Praxis II (0086): Geography (North America)

Sonoran Desert

A North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona, California, Northwest Mexico in Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 311,000 square kilometers (120,000 sq mi). The western portion of the United States-Mexico border passes through it. It has hydraulic system forming streams that drain into the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean.

Arroyo

A Spanish word translated as brook, and also called a wash is usually a dry creek or stream bed—gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Desert Ironwood and Canyon Bursage grow allong arroyos.

The Great Plains

A broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The region is about 500 mi (800 km) east to west and 2,000 mi (3,200 km) north to south. Much of the region was home to American Bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 1,300,000 km2 (500,000 sq mi). In general, the Great Plains have a wide variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot and humid summers. Wind speeds are often very high. The prairies support an abundant wildlife in undisturbed settings. Humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so.

The Great Lakes

A collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada-United States border, which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes Waterway. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth comprising 21% of the world's surface fresh water. The lakes are bound by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

North America

A continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. It covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about 4.8% of the planet's surface or about 16.5% of its land area. As of July 2008, its population was estimated at nearly 529 million people across 23 independent states. It is the third-largest continent in area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth in population after Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Bajada

A convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope or compound alluvial fan.

Mojave Desert

A desert which occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States. Named after the Mohave tribe of Native Americans, it displays typical basin and range topography. Its boundaries are generally defined by the presence of Yucca brevifolia (Joshua trees); considered an indicator species for this desert. It is an un-drained basin.

Chihuahuan Desert

A desert, and an ecoregion designation, that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra Madre Oriental. On the U.S. side it occupies the valleys and basins of central and southern New Mexico, Texas west of the Pecos River and southeastern Arizona; south of the border, it covers the northern half of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, most of Coahuila, north-east portion of Durango, extreme northern portion of Zacatecas and small western portions of Nuevo León. With an area of about 362,000 km2 (139,769 sq mi), it is the third largest desert of the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in North America, after the Great Basin Desert. This type of desert is an un-drained basin.

Alluvial Fan

A fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain. They can be found at the Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert.

Bering Strait Land Bridge

A land bridge roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) wide (north to south) at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the Pleistocene ice ages. Between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago, people began travelling across this bridge.

Rocky Mountain Range

A major mountain range in western North America. It stretch more than 3,000 miles (4,830 km) from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada which all lie further to the west. It runs through the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Yukon River

A major watercourse of northwestern North America. The source of the river is located in British Columbia, Canada. The next portion lies in, and gives its name to Yukon Territory. The lower half of the river lies in the U.S. state of Alaska. The river is 1,980 miles (3,190 km) long and empties into the Bering Sea at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The average flow is 6,430 m³/s (227,000 ft³/s). The total drainage area is 832,700 km² (321,500 mi²), of which 323,800 km² (126,300 mi²) is in Canada. By comparison, the total area is more than 25% larger than Texas or Alberta.

Sun Belt

A region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest (the geographic southern United States). Another rough boundary of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel, north latitude. The main defining feature of this region is its warm-temperate climate with extended summers and brief, relatively mild winters; Florida, the Gulf Coast, and southern Texas, however, have a true subtropical climate. It has seen substantial population growth in recent decades (1960s to recent) fueled by milder winters; a surge in retiring baby boomers who migrate domestically; and the influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Rio Grande River

A river that flows from southwestern Colorado in the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way it forms part of the Mexico - United States border.

Salton Sea

A shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in California's Imperial Valley. The Sea was created by a flood in 1905, in which water from the Colorado River flowed into the area.

Appalachian Mountain Range

A system of mountains in eastern North America. They first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period, and once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before they were eroded. The mountains run through the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama and the provinces of Newfoundland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.

Panama Canal

An 82-kilometre (51 mi) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Work on the canal, which began in 1881, was completed in 1914.

Southern United States

An area in the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its distinct culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles and varied cuisines that have helped distinguish it from the rest of the United States. It owes its unique heritage to a variety of sources, including Native Americans; early European settlements of Spanish, English, German, French, Scotch-Irish, and Scottish; importation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans; historic dependence on slave labor; the presence of a large proportion of African Americans in the population; and the aftermath of the Confederacy after the Civil War. The region comprises of Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in the here, the nation's most populous region. It's primary rivers are the James, the Potomac, the Mississippi, and the Chattahoochee. It's vegetation is comprised of mixed and deciduous forests.

Playa (dry lake)

Ephemeral lakebeds, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. If the surface is primarily salt then they are called salt pans, pans, hardpan, or salt flats. The Sonoran Desert has them.

Great Salt Lake

Located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah, it is the largest salt water lake in the western hemisphere, and the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world.

Mississippi River

The chief river of the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States (though its drainage basin reaches into Canada), it rises in northern Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for 2,530 miles (4,070 km) to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. The river either borders or cuts through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Great Basin Desert

The largest U. S. desert, covering 190,000 square miles. It is bordered by the Sierra Nevada Range on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the east, the Columbia Plateau to the north and the Mojave and Sonoran deserts to the south. The Great Basin Desert is a cold desert caused by the rain shadow effect of the Sierra Nevada to the west. This type of desert is an un-drained basin.

Lake Superior

The largest of the five traditionally demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, if Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are considered to be two lakes. It is the world's third-largest freshwater lake by volume.

Missouri River

The longest river in North America and a major waterway of the central United States. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, it flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km)before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Northeastern United States

The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The primary mountain range is the Appalachian Mountains which extend from Georgia to Maine. Three major rivers are the Delaware, the Hudson, and the Connecticut. The vegetation is composed of mixed and deciduous forests.

Western United States

This region consists of 13 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Deserts in this region are the Sonaran, the Painted, and the Mojave. The primary mountain range is the Rocky Mountains. Major rivers are the Rio Grande, the Colorado, the Yukon, and the Pecos. Vegetation is evergreen forests, desert, short grass, and mixed forests. The region had a total 2010 estimated population of 71,945,553. As a generalization, the climate of this region can be described as overall semiarid; however, parts of the region get extremely high amounts of rain and/or snow, and still other parts are true desert and get less than 5 inches of rain per year. Also, the climate of the region is quite unstable, and areas that are normally wet can be very dry for years and vice versa.

Midwestern United States

Though it is geographically in the north, and more eastern than western, the term refers to the fact that the region is midway to the opposite coast when heading directly west from New England and New York, where the term originated. It has the Great Lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. The region consists of 12 states in the north-central and north-eastern United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. A 2012 United States Census put the population at 65,377,684. Agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of local economies in the Midwest, accounting for billions of dollars worth of exports and thousands of jobs. The region is bordered by the Mississippi River in the east and Rocky Mountains in the west. It has the major rivers of Ohio, Mississippi, Illinois, and Arkansas. The vegetation is comprised of deciduous forests, mixed forests, evergreen forests, and tall and short grass prairies.

Gulf Stream

Together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The process of western intensification causes it to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W, it splits in two, with the northern stream crossing to northern Europe and the southern stream recirculating off West Africa. It influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and the west coast of Europe.