Free Republic

How could a ship come to rest on desert sands so far from salt water? One explanation holds that an exceptionally large tide from the Gulf of California may have collided with an exceptionally heavy runoff from the Colorado River at the delta, producing a flood which broke through the land barrier to the Salton Sea. The cresting waters could have carried a ship over the natural dam and down into the Salton Sea basin. The flood would have then retreated, leaving the vessel stranded.

Plans were announced today to dig a 245-mile long canal from the northern Gulf of California into southwestern Arizona to flood the region with sea water creating new economic opportunities and beach-front housing across thousands of square miles of mostly uninhabited desert. The City of Phoenix could become one of America’s busiest seaports under the plan.

Deep in the Gulf of California, scientists have discovered a fantastical expanse of hydrothermal vents, full of crystallized gases, glimmering pools of piping-hot fluids and rainbow-hued life-forms. Punctuating it all are towering structures made of minerals from the vents, looming as tall as 75 feet (23 meters). A decade ago, scientists visiting this spot saw nothing unusual; this psychedelic seascape seems to have built up around an increase in hydrothermal venting — spots in the seafloor where mineral-laden and superhot water jets out — in the last 10 years. "Astonishing is not strong enough of a word," said Mandy Joye,...

She wasn’t necessarily popping champagne Thursday, but conservationist Jennifer Pitt was certainly celebrating the arrival of water from the Colorado River into the Sea of Cortez. It was a monumental moment for conservationists, who said that water hasn’t flowed regularly from the Colorado River to the sea in more than 50 years. It temporarily reached the sea twice in the 1980s and last in 1993. […] The water reached the sea on Thursday afternoon. It traveled nearly 100 miles from a previously barren delta at the Morelos Dam just south of where California, Arizona and Mexico meet. It was a...

The USGS has registered three earthquakes, one at magnitude-6.9, the other a 6.2. The earthquakes struck in a sequence of less than a half hour apart.

M7.0 quake hits N. America An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 jolted North America at around 5:32 p.m. Wednesday Japan time, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The focus of the quake was some 30 kilometers under the seabed around the Gulf of California, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The quake may cause small tsunamis around its epicenter, but they will not bring about any damage, the agency said.