Does the Mississippi River flow southeast or southwest?

Answer 1

From its source at Lake Itasca, 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park located in Clearwater County, Minnesota, the river falls to 801 feet (244 m) prior to St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. There it drops to 725 feet (220 m), creating the only waterfall along the river's course. The Mississippi is joined by the Minnesota River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Wisconsin River in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the Illinois River and the Missouri River near St. Louis, Missouri, and by the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. The Arkansas River joins the Mississippi in the state of Arkansas. The Atchafalaya River in Louisiana is a major distributary of the Mississippi.

The Mississippi drains most of the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains, except for the areas drained by Hudson Bay via the Red River of the North, the Great Lakes and the Rio Grande. It runs through two states — Minnesota and Louisiana — and was used to define the borders of eight states. The river has since shifted, but the state borders of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi have not changed. The river empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary, but the EPA's number is 2,320 miles (3,733 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is about 90 days.


Confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at Cairo, Illinois.The river is divided into the upper Mississippi, from its source south to the Ohio River, and the lower Mississippi, from the Ohio to its mouth near New Orleans. The upper Mississippi is further divided into three sections: the headwaters, from the source to Saint Anthony Falls; a series of man-made lakes between Minneapolis and St. Louis, Missouri; and the middle Mississippi, a relatively free-flowing river downstream of the confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis.

A series of 29 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi, most of which were built in the 1930s, is designed primarily to maintain a 9 foot (2.7 m) deep channel for commercial barge traffic. The lakes formed are also used for recreational boating and fishing. The dams make the river deeper and wider but do not stop it. No flood control is intended. During periods of high flow, the gates, some of which are submersible, are completely opened and the dams simply cease to function. Below St. Louis, the Mississippi is relatively free-flowing, although it is constrained by numerous levees and directed by numerous wing dams.

Through a natural process known as delta switching the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the ocean every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributary diminishes in volume and forms what are known as bayous. This process has, over the past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (25 to 80 km).

U.S. government scientists determined in the 1950s that the Mississippi River was starting to switch to the Atchafalaya River channel because of its much steeper path to the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually the Atchafalaya River would capture the Mississippi River and become its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico, leaving New Orleans on a side channel. As a result, the U.S. Congress authorized a project called the Old River Control Structure, which has prevented the Mississippi River from leaving its current channel that drains into the Gulf via New Orleans. Because of the large scale of high energy water flow through the Old River Control Structure threatening to damage the structure, an auxiliary flow control station was built adjacent to the standing control station. This US$300 million project was completed in 1986 by the Army Corps Of Engineers.


The Great River Road in Wisconsin; Minnesota is in the land mass across the Mississippi River at Lake Pepin
[edit] Course changes
The Illinoian Glacier, about 200,000 to 125,000 years before present, blocked the Mississippi near Rock Island, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west (current western border of Illinois). The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin. South of Hennepin, the current Illinois River is actually following the ancient channel of the Mississippi River to Alton before the Illinoian glaciation.

Other changes in the course of the river have occurred because of earthquakes along the New Madrid Fault Zone, which lies between the cities of Memphis and St. Louis. Three earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, estimated at approximately 8 on the Richter Scale, were said to have temporarily reversed the course of the Mississippi.

The settlement of Reverie, Tennessee was cut off from Tipton County, Tennessee during the 1811 and 1812 earthquakes and placed on the western side of the Mississippi River, the Arkansas side.

These earthquakes also created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. The faulting is related to an aulacogen (geologic term for a failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico.

Answer 2

Both. If you look at a map, you will see that the upper Mississippi travels mostly south-east, but there is a portion that travels south-west. The lower Mississippi travels mostly south-west except for the most southern portion with travels mostly south-east.

Answer 3

South-East

Answer 4

I really like River! I think it's cute. I like River Dean the best of your boyfriend's combos. Also, personally, I would only use River as a first name and not a middle name. When it's used as a middle name it kind of sounds like you named your kid after a river.

Answer 5

Since it is a meandering river, I would imagine that would depend on which part of it you were looking at.

Answer 6

southeast, i do believe.