Students from Burley, Idaho, peer over the walls of Cataract Canyon in southern Utah where the waters of Lake Powell usually lap against the sandstone. As the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed deposits, dried silt slumps toward the river,

Students from Burley, Idaho, peer over the walls of Cataract Canyon in southern Utah where the waters of Lake Powell usually lap against the sandstone. As the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed deposits, dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river below. The canyon has filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the canyon. Now with low water the river is eroding those lake sediments and washing them into Lake Powell, geologist Dr. John C. Dohrenwend asserts. He is studying the creation of the Colorado River's delta at Lake Powell and the erosion and motion of sediments into the lake. Dohrenwend, a retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist, fears the sediment flow may fill the reservoir more quickly than the builders of the Glen Canyon Dam thought. This would reduce the storage capacity of the reservoir and possibly compromise the dam itself. At rear is the Hite Crossing bridge. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)

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Filename: Powell_Dam_04.tif
Copyright: © Kevin Moloney, 2004
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Contained in galleries: Utah

Students from Burley, Idaho, peer over the walls of Cataract Canyon in southern Utah where the waters of Lake Powell usually lap against the sandstone. As the Colorado River cuts a new channel through lakebed deposits, dried silt slumps toward the river, developing cracks up to five feet deep as layers of the sediment are washed out by the river below. The canyon has filled with silt and sediments when the waters of the reservoir rise in the canyon. Now with low water the river is eroding those lake sediments and washing them into Lake Powell, geologist Dr. John C. Dohrenwend asserts. He is studying the creation of the Colorado River's delta at Lake Powell and the erosion and motion of sediments into the lake. Dohrenwend, a retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist, fears the sediment flow may fill the reservoir more quickly than the builders of the Glen Canyon Dam thought. This would reduce the storage capacity of the reservoir and possibly compromise the dam itself. At rear is the Hite Crossing bridge. (Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)