Open wide

  So, I live in the Pacific Northwest. You know what we have a lot of? Rain. Averaging about 35 inches a year in the Portland area alone, you can buildup quite the water surplus. In fact, you could generally say we are over budget. But floods in my area are not that big of a concern. We've tempered natures fury with dams and now direct that wrath to our advantage. 

  Still, there is a lot of water falling from the sky. The entire basin is a little over a quarter million square miles. That's somewhere between the size of Texas and France. More than twice as big as New Mexico or Poland. That is an awfully big net to catch all of that precipitation. Or, a better way of describing it would be to say a funnel. And boy does it pour out. For each square mile that makes up this basin, more than a cubic foot of water enters the ocean per second. The water comes pounding out of the river with such velocity that the mouth is not really the end of its power. 

  The mouth of the Columbia has been compared to a high pressure spout, literally pummeling the ocean with its waters because it lacks a delta, like the Mississippi or the Nile. Well, the Columbia does have a delta where it slows and deposits all the sediments its tributaries have eroded out of the hills. The problem is that it starts ten miles off shore and more than two hundred feet below water. The Astoria Canyon, a submarine fissure that has been, and continues to be, carved by the mighty river's current, is that mechanism. During the ice age, when the ocean levels are much lower, frozen in the polar caps, the Columbia poured directly into the canyon, but as the Earth warms, and seas rise, the river is separated further from its true end. The canyon itself is over seventy miles long and about one and a third miles deep. Although its true grandeur is hidden by ocean waves, the Astoria Canyon is much deeper than the Grand Canyon. As the Columbia's waters peter out, the sediments settle upon the Astoria Fan, the river's proper delta.

  Back at the mouth, it is not all sunshine and lollipops. As I said, the current generated by the river is incredibly strong. Ships attempting to navigate this area are taking their lives into their hands. While a lot of the Pacific Northwest coast line has earned the nickname "Graveyard of the Pacific", no other location has garnered more laurels. Not only do you have to consider the river's current and the notoriously stormy seas, but ships captains also have to contend with the Columbia Bar. Renown as some of the roughest seas in the world, those that earn their stripes for the Coast Guard here are certified for rescue anywhere. More than two thousand ships have fallen victim to this area, in a time period of two hundred and twenty years. That's averaging about one ship wreck every 40 days. Noah could relate.

  We're not quite done talking about the mouth of the Columbia just yet. Next time, I'll discuss famous and not so famous travels in the region.

Happy hunting,

Brett

 PS. I'd like to thank the NOAA and their 2001 Lewis and Clark Legacy expedition for providing a wealth of knowledge on the Astoria Canyon.