Energy Flow Systems

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constant movement of material in the river cuts and
shapes the river basin into the land. This movement is a slow and inefficient
use of energy. According to White, only two percent of water's potential energy
results in the work of erosion. The other ninety-eight percent of water's energy
was lost as water molecules rub against themselves, the river bed, and the river
banks. This energy was released as heat into the river.
Often the energy of flowing water was not recognized. There are
occasions when rivers do show their power is destructive ways. Power was
usually demonstrated through floods, and more so in flash floods. Thousands of
years ago, an ice dam in the Columbia River, holding the glacial lake Missoula,
broke and created the largest known freshwater flood in earth's history. The
flood rushed into the Columbia Channel and created the Grand Coulee and other
rock channels that would have taken the Mississippi River three hundred years at
full flood to ...

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breakers form barriers that
Alexander Ross and his crew had to cross.
Human energy challenged the energy of the river mouth in 1811. The
first attempt to cross the barrier was a failure. Ross's friend Fox and his
crew were lost while battling the waves of the seemingly unapproachable mouth of
the Columbia. Ross and his crew with will and muscle somehow survived the force
of the tide and current and made it across the river's mouth for the first time.
Ross's drama to enter the river was explained by White by using the
energy cycle. White explains that lunar energy causes the ocean tide and the
sun provides all of the remaining energy of the cycle. The sun heats the
atmosphere ...

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