2,436 articles
Yamato Basin
Yamato Basin, back-arc basin in the southeastern Sea of Japan (Japan Sea), one of three sub-basins with 12-16 km thick oceanic-type crust formed 16-21 Ma by back-arc extension behind the Japan arcs.
Yamdrok
Yamdrok (Yamdrok Yumtso, Yamdrok-tso) is a sacred closed inland lake on the southern Tibetan Plateau at 4,441 m, area 638 km2, with a 90 MW pumped-storage hydropower station; its level fell 5.1 m during 2000-2023.
Yamuna (यमुना)
Yamuna (यमुना), largest tributary of the Ganges, rises at Yamunotri Glacier, flows 1,376 km past Delhi to Prayagraj; sacred to Hindus and among the world's most polluted rivers.
Yana Bay
Yana Bay (Янский залив), a gulf of the Laptev Sea in the Sakha Republic, Russia, receives the 872 km Yana River and its ~10,200 km² delta; ice-covered about nine months a year, with thermal-abrasional permafrost coasts.
Yanbu (ينبع)
Yanbu (ينبع) is a Red Sea port city in Saudi Arabia's Madinah Region: historic pilgrim port for Madinah, planned industrial city under RCJY since 1975, and diving destination, population 258,777 (2022 census).
Yangtze
Yangtze (长江, Changjiang), Asia's longest and the world's third-longest river, 6,300 km from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea; home of the Three Gorges Dam, a 2021 ten-year fishing ban, and recovering fish biodiversity.
Yap Trench
Yap Trench (ヤップ海溝), western Pacific trench on the Philippine Sea Plate's southeastern boundary, where the Caroline Plate subducts; ~700 km long, up to 8,946 m deep, marked by Caroline Ridge collision, no active volcanism, and slow convergence.
Yarra River
The Yarra River (Birrarung, 'place of mists and shadows') is a 242 km Victorian river from Mt Baw Baw to Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne's drinking-water source, Wurundjeri country, and the city's founding waterway.
Yathkyed
Yathkyed Lake, called Hikuligjuaq in Inuktitut, is a large lake in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut, Canada, lying on the Kazan River with an area of 1,449 km².
Yde Girl
Yde Girl (Meisje van Yde), a Dutch bog body of a 16-year-old girl strangled with a woollen band, found 1897 near Yde, Drenthe; radiocarbon dated 40 BC–AD 50; held in the Drents Museum, Assen.
Yellow (landform)
Yellow (landform): the Yellow River (Huang He) system of northern China, a 5,400 km silt-laden river from the Tibetan Plateau to the Bohai Sea, cradle of Chinese civilization and China's most flood-prone landform.
Yellow River (黄河)
Yellow River (黄河, Huang He), China's second largest river and the world's most sediment-laden major river, draining the Loess Plateau to the Bohai Sea; peak sediment load 2.1 Gt/yr in 1958, 1,593 levee breaches historically, sediment now down ~90% since the 1980s.
Yellow Sea
The Yellow Sea (黄海, 황해) is a shallow semi-enclosed shelf sea between China and the Korean Peninsula, named for Yellow River sediment, macro-tidal, home to the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass, and warming under climate change.
Yellowstone River
The Yellowstone River is a 671-mile tributary of the Missouri River rising in Wyoming, flowing through Yellowstone National Park and Montana, and the longest undammed river in the Lower 48.
Yenisei
Yenisei (Енисей), Siberia's largest Arctic river, formed near Kyzyl by the Bolshoi and Malyi Yenisei; 4092 km long, 2,580,000 km² basin, 17,400 m³/s flow into the Kara Sea, heavily dammed.
Yenisey
Yenisey (Yenisei), Siberia's great north-flowing river, largest Arctic river by discharge (673 km3/yr), basin 2.58 million km2, heavily dammed, contaminated by plutonium plant at Zheleznogorsk.
Yenisey Gulf (Енисейский залив)
The Yenisey Gulf (Енисейский залив) is the long estuary through which the Yenisey River, the Arctic's largest freshwater source, enters the Kara Sea in northern Siberia.
Yermak Plateau
Yermak Plateau: submarine continental plateau north of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean's Eurasia Basin, 500–1000 m deep, bordering Fram Strait; conjugate to Morris Jesup Rise, with Cretaceous basalts and Atlantic Water inflow.
Yoldia Sea
Yoldia Sea: brackish Baltic Sea stage, 11.7–10.7 ka BP, between the Baltic Ice Lake and Ancylus Lake, connected to the ocean via the Närke Strait in central Sweden.
Yom
The Yom River (Thai: แม่น้ำยม, Maenam Yom) is a 735 km river in northern Thailand and a principal tributary of the Nan River, part of the Chao Phraya system.
Youghiogheny River
Youghiogheny River: north-flowing Monongahela tributary rising in West Virginia, crossing Maryland into Pennsylvania. 184-foot Youghiogheny Dam (1944) impounds Youghiogheny River Lake; known for Ohiopyle class III–IV whitewater and coal-mine drainage history.
Yukon Flats
Yukon Flats, Alaska: vast lowland wetland region at the Yukon, Porcupine, and Chandalar river confluence, mostly within Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge; 40,000 lakes, waterfowl breeding grounds, drying wetlands, and oil and gas exploration.
Yukon River
Yukon River (Gwich'in Yu-kun-ah, "great river"): 3,200 km river flowing from British Columbia through Yukon and Alaska to the Bering Sea; fourth-longest in North America, gold rush sternwheeler highway, now under Chinook salmon fishing moratorium to 2031.
Zambezi Delta (landform)
Zambezi Delta, Mozambique landform at the Zambezi River's Indian Ocean mouth; 230 km coastline, 18,000 km2 wetlands, Ramsar Marromeu site, buffalo and wattled cranes, altered by Kariba and Cahora Bassa dams.
Zambezi Floodplains
Zambezi Floodplains: seasonally inundated wetlands along the Zambezi River, chiefly the Barotse Floodplain (9,000 km2 Ramsar site) plus Kafue Flats, Chobe, and Mana Pools, sustaining Lozi society, fisheries, and a seasonal flood pulse now altered by Kariba and Cahora Bassa dams.
Zambezian Highveld
The Zambezian Highveld is a freshwater ecoregion, numbered 560 in the Freshwater Ecoregions of the World classification, covering Zimbabwe's interior plateaus above 600 m and draining to the Zambezi, Save, and Limpopo rivers.
Zambezian Lowveld
Zambezian Lowveld (FEOW ecoregion 576): southern African freshwater ecoregion of ~520,418 km2 on low-lying coastal rivers from south of the Zambezi Delta, where tropical Zambezian and temperate fish faunas overlap; 105 native fish species, status Vulnerable.
Zamzam Well (بئر زمزم)
Zamzam Well (بئر زمزم) is a 30.5 m hand-dug well in the Grand Mosque's Mataf, about 21 m east of the Kaaba, feeding the mineral-rich, alkaline Zamzam water, monitored by the Saudi Geological Survey and bottled under the King Abdullah project.
Zanclean flood
Zanclean flood (Zanclean megaflood), proposed catastrophic refilling of the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar about 5.33 million years ago, ending the Messinian salinity crisis; estimated 68–100 Sv discharge, 390 km erosion channel, debated evidence.
Zeravshan
Zeravshan (Зарафшон), also Zarafshan or Zerafshan, a Central Asian river rising in Tajikistan's Alai Range, watering Samarkand and Bukhara oases; formerly an Amu Darya tributary, it now ends near Gijduvon, its water fully used for irrigation.