Thanks, Singh ji. A lovely composition & a good details. On 8 January 2011 14:41, Gurcharan Singh <singh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My Flora Picture of the Year would have two photographs both from > California and both processed by my son Manpreet Singh, who has keen > interest in photography and courtesy whom I acquired by digitat SLR Camera > leading to my joining this group and renewing my interest in Flora ofter a > long gap and gave me a reason to remain occupied and enjoy this all. > The first one a photograph of Death Valley, a name that scared me > initially and Pankaj ji found the name strange. The reality dawned when I > actually visited the area and saw its lowest spot Badwater basin. As the > lowest point in Western Hemisphere, Death Valley belongs to the world-wide > Geographic rogue's gallery whose members share these defining features: > 1. To have exposed land below sea level, an extremely dry climate is > necessary. It wet climates low places fill with water and overflow to sea. A > dry climate evaporates water, leaving back salt flats or brine water. > 2. Like most these locations, Death valley was not created by river > erosion. Movements of Earth's crust have dropped it to such great depths. > > Badwater basin in Death valley is 282 ft below sea level. It is the hottest > spot in the world Summer day time temperatures exceed 49 C (highest 54 C > recorded in July 1913). In low valley sun heats the air, the slopes around > trap rising hot air and recirculates it down into the valley for further > heating. It is also the driest place in North America with annual rainfall > of only 5 cm, being in the rain shadow. Ancient water fills this basin year > round. Much of it began as Ice Age snow and rainwater hundreds of miles away > in mountains of Central Nevada. The runoff seeped into porous limestone > bedrock and began a long underground flow through a regional aquifer, > emerging through a faultline in Badwater region. Salts dissolve from old > deposits and flow to the surface making the spring water "Bad". The > phenomenon continues even now. The rain falling on distant peaks creates > floods which rush down dissolving salts on way from rocks and settle into > the pool of "Badwater basin". As the water evaporates rapidly due to intense > heat, the salt concentration increases and finally only salts remains, > forming layers over layers of salt, which take a variety of patterns on the > surface with freshly formed salt crystals oozing out.. > Such extremely salty habitat does not allow much life to survive but one > can find a plant pickleweed (Sarcocornia pacifica) along edges, the > badwater snail and a few and few insects in pools of water. > -- > Dr. Gurcharan Singh > Retired Associate Professor > SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007 > Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018. > Phone: 011-25518297 Mob: 9810359089 > http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ > > -- With regards, J.M.Garg (jmga...@gmail.com) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna' The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a *thousand species* & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg. You can also use them for free as per liberal licensing conditions attached with each image. For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Google e-group- Efloraofindia: http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix (more than 1490 members & 59,000 messages on 5/1/11 & with a database of around 4450 species on 15/12/10)
