Progress‐report of the National Research Council Interdivisional Committee on Density‐Currents

Abstract

During the past year the Committee has concentrated its efforts on securing evidence as to the occurrence of silt‐laden currents of water at the bottom, of Elephant Butte Reservoir and of Lake Mead. As reported last year in these Transactions, programs of cooperative field‐observations and laboratory‐studies in which a number of bureaus of the Federal Government were to participate were prepared at a meeting of the Committee in June 1937. These programs were carried out in somewhat modified form through the cooperative efforts of the United States Geological Survey, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the Division of Western Irrigation Agriculture of the United States Bureau of Plant Industry, the United States Bureau of Fisheries, the International Boundary Commission, and the National Bureau of Standards. The United States weather Bureau office at Albuquerque also contributed by furnishing warnings of flood‐flows on the Rio Puerco, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California assisted by analyzing samples of water from Lake Mead. The present progress‐report is not complete, since information as to some parts of the program carried out will not be available until the next meeting of the Committee, presumably in June, 1938. However, sufficient interesting data are available, particularly from Lake Mead, to warrant presenting it at this time.