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Showing posts with the label North America

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover Dam

Crater Lake National Park Oregon

Crater Lake National Park is a United States National Park located in southern Oregon. Established in 1902, Crater Lake National Park is the sixth oldest national park in the United States and the only one in the state of Oregon. The park encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of a destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is a World Heritage listed, U.S. National Monument encompassing 140,000 square miles (360,000 km2) of ocean waters, including ten islands and atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, internationally recognized for both its cultural and natural values as follows: The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

Tulum Mexico

Tulum is the site of a Pre-Columbian Maya walled city serving as a major port for Coba. The ruins are situated on feet tall cliffs, along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Tulum was one of the last cities inhabited and built by the Mayans; it was at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries and managed to survive about 70 years after the Spanish began occupying Mexico. Old World diseases brought by the Spanish settlers appear to have been the cause of its demise. One of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites, Tulum is today a popular site for tourists. Tulum Mexico

Olympic Coast Washington

The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary is one of 14 marine sanctuaries administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. It is located along the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. The sanctuary was declared in 1994 and encompasses 3,189 square miles of the Pacific Ocean from Cape Flattery in the north, to the mouth of the Copalis River, a distance of about 162.5 miles. Olympic Coast Washington

Kauai Hawaii

Kauai is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of 562.3 square miles, it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle", Kauai lies 105 miles across the Kauai Channel, northwest of Oahu. This island is the site of Waimea Canyon State Park. The United States Census Bureau defines Kauai as Census Tracts 401 through 409 of Kauai County, Hawaii, which is the entire county except for the islands of Kaula, Lehua, and Niihau. The 2000 census population of Kauai (the island) was 58,303. Kauai Hawaii

Joshua Tree National Park California

Joshua Tree National Park is located in southeastern California. Declared a U.S. National Park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act, it had previously been a U.S. National Monument since 1936. It is named for the Joshua tree forests native to the park. It covers a land area of 790,636 acres an area slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island. Joshua Tree National Park California

Mt Rainier National Park Washington

Mount Rainier National Park is a United States National Park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington State. It was one of the US's earliest National Parks, having been established on March 2, 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. The park contains 368 square miles including all of Mount Rainier, a 14,410-foot stratovolcano. The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land with elevations in the park ranging from 1,600 feet to over 14,000 feet. Scenic view Mt Rainier National Park

Saguaro National Park

The park is divided into two sections, called districts, lying approximately 20 miles 32 km east and 24 km west of the center of the city of Tucson, Arizona. The total area in 2010 was 91,440 acres of which 70,905 acres are designated wilderness. There is a visitor center in each of the two districts. Both are easily reached by car from Tucson, but there is no public transport into the park. Both districts conserve fine tracts of the Sonoran Desert, including ranges of significant hills, the Tucson Mountains in the west and the Rincon Mountains in the east. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Spring Bloom Death Valley California

Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California, situated within the Mojave Desert; it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Bad water, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below sea level. This point is only 136.2 km ESE of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet. Death Valley holds the record for the highest reliably reported temperature in the Western hemisphere, 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, just short of the world record, 136 °F (57.8 °C) in ' Aziziya, Libya, on September 13, 1922. However, the record high still remains the hottest July temperature ever recorded. Cactu

Hoh Rain Forest

The Hoh Rainforest is located on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington State, USA. It is one of the few temperate rainforests in the U.S., and also one of the largest. Within Olympic National Park, the forest is protected from commercial exploitation. This includes 24 miles of low elevation forest along the Hoh River. The Hoh River valley was formed thousands of years ago by glaciers. Between the park boundary and the Pacific Ocean, 48 km of river, nearly all of the forest has been logged within the last century. Hoh Rain Forest

The Precolombian Pyramids of Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Apart from the pyramidal structures, Teotihuacan is also known for its large residential complexes, the Avenue of the Dead, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals. Additionally, Teotihuacan produced a thin orange pottery style that spread through Mesoamerica. Avenue of the Dead

Henderson Island

Henderson Island, which lies in the eastern South Pacific, is one of the few atolls in the world whose ecology has been practically untouched by a human presence. Its isolated location provides the ideal context for studying the dynamics of insular evolution and natural selection. It is particularly notable for the 10 plants and four land birds that are endemic to the island. Henderson Island

Mesa Verde National Park

A great concentration of ancestral Pueblo Indian dwellings, built from the 6th to the 12th century, can be found on the Mesa Verde plateau in south-west Colorado at an altitude of more than 2,600 m. Some 4,400 sites have been recorded, including villages built on the Mesa top. There are also imposing cliff dwellings, built of stone and comprising more than 100 rooms. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

The 56,259 ha biosphere lies within rugged forested mountains about 100 km northwest of Mexico City. Every autumn, millions, perhaps a billion, butterflies from wide areas of North America return to the site and cluster on small areas of the forest reserve, colouring its trees orange and literally bending their branches under their collective weight. In the spring, these butterflies begin an 8 month migration that takes them all the way to Eastern Canada and back, during which time four successive generations are born and die. How they find their way back to their overwintering site remains a mystery. Monarch Butterfly

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is an outstanding, well-preserved example of 17th- and 18th-century military architecture in a Caribbean context. Designed by the British and built by African slave labour, the fortress is testimony to European colonial expansion, the African slave trade and the emergence of new societies in the Caribbean. Brimstone Hill is an outstanding British fortress, built by slave labour to exact standards during a peak period of European colonial expansion in the Caribbean. Criterion (iv): Because of its strategic layout and construction, Brimstone Hill Fortress is an exceptional and well preserved example of 17th and 18th century British military architecture. Brimstone Hill Fortress

Dinosaur Provincial Park

In addition to its particularly beautiful scenery, Dinosaur Provincial Park – located at the heart of the province of Alberta's badlands – contains some of the most important fossil discoveries ever made from the 'Age of Reptiles', in particular about 35 species of dinosaur, dating back some 75 million years. Dinosaur  Bones at Dinosaur Provincial Park

Igloo

An igloo Inuktitut or snow house is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit. Although igloos are usually associated with all Inuit, they were predominantly constructed by people of Canada's Central Arctic and Greenland's Thule area. Other Inuit people tended to use snow to insulate their houses, which were constructed from whalebone and hides. Snow is used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone. Igloo Snow House

CN Tower

The CN Tower is a communications and observation tower in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Standing 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) tall, it was completed in 1976, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure and world's tallest tower. CN Tower

Zion National Park

Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. A prominent feature of the 229 square miles (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Zion National Park