 You are clear for launch, and with that, shut down your visors, O2 on, and prepare for ignition to O2. Copy that, and um... Hey, it's Mr. Ruchoff again. Alright, so far we've gone over the essentials of geography, we've covered the elements of physical geography, and we have examined how human geography helps explain the world around us. This lesson begins our first unit, in which we're going to use all of what we've learned so far, and start applying it to the ground. In each of these regional geography units, we're going to begin by looking at the landforms and the waterways that we find in each one of these regions. Now these are important as they will help explain the factors that help shape settlements, and the economic development of each one of these regions. In our first regional unit, we're going to start right at home with the United States and Canada, and I know what you're thinking, what about Mexico? Yes, Mexico is part of North America, along with the United States and Canada, but we're going to look at Mexico when we study Latin America, because the Mexican story is much closer aligned with the Spanish experience in Central and South America. So let's look at the United States and Canada, and first we need to orient ourselves. Now you should already know that the United States and Canada is found in the Northern and the Western Hemispheres, and we're also bounded by four major bodies of water. The Atlantic Ocean is off the East Coast, the Pacific is off the West Coast, to the North is the Arctic Ocean, and then down to the South we have the Gulf of Mexico. Now where we're going to begin our story is off the East Coast of the continent, and then we're going to travel west, explaining each land form and waterway as we go. And when we move from the Atlantic Ocean, we first find the Atlantic Coastal Plain, or along the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Coastal Plain. This area is generally wet with many smaller rivers, marshes, and swamp land, a lot of swamp land, which means that this area really hasn't really been great for good agriculture. Now as we move further inland from the Atlantic Coastal Plain, we run into our first mountain range, the Appalachians, which starts all the way down south in Alabama, and stretches all the way up to the northeast portions of Canada. Now created through convergent folding some 480 million years ago, these are old mountains. And through all the weathering and erosion that has occurred over these last 480 years, they've been worn down to an average of just about 300 feet in elevation. They're really not that very tall. Now despite not being very tall, they did actually form as an obstacle for settlers as they were moving to the west. Now between the Coastal Plain and the Appalachians, we find what is known as the Piedmont, which literally is the foothills of the Appalachians. The Piedmont is a low rolling plateau with several rivers that cut through it that have made the region a fertile agricultural area. It is in the Piedmont that cotton was plentiful in the southern portions of the Piedmont, and the northern Piedmont tobacco and fruit was raised very abundantly. Now as the waters out of the Appalachians flow through the Piedmont, there will be waterfalls where the water will plunge to lower elevations. The imaginary lines that connects these waterfalls of these rivers is called the fall line. Now since waterfalls prevented ships from moving any further in short, farmers would take their goods to the waterfalls in order to load them onto ships. This led to towns and then cities being formed near these waterfalls. Today some of the major southern American cities can be found upon this fall line. Now west of the Appalachians we find the Interior Plains, which are also known as the Interior Lowlands. This plain of rolling hills extends from Texas all the way up to Northern Canada. Now to the south of the Interior Plains we find the Interior Highlands. These are ancient mountains that were used to be part of the Appalachians and Texas's Marathon Mountains. Today these highlands are known as the Ozarks in Missouri or the Washitas in Arkansas. Now in Canada the Interior Plains become the Canadian Shield. This large rock plateau covers the eastern half of Canada and contains some of the oldest rock to be found in the world dating all the way back 2 billion years. It is in this ancient rock that we can find some of the oldest evidence of early life on earth. Now the Canadian Shield wraps around the southern half of what is known as Hudson Bay. Named by Sir Henry Hudson who discovered it in 1610, Hudson Bay was key to early Canadian development as the British found that the bay allows for access to the rich fur resources of the Canadian Northwest. Now as we move from Hudson Bay down to the south along the border between the United States and Canada we find the Great Lakes which are great indeed. These five lakes Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan and Lake Erie contain nearly 20% of all the fresh surface water in the world. Now let me put this another way. If you took all the water that's in the Great Lakes and just dumped it on the lower 48 American states it would cover the states with 9 and a half feet of water. That's a lot of water. Now beyond the amount of water what is important about the Great Lakes is they are all connected to each other. You can sail a ship from one lake to another lake except for well actually Lake Ontario. Now Lake Ontario is actually connected by water to Lake Erie however between the two lakes Lake Ontario and Lake Erie lies Niagara Falls. These waterfalls have over 3,100 tons of water flows over those falls every second making it well pretty much impossible to sail over. Well impossible at least to sail twice over. You could go over once but you're not going to like the impact. Now to solve this problem with Niagara Falls in 1829 the Willand Canal who has finished that bypass to falls and gave ships a safe way to pass from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie and thus to the rest of the Great Lakes. Now this became what is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Now the St. Lawrence River opens up into the Atlantic within the Canadian province of Quebec and flows all the way to Lake Ontario. This means that a ship from anywhere in the world can enter the St. Lawrence River flow through Lake Ontario go through the Willand Canal to Lake Erie and then go into the interior of the North American continent. It should be no wonder that Canada's largest cities are found along the St. Lawrence Seaway. Now the American answer to the St. Lawrence Seaway was the Erie Canal and the Hudson River. Entering the Atlantic at New York City the Hudson River flows north into the state. In 1821 the Erie Canal was completed that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Now the Americans had their own Seaway from the Atlantic that could be able to go through all the Great Lakes all the way west as far as Duluth, Minnesota. This vital Seaway is one of the reasons why nearly all of New York's largest cities to include New York City was developed along this trade route that opened up due to the Hudson River in the Erie Canal. Now another incredible waterway is the Mississippi River. Now forming the Mississippi River Delta that is in the Gulf of Mexico the Mississippi River flows generally straight north all the way up to Minnesota. The Mississippi River is the central river of the Mississippi River basin which pretty much drains all the area between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. Now the Mississippi River provides ship travel into the heartland of the continent and when the Illinois and Michigan canal was opened up the Mississippi River was able to go through the canal into the Great Lakes as well. Now there are two major tributaries that flow into the Mississippi River the Ohio that runs from the east and the Missouri that flows in from the west. Now some of the largest American cities were founded on these river shores. While it is not nearly as large as the Mississippi River the Rio Grande River also plays a significant role to play. First it forms the natural boundary between the United States and Canada. It also has deposited lots of fertile alluvial soil. So just like the Mississippi River the Rio Grande has made the area around it a important agricultural area. Now as we move a little bit further west in the center of the continent flowing from Texas all the way up to Canada we find the Great Plains. This is a broad flat and fertile area that was once known as the Great American Desert because this area receives less than 20 inches of rain each year. However this step is one of the world's most important agriculture areas. As 80% of the land area of the Great Plains is actually used for agriculture this area is known as the nation's bread basket. Over 50% of the nation's wheat comes from this region as does a significant portion of the country sorghum, barley, cotton, and corn. As the Great Plains go into Canada it goes into what is known as the prairie provinces. These actually serve as Canada's own bread basket growing half of Canada's food. However these provinces also provide Canada with over half its minerals and natural resources to include a great deal of oil. Now west of the Great Plains we find the majestic Rocky Mountains. Now these are far younger than the Appalachians and they haven't been eroded as much. Therefore the Rockies are not only the longest but they're the tallest mountain range in North America and with peaks as high as 20,000 feet. Now the Rockies stretch from New Mexico and the United States all the way up into Canada and Alaska and it is in Alaska we find North America's tallest peak, Mount Denali towering at 20,310 feet. Now along the crests of the Rockies is where we find the continental divide. This line divides the watershed of the North American Condit. Any rain that falls in the west of this line will flow into the Pacific Ocean and any water that falls on the east of this line will flow into either the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean. Now along the west coast of North America we find what is known as the Pacific Mountain System. The Pacific Mountain System is North America's part of the Ring of Fire. No, no, no, no, no. Not that Ring of Fire. This Ring of Fire. Remember, the Ring of Fire is the subduction zone that surrounds the Pacific Ocean is where we find 90% of all the world's earthquakes and 75% of the world's volcanoes. The Pacific Mountain System is actually made up of several other mountain ranges that include the Alaska Range which is actually part of the Rockies but we also have the Coast Range that stretches down the coast from Alaska all the way down to California. Now while the Coast Range is along the Pacific Ocean as we go inland we find the Cascades in Washington and Oregon. The Cascade Range is home of major volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens that erupted in 1980 and had several smaller eruptions between 2004 and 2008. Now if we go down to California there is the Sierra Nevada which includes Mount Shasta which is another volcanic mountain. Now it is in between the mountain ranges of the Pacific Mountain System that we can see the range shuttle effect at work. This map shows the precipitation averages for the Pacific Northwest. Now you're going to see that there are two strips of areas where there is a great amount of rain and just to the east of these then you can see that the climate is much drier. These areas of increased rainfall lines up with the windward sides of the coast and Cascade Mountains which block rain for reaching further into the east. This is the perfect example of the range shuttle effect. Now another such example is the Great Basin which sits between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. Now blocked by these mountains to the east and to the west the Great Basin is an arid area that includes Death Valley. Death Valley is not only the lowest part in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level this dry spot is also the hottest place in North America once registering a temperature of 134 degrees and trust me that's hot. Now the Great Basin is also home to the Great Salt Lake. This lake is the last remaining part of a prehistoric lake once known as Lake Monteville which once covered what was today western Utah. Though today it is one of the top 10 most saltiest lakes in the world. Now to give you an idea how salty it is our oceans average about 3.5% salt. The Great Salt Lake however measures up to 27% salt. The reason it's so salty is that water flows into it from the Rockies and Sierra Nevada but water has no error else to go it just sits there. So as the lake water evaporates the minerals including salt that wash down from the mountains settles increasing the salinity of the lake. Okay so we have crossed our continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific and we identified the major mountains the plateaus and the rivers that have shaped our lives in the United States and Canada. In our next lesson we'll take a look at the climate of the United States and Canada and some of the types of extreme weather that we find here. But until then keep on learning.