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I immediately thought of Devil's Kettle Falls reading this. I had to Google it and found that 4 months ago scientist have decided it flows back into itself. T
by dsmithatx 9y ago
I immediately thought of Devil's Kettle Falls reading this. I had to Google it and found that 4 months ago scientist have decided it flows back into itself. They have a plan to put a large amount of dye in during low water and see where it reconnects.
- jfries 9y agoAh the circular river. Very rare but useful to extract energy from.
- bousaid 9y agoHave people done this?
- marcosdumay 9y agoI'm quite certain the GP was a joke.
- pmontra 9y agoOnly badly worded. The missing water flows back into the visible river somewhere downstream, not upstream.
- DougWebb 9y agoYes: http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/recognition-success/waterfall/ http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/recognition-success/waterfal...
- have_faith 9y agoDoes extracting energy from a circular river affect it's ability to continue being a circular river?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mirimir 9y ago:) Just a river with an island, in a topological sense.
- santaclaus 9y agoWell an underground volcano or something could inject energy into the system so you are probably ok, thermodynamically.
- jameshart 9y agomost rivers are circular - just that the upstream water flow is invisible, by virtue of being in water vapor form.
- mirimir 9y agoThat's very deep. I'm impressed. Sincerely.
- maxerickson 9y agoBut is it true? The flow rate of the Mississippi (I got ~500 cubic km/year) is about 0.025 Great Lakes (20,000 cubic km combined) per year. The oceans are 1.37 billion cubic km.
- mirimir 9y agoYes, it's true. Most of the water that flows from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico comes from rain. And most of that rain comes from ocean evaporation. Sure, there's some input from aquifers, and some recharging of aquifers. And there's evaporation from the Mississippi, its tributaries, and all of the associated lakes, wetlands, and so forth. But the fact remains that the Mississippi is part of the global water cycle. And cycles are circles.
- maxerickson 9y agoI sort of assumed that knowledge of the water cycle was a given. But how fast does the water have to cycle for a named river to be part of a circle? Does once every 10 million years do it?
- mirimir 9y agoThat's a fair point :)
- lithos 9y agoNot circular, just rejoins downstream after the split.
- maxerickson 9y agoIndeed. This article describes things further: http://www.startribune.com/scientists-think-they-ve-solved-the-mystery-of-devil-s-kettle-falls/414996694/ http://www.startribune.com/scientists-think-they-ve-solved-t...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]