Last week on a rainy night I noticed that there are some cracks in the sidewalk on campus that resemble rivers as if you were looking at a river from a plane or on a map. Also, the rain seeps through the cracks which actually makes the connected cracks into mini rivers, which is interesting to think about.
I was walking on campus last week after class and noticed that the bark on this tree near Skillman Library has lines and cracks in it that resembles a river with many connecting streams and tributaries.
Last Friday, a man from Florida was flying his private plane and ran out of fuel. He had to crash land in the river, leaving the plane there. The small plane is still in the river. Hopefully it will be taken out of the river soon or the fuel and other chemicals from the plane might do damage to the water.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.abc27.com/news/local/harrisburg/plane-remains-stuck-in-susquehanna-river-days-after-crash-landing/amp/ Continue reading
An invasive species called the northern snakehead, also known by the nickname “frankenfish,” is an invasive species from Russia, China, and Korea. Snakeheads are predatory fish that can grow as long as 5 feet in length! They feed on most fish in Pennsylvania, frogs, insects, small birds, and mammals. They also posses an air bladder that allows them to breathe and travel on land. They can survive up to 4 days out of water! The diet of the snakehead interferes with the diet of native fish like American shad and trout, which causes major concern. A fisherman caught a 28 inch snakehead last week in the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. This was the first sighting of the snakehead in Western Pennsylvania. However, 81 snakeheads were caught last spring in the Susquehanna River near the Conowingo Dam last spring! They were killed. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that they think the snakehead species was illegally released into Pennsylvania rivers. The goal is to stop the snakeheads before they complete take over the underwater food chain in Pennsylvania rivers.
15 years ago, in September of 2004, the Susquehanna River flooded three quarters of Pennsylvania, including Easton. The flood was caused by Hurricane Ivan. The water went up to 24 feet, 7 feet higher than the height of the water for it to be considered a flood (17). Pennsylvania had $264 million in property damage due to the flooding.
The River Thames is a river in England that runs through the center of London and flows out to the North Sea. It is considered the cleanest river that runs through a major city. In an effort to keep the river clean and show people how important the river is, the Zoological Society of London developed a virtual reality device that takes you through the river to see the wildlife. The river includes all kinds of creatures like pike, eels, seahorses, bull sharks, grey seals, and even dolphins and whales on occasion. Below the picture is a video about the virtual reality experience of the River Thames.
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While walking through downtown Easton last week, I took this picture of the Easton Dam. It is where the Lehigh River meets the Delaware. In 2017, some people wanted to remove the dam to make the area of downtown Easton an area for white water rafting, fishing, and other recreational activities. Being from New Jersey, it is interesting to me that a lot of the water we get there comes from the Delaware.
While doing research on rivers online, I read an article about how tributaries of the Lackawanna and Susquehanna Rivers have both been damaged by acid from abandoned mine projects. Holes dug in the tributaries create water up flow that stains the water and rocks touching it. I thought this was an interesting subject and I didn’t know that this problem was so big in Pennsylvania.
When I think of rivers, one of the first rivers that comes to mind besides the Delaware and the Hudson is the Nile. I remember learning about the Nile River during ancient civilizations class in middle school. The Egyptians and their neighbors utilized the river for food, water, resources, energy, and transportation. An entire civilization’s survival depended on this one giant river. Since there was barely any rainfall in the deserts of Egypt, the innovative Egyptians used the Nile to help create fertile land for growing crops with silt deposits, or irrigation canals that led the river water to the soil. The Nile alone is responsible for ancient Egypt’s rise as a thriving civilization with successful agriculture and a surplus of trade. It is remarkable how the Nile, the longest river on earth, seems timeless. It has always been a reliable geographic feature for Egypt since ancient times; and, the river continues its huge impact on Egypt as humanity and innovation keep evolving.
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