route not really provided by natural streams.

Various kinds of natural lakes are present. Cut-off or perhaps oxbow wetlands (for case in point, False Riv, Bruin, Larto) form when a stream “cuts off” the neck of your meander (bend) to create a new course. Especially along the valley of the Reddish, raft lakes (Caddo, Mix, Bistineau, Dark-colored, and others) were created from waters dammed by the Great Raft, a logjam that back logged the river until it was finally removed. Lakes type along the coast when cheniers (beach ridges) act to slow the flow of rivers when also guarding the resulting lake from encroachment by Gulf. Wetlands Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and Catahoula exist in grabens, depressions in the the planet bounded by simply faults. Different natural ponds are linked to the drainage near rivers, entrée, and salt domes

Louisiana has wealthy coastal and inland sportfishing waters, and although sportfishing accounts for lower than 1% of the annual gross state product, the annual capture landed in Louisiana is greater than regarding any other state except Ak. More than three-quarters of the catch is menhaden. Shrimp is the second greatest catch simply by volume but is first in value. Oysters and blue crabs are usually significant (Newton, 1987)

The forestlands of Louisiana include a variety of both equally softwoods and hardwoods. Business species incorporate southern pinus radiata, oak, lung burning ash, cypress, bubble gum, cottonwood, and willow. Apart from the seaside marshes and the southwestern alpage, the california’s original, all-natural vegetation contained mixed woodlands of classic and perishable trees. The alluvial valleys had stands of cypress, oak, magnolia and other wood intermixed with canebrakes. Walnut, gum, magnolia, cottonwood, sycamore, cypress, tupelo, and other deciduous trees master the alluvial, bluff, and terrace royaume. Individual kinds vary typically with height and alleviation. The uplands and part of the terraces are occupied simply by longleaf pine forests in some regions in addition to others by simply shortleaf or perhaps longleaf pinus radiata mixed to varying levels with maple, hickory, and also other hardwoods.

Louisiana has an plethora and diversity of plant and animal existence. Commercial forests cover nearly half of the state’s total region. Hardwoods, especially oak, will be mixed with shortleaf pine over the northwest. Cypress and oak forests, often covered by Spanish moss, flourish throughout the lowland south. Flowering plants, which includes azalea, magnolia, camellia, lily, and orchid, are also prevalent. The present setup of Louisiana’s forests divides the state into five categories (Louisiana Almanac, 1992-1993, pp 97-103). About 50 % of the total forest today are composed of hardwood kinds, and 50 % of softwood varieties. Most of the softwood trees are loblolly pine and shortleaf pine. Loblolly-shortleaf pine woodlands dominates north central Louisiana, an areas west with the Red, and the middle of the Florida Parishes. A longleaf-slash pine forest can be found largely in west

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