Fluvial Landscapes surround the Caucuses Mountains and the city of Sochi. Figure 2, shows dissolved load, the water is clear but has sediments that are in it.This river has a regime of perennial flow, where it flows year round. Figure 1, the V-shaped valley is formed by fluvial erosion. These rivers can help people with water source, and are great for recreation, but they can also harm people in the are. Those who drink it can get sick from the chemicals and sediments carried through it.
Figure 1: the picture above carries bedload in a V-shaped valley.
Figure 2:The basic form of the river shown below is a riffle.
The glacier below is"like a conveyor belt"(Allen, Glacial Forms).The glacial retreat below is moving downhill.
This is an example of a glacial retreat where you can see the darker traces are proof of where more snow had covered the are.
This picture of the Caucasus Mountains above has a Arete erosional form. You can see the "knife like" peaks on the mountains that are separating the glaciers.
In the far back you can see that this has a bowl shaped region, or a cirques.
Why these mountains have these erosional forms is because loose rock is broken off so that the bedrock is visible (Allen, Glacial Forms).
Sochi is a beautiful place to visit and has many great things to see, but just like everywhere else in the world it's quirks. As you can see in the pictures below, there have been lightning phenomena. Figure one shows a forked lightning. It is a forked lightning when negative charges build up and split in both directions to form other rays of lightning. Figure two however, shows a forked lightning as well as a zigzag. Lighting is dangerous for people because it can cause fires, and destroy peoples' homes, and kill people.
Figure 1: Forked lighting with many offshoots in the skies of Sochi right above the black sea.
Figure 2: Forked lightning with a zigzag near it.
One of the most deadly and violent disasters this planet experiences are tornadoes. Besides the cool lightning types, there have been incidents of tornadoes in Sochi. Figure 3 below shows a tornado right above the Black Sea in Sochi. A tornado is caused by cold and hot air coming together, a big humidity difference, or a jet stream (Allen, notes). The tornado in the picture below touching the sea's surface, but does not hit ground as seen in video 1. This is called a waterspout. This has a major impact on people because if they do not take safety precautions they will die.
Figure 3: Tornado on the surface of the Black Sea in Sochi, Russia.
Video 1: Tornado on the Black Sea.The people in this video are not very smart for
standing in the sea and watching the tornado approach them. They should be running and hiding under a bridge or in a bathroom.
Sources:
Professor Allen's notes: http://fast.ucdenver.edu/case/1202/Climate/Weather/Weather.html
Pictures from :
http://www.sochi-travel.info/articles/category/multimedia/
Recently, Sochi has been a hotspot for a massive mud flow, a part of mass wasting. Mud flows or mass wasting occurs because of “steep slopes and excessive watering”. Slopes in the region eroded over time, thus causing the phenomena. As you can see in the video, the type of mass wasting taking place is an unsorted flow with some debris of wood and rocks.Which may have been the result of too much rain. This causes a great impact on the people living in the area because it can damage their house, and kill people who are not smart and are not aware of what is happening. Some try to beat the mudflow, but little do they know, it is coming down fast and strong.
The video is mostly in Russian, though the person recording is speaking English. Also sorry for the PG-13 language. But it is a great example of a mud/debris flow. Pay close attention to the dog that jumps in. He is lucky to get out.
The southwest part of Russia (Sochi) is rich in entisols and mollisol soil types. Entisols is a young soil and mollisols are “rich in organic matter”. Mollisols soil types are described as a calcification process. This means the region does not get enough precipitation, which categorizes it as an “arid region”.
The Caucasus Mountains. This shows the mollisol soil type that is found mostly in the southwest part of Russia.http://georgien.blogspot.com/2009/10/adventure-off-road-in-caucasus.html
The Caucasus Mountains have a rich geology in different types of rocks. These rocks include igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic dating from the "Precambrian to the Paleozoic times". These high peaked mountains have moraines; soil and rock that is formed from glacial debris. The Caucasus mountains also wide valleys making it such an exotic location. From what I understand the mountains were not formed from volcanic activity but rather from "tectonic plate collisions from the Arabian plates moving northward with respect to the Eurasian plates".Though the Caucasus Mountains may have been formed form tectonic plate collisions, there is evidence of igneous rock, which means there are traces of magma and volcanic activity.
The northern side of the Caucasus is mainly made of limestone. In the middle of these mountains there are beautiful caves. One of the well known caves is in Abkhazia, near Scohi, and is called “The New Athos Cave”. These caves are an outcome of "deposits and subsoil waters" that had washed the limestone from the mountains, thus producing the underground cave. As you can see in the picture below, “The New Athos Cave” has stone vaults that are fairly high, it also includes a waterfall, and is illuminated for the tourists. A beautiful place to visit.
A magnificent ski resort in the city of the future. The Krasnaya Polyana as seen below, is rich of nature and beauty. In the picture below, we can see evidenc of joint; or cracks in the mountains, also we can see biological organic acids such as mosses on the rocks.
Welcome! My name is Ustina Barsikyan, I am currently a sophomore studying finance at the University of Colorado at Denver.
This semester I will be researching the geographical components that make up the beauty of Sochi, Russia. Sochi's beautiful features are composed of the Black Sea in the south and the snow peaked Caucasus Mountains in the north.
Sochi, Russia
I chose this location because it is my hometown. I was born and raised in the city of Sochi where I recall the sweetest memories of the amazing landscapes that make up this beautiful city. Currently Sochi is preparing to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. The exotic features of the city made it a tough to beat candidate during the selection process.
During the course of the semester I will study the geography of this city and hope to gain knowledge of the different physical geographical aspects that make this city the "gateway to the future". I will do this by applying concepts that I learn in Geography 1202.
