Thursday, February 09, 2006

The Big Picture

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ooh
colors!












Wayne of the large and deeply fissured cortex, recently challenged bloggers to post their watersheds. This is my attempt.

The map above shows major watersheds of the state. We are very flat topographically speaking and our streams are mostly slow moving and in no particular hurry to lose their individuality by joining the ocean.

With little topographic relief, much of our water tends to hang around in the form of swamps and ponds where it gradually seeps into the ground rather than running off. Couple the flatness with sandy porous soil and you get a lot of seepage downward rather than overland flow.

In the map above, the Suwannee River Watershed is mine. I'm down in the southern portion of the watershed just above the Withlacoochee and Crystal River watersheds..

11 comments:

OldHorsetailSnake said...

Is that Suwannee River the same "Swannee River" sung about by Al Jolson?

amarkonmywall said...

Oh my! That's some watershed! Mine is small by comparison and I was just doing the lead up to that post (the preface is up in the morning) when I got your note. I like the maps zooming in, esp. your tall ladder aerial.
Are we going to get a little more at ground level- it's such a lovely river...
(p.s. I love the notion that I am such a good match maker. Hoss hops over here as fast as a tick on a dog these days. Did you know he's planning a trip to Wit's End- all the way from the home in Oregon? It's true...) I'll be back for more of life on and in the Suwannee if you post it. "Okeefenokee" always puts me in mind of Pogo. Perhaps you're too young.

Anonymous said...

This series of posts is facinating!Where did you find all this? My parents live in your watershed.

Anonymous said...

So there really is a place called Florida. I always thought it was something made up and used to frighten children.

Anonymous said...

That was so interesting! I didn't realize the Kissimmiee River waterways were so large.
We used to float down the Itchetucknee river on tubes when we lived in Gville. Soooo beautiful there.

Fisheating creek is always overflowing, spilling onto the main highways. Loxahatchee, I'm familiar with, that's redneck area for sure. LOL.

Off topic, but how are y'all handling the cold? They said on the weather it was 28 in Ocala this morning! brrrr.I sure miss my fireplace!!

R.Powers said...

Hoss,
Same river different spelling. Stephen Foster never even visited the river, he just needed a river name that worked on his song.

Vicki,
"We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us"...too young...bless you gal. I grew up with Pogo too.
There are many river posts to come. Hoss keeps me in stitches...in a good way, actually as of today I am stitch free, one month after the first BCC slice and dice. Cool.

Pablo,
Now, now,... Florida has evolved quite a bit from those days...OH NO! I used the word evolve...Sorry, I forgot you're from Kansas. I meant to say, Florida has been intelligently designed beyond those child scaring myths.
Touchet mon ami!

Laura,
If you dip into the summer archives, there's a post about a day on tubing the Ichnetucknee.
I've been to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge west of the gold coast glitter. Neat place.
It is deliciously cold and tomorrow promises a powerful storm and then rapidly dropping temps so I'm in weather heaven.

The MacBean Gene said...

"Deck us all with Boston Charlie"
You guys arn't the only youngsters around, ya' know!
We're at the source of our watershed. The only spot in Virginia that feeds into the Yadkin River.

R.Powers said...

Mac's a Pogo fan.

R.Powers said...

Sharon,
Thanks, and thanks for stopping in.

doubleknot said...

Oh rats, I was on my soap box about keeping the water sheds and how the state is at least trying to restore some of them when my comment disappeared.
My grandparents when they were young had an artisian well they let run all the time and even way back then there were people like their neighbor who told them they should cap it off when not using it - years later my grandmother said she wished she had listened.

R.Powers said...

Doubleknot,
I remember finding flowing wells out in the woods around St. Augustine as a kid. They had become little spring ecosystems of their own. There was even one out in the surf at Anastasia, my dad said it was in the dunes when he was a kid. That's how much the beach had changed.