New England Region:An Introduction

new-england-map-400New England is a geographical region situated in northeastern United States. The region comprises six states of the: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.]It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and south, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north, respectively. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the south.
Puritan Separatist Pilgrims from England first settled in the region in 1620, forming the Plymouth Colony, the first successful English settlement in the Americas. Ten years later, more Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquin allies in North America. In 1692, the town of Salem, Massachusetts and surrounding areas experienced one of the most infamous cases of mass hysteria in the history of the Western Hemisphere, the Salem witch trials.

In the late 18th century, political leaders from the New England Colonies known as the Sons of Liberty initiated the resistance to Britain’s efforts to impose new taxes without the consent of the colonists. The Boston Tea Party was a protest to which Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government, which were termed the “Intolerable Acts” by the colonists. The confrontation led to the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, and the expulsion of the British authorities from the region in spring 1776.
The region played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, and was the first region of the U.S. transformed by the Industrial Revolution, centered on the Blackstone and Merrimack river valleys.
The physical geography of New England is diverse for such a small area; southeastern New England is covered by a narrow coastal plain, while the western and northern regions are dominated by the rolling hills and worn-down peaks of the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains. With the Atlantic fall line lying so close to the coast, numerous industrial cities were able to take advantage of water power along the numerous rivers, such as the Connecticut River, which bisects the region from north to south.
Each state is principally subdivided into small incorporated municipalities known as towns, which are often governed by town meetings. The only unincorporated areas in the region exist in the sparsely populated northern regions of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The region is one of the U.S. Census Bureau’s nine regional divisions and the only multi-state region with clear, consistent boundaries. It maintains a strong sense of cultural identity although the terms of this identity are often contrasted, combining Puritanism with liberalism, agrarian life with industry, and isolation with immigration.
Eastern Algonquian peoples
The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages.Prominent tribes included the Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, Pequot, Mohegans, Narragansett Indians, Pocumtuck, and Wampanoag.Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine. Their principal town was Norridgewock in present-day Maine.
The Penobscot lived along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Narragansett and smaller tribes under Narragansett sovereignty lived in most of modern-day Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, including Block Island. The Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes in the Connecticut region. The Connecticut River Valley includes parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and linked different indigenous communities culturally, linguistically, and politically.
As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.

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Beware. Vardah is Coming

vardah-imdCyclone Vardah is  headed towards Chennai and the weather department has issued warning for a very heavy rainfall alert in three districts, Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur for the next two days.

Cyclones are huge revolving storms caused by winds blowing around a central area of low atmospheric pressure. In the northern hemisphere, cyclones are called hurricanes or typhoons and their winds blow in an anti-clockwise circle. In the southern hemisphere, these tropical storms are known as cyclones, whose winds blow in a clockwise circle.

Anticyclones are areas of high pressure that exhibit nearly circular isobars. If isobars are oblong or elongate with the highest pressure near the center we call them ridges. For high pressure areas, air descends toward the surface due to convergence aloft. As the air nears  the surface it is forced outward (divergence) from the center. The Coriolis effect bends the air to the right of its path creating a clockwise rotation around the high.

It is named Vardha according to a system of naming.

Vardah is the Arabic and Urdu word for ‘rose’, a name provided by Pakistan from list for cyclones in the Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal.In September 2004, an international panel on tropical cyclones decided that countries from the region would each put in names, which would be assigned to storms in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.

Eight countries — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Sri Lanka and Thailand – participated and came up with a list of 64 names.

In the event of a storm, the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre, New Delhi, selects a name from the list.

Read More Here.

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Photos: The pockets of the old Hong Kong that still exist within the modern, glitzy city — Quartz

Earlier this year photographer Andy Yeung wowed us with pictures of his hometown Hong Kong as seen from a drone buzzing over dizzying concrete canyons. Now, he’s released another series, “Remember Hong Kong,” this time inspired by the 1995 Japanese sci-fi anime flick Ghost in the Shell. Its setting was based on the noisy, chaotic…

via Photos: The pockets of the old Hong Kong that still exist within the modern, glitzy city — Quartz

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Alluvial Fans:Types and Formation

An alluvial fan is a triangle-shaped deposit of gravel, sand, and even smaller pieces of sediment, such as silt. This sediment is called alluvium.

Alluvial fans are usually created as flowing water interacts with mountains, hills, or the steep walls of canyons. Streams carrying alluvium can be trickles of rainwater, a fast-moving creek, a powerful river, or even runoff from agriculture or industry. As a stream flows down a hill, it picks up sand fanand other particles—alluvium.

The rushing water carries alluvium to a flat plain, where the stream leaves its channel to spread out. Alluvium is deposited as the stream fans out, creating the familiar triangle-shaped feature.

The narrow point of the alluvial fan is called its apex, while the wide triangle is the fan’s apron. Alluvial fans can be tiny, with an apron of just a few centimeters spreading out from the trickle of a drainpipe. They can also be enormous. Over time, water flowing down the Koshi River in Nepal, for example, has built up an alluvial fan more than 15,000 square kilometers (almost 5,800 square miles) wide. This “megafan” carries alluvium from the Himalaya Mountains.

Types of Alluvial Fans

Bajada

 A bajada is the convergence, or of many alluvial fans. Bajadas are common in dry climates, such as the canyons of the American Southwest. Bajadas can be narrow, from the flow of two or three streams of water, or they can be wide, where dozens of alluvial fans converge.

 Alluvial fans and bajadas are often found in deserts, where flash floods wash alluvium down from nearby hills. They can also be found in wetter climates, where streams are more common.

 Underwater Fans

Alluvial fans are even found underwater. An underwater fan is created as an underwater current deposits alluvium from a submarine hill or glacier.

 Formed Without Water

Sometimes, fans are formed without the aid of water. These are called colluvial fans. Colluvial fans are created by mass wasting. Mass Wasting is is  the downward movement of rock, soil, or other material. Alluvium is material transported by water, while colluvium is material transported by mass wasting. Landslides are an instance of mass wasting that often create colluvial fans.

 Debris Cone 

A debris cone is a type of alluvial fan with a steep slope, closer to the shape of a half-cone than a flat fan. Debris cones can be created by the slow accumulation of alluvium over many centuries. They can also form as boulders and other large materials gather during landslides, floods, or other instances of mass wasting.

  Alluvial fans can be very diverse habitats. Shrubs such as rabbitbrush and greasewood, or even trees such as ash or willow, are common in the area of alluvial fans. These plants have very deep roots, which can access the water that helped create the alluvial fan, but has now sunken far below it.

 Creating a settlement on an alluvial fan can be dangerous. Alluvial fans are prone to flooding. Rushing water, mud, and debris can threaten communities many kilometers away from the apex of the alluvial fan.

Extraterrestrial Alluvium

Alluvial fans exist on other planets. The presence of alluvial fans on Mars gives evidence for the existence of liquid water on the planet billions of years ago.

Source(s)

Wikipedia
national Geographic Society Site

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