Panama Canal

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Context: 

US President-elect Donald Trump has hinted that his administration might attempt to regain control of the Panama Canal, describing its transfer to Panama as a “foolish” decision by the United States.

About Panama Canal

A man-made waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama.

It is owned and operated by Panama, and has a coastline of 40 miles. Built by the United States and completed in August 1914 and is one of the two most strategic artificial waterways in the world, along with the Suez Canal.

• From its opening in 1914 until 1979, the Panama Canal was largely controlled by the United States, which built it.
• However, in 1979, control of the canal was transferred to the Panama Canal Commission, a joint agency of the United States and the Republic of Panama, with full control transferred to Panama at noon on December 31, 1999.

It is a complex and highly technological system that uses a system of locks and elevators to transport ships from one end to the other.

This is because the two seas that connect the Panama Canal are not at the same height, with the Pacific Ocean being slightly higher than the Atlantic Ocean.

This difference means that for a ship to cross the Pacific Ocean and enter the canal, it must reach a higher elevation on its way to the Pacific Ocean. This is accomplished by using a system of locks that raise and lower ships to the desired sea level at one end of the canal.

In other words, the locks can be flooded (to raise the height) or lowered (to lower the height) and act as a water elevator. The system consists of three sets of locks (12 locks in total), served by lakes and rivers.

Source:

INDIAN EXPRESS

 Denali Fault

Context:  

New research shows that three sites spread along an approximately 620-mile portion of today's Denali Fault were once a smaller united geologic feature indicative of the final joining of two land masses. 

Key Findings on the Denali Fault

Geological Significance: The Denali Mountains in southern Alaska are an important geological feature.
Tectonic Movement: Over millions of years, horizontal movements along the line caused a displacement of 483 kilometers, leading to the separation of this unified feature.

Geological History Update: Results indicate that three regions—the Clearwater Mountains in southern Alaska, the Kron Lake region in southwestern Canada's Yukon Territory, and the Coast Mountains near Juneau—form a terminal crustal region.

• Terminal shear zones represent the eventual convergence of tectonic plates or fragments of Earth's crust into larger pieces.

Wrangellia Complex: Research on the Denali Fault indicates that the Wrangellia Complex is one of the places where oceanic plates expanded along the west coast of North America 72 million to 56 million years ago, far from their current location.

Reverse metamorphism: Research focuses on reverse metamorphism, where rocks formed under high temperatures and pressures sit atop rocks formed under lower conditions, a common regional metamorphism.

• This phenomenon reflects the complexity of geological structures and helps to understand the deformation of the earth's crust and the formation of mountain ranges.

What is a Fault?

A fault is a fracture or zone of fractures between two blocks of rock. Faults allow the blocks to move relative to each other. This movement may occur rapidly, in the form of an earthquake - or may occur slowly, in the form of creep. Faults may range in length from a few millimeters to thousands of kilometers.

Source:

Phys.org