Horseshoe Bend - Colorado River - USA

Crystal Clear Swiss River Verzasca

 The Verzasca River, in Switzerland, is known all over the world for its clear, turquoise waters, but until now its beauty had only been captured from the surface. Photographer Claudio Gazzaroli decided to change that, so he put on a diving suit, took his waterproof camera and dived onto the riverbed to take some truly mind-blowing photos.

 

The 30-km-long Verzasca mountain river originates at Pizzo Barone and flows into Lake Maggiore, in Italy. The river valley is located in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland and is a popular tourist destination. People come from all around the globe to see the turquoise waters of Verzasca, do scuba-diving and admire its vibrant colored rocks. Most of them prefer to take photos of Verzasca from the mountains that surround it or from the many bridges built over it. But photographer Claudio Gazzaroli wanted to offer a different perspective on this unique wonder of nature. He dived town 50 feet to the bottom of Verzasca and managed to capture the almost unearthly clarity of its waters. ‘I wanted to show the beauty of this place in a new way,’ Gazzaroli said. Looking at his work, one wonders why wee need software like Photoshop when Mother Nature seems to do thing better herself.

DANUBE RIVER - EUROPE

The Great Mara River Crossing

The Mara River flows through Kenya and Tanzania in the continent of Africa, intersecting the migration path of wildebeest and other animals in the Serengeti-Masai Mara game reserves. Over two million animals consisting of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle migrate from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya during July through to October. This movement of hundreds of thousands of animals, often dubbed the Great Migration, is one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world. During their journey they have to cross the perilous Mara River that lies right across their route. The Mara River crossing is considered to be the biggest and the most dramatic of all wildlife crossings, and has been the center of many documentaries.

The migration takes place within the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem. Strictly speaking, there is neither start nor finish as the animals circle the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem in their endless search for food and water. They spend months trekking Serengeti-Masai Plains until they reach the Mara River.

Wildebeest arrive at the Mara River in their tens of thousands, and gather waiting to cross. For days they wait for their brothers to arrive and the numbers keep building up. Eventually the wildebeest choose a crossing point. Usually the chosen point is a fairly placid stretch of water without too much predator-concealing vegetation in the far side, although occasionally they choose seemingly suicidal places and drown in their hundreds.

Three rivers merging

MOUNTAIN AND RIVER

Splendid Beauty of Rivers !

When Rivers Collide: 10 Incredible Confluences Around the World

In geography, a confluence is the meeting of two or more bodies of water. Known also as a conflux, it refers either to the point where a tributary joins a larger river, called the main stem, or where two streams meet to become the source of a river of a new name, such as the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania creating the Ohio River.

The term is also used to describe the meeting of tidal or other non-riverine bodies of water, such as two canals or a canal and a lake. Below is a collection of 10 incredible confluences around the world. For more, there is a fascinating list of notable confluences on Wikipedia that I recommend you check out.

The confluences below were selected for their dramatic visual contrast. Thus, culturally significant confluences such as the Sangam near Allahabad, India, where the sacred rivers Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati meet to create one of the holiest places in Hinduism, were not included for this reason. Please enjoy the list below and let us know of any other interesting confluences you are aware of. Perhaps we can do a follow-up post if there is interest!

1. Confluence of the Rhone and Arve Rivers in Geneva, Switzerland

In this incredible photograph we see the confluence of the Rhone and Arve rivers in Geneva, Switzerland. The river on the left is the Rhone, which is just exiting Lake Lehman. The river on the right is the Arve, which receives water from the many glaciers of the Chamonix valley (mainly the Mer de Glace) before flowing north-west into the Rhone on the west side of Geneva, where its much higher level of silt brings forth a striking contrast between the two rivers. 

Three Gorges Dam on Yangtze River [China]

10 Longest Rivers Of The World

The length of a river can be very hard to calculate. There are many factors, such as the source, the identification or the definition of the mouth, and the scale of measurement of the river length between source and mouth, that determine the precise meaning of “river length”. As a result, the length measurements of many rivers are only approximations. In particular, there has long been disagreement as to whether the Nile or the Amazon is the world’s longest river. The Nile has traditionally been considered longer, but in recent years some Brazilian and Peruvian studies have suggested that the Amazon is longer by measuring the river plus the adjacent Pará estuary and the longest connecting tidal canal. For the purpose of determining maximum length a river’s “true source” is considered to be the source of whichever tributary is farthest from the mouth. This tributary may or may not have the same name as the main stem river. For example, the source of the Mississippi River is normally said to be Lake Itasca in the U.S. state of Minnesota, but the most distant source in the Mississippi system is that of the Jefferson River in the state of Montana, a tributary of the Missouri River which in turn is a tributary of the Mississippi. When the Mississippi is measured from mouth to this farthest source, it is called theMississippi-Missouri-Jefferson. Furthermore, it is sometimes hard to state exactly where a river begins, especially rivers that are formed by ephemeral streams, swamps, or changing lakes. In this article, length means the length of the longest continuous river channel in a given river system, regardless of name.

10. Amur – Argun

The Amur is the world’s tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East (Outer Manchuria) and Northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). It rises in the hills of western Manchuria at the confluence of its two major affluents, the Shilka River and the Ergune River, at an elevation of 303 metres (994 ft). It flows east forming the border between China and Russia, and slowly makes a great arc to the southeast for about 400 kilometers (250 mi), receiving many tributaries and passing many small towns. At Huma, it is joined by a major tributary, the Huma River. Afterwards it continues to flow south until between the cities of Blagoveschensk (Russia) and Heihe (China), it widens significantly as it is joined by the Zeya River, one of its most important tributaries.