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by: Edward A. Geary

Emery County is a dramatically varied region in east-central Utah, ranging in elevation from under 4,000 feet in the depths of Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River to well above 10,000 feet on the higher ridges of the Wasatch Plateau to the west. The central part of the county is dominated by the San Rafael Swell, a deeply eroded anticlinal uplift characterized by imposing buttes, rugged canyons, and great mural cliffs. Between the Wasatch Plateau and the San Rafael Swell lies Castle Valley, home to most of the county's agricultural and industrial development and population. The county's other developed area is in and around the community of Green River on the eastern border. (Read More...)

by: Dale R. Lightfoot

In southern Morocco, on the margins of the Sahara Desert, lies the Tafilalt oasis, a historically important caravan crossroads and trading center (Figure 1). Sijilmassa (A.D. 757-1393), the great city whose remains lie in the center of the Tafilalt (near the modern town of Rissani), was one of the earliest Islamic cities established in Morocco, and it played a crucial role in the gold trade from West Africa to the Islamic world during the medieval period. After the fall of Sijilmassa the Tafilalt continued in different form, ruled by the Alaouites who expanded the infrastructure through a large-scale irrigation network of dams and canals off the oueds (larger river channel)Ziz and Rheris (Lightfoot and Miller, 1996; Margat, 1959). Surface water for these canals is supplied by runoff from the Atlas Mountains, which increases during the mediterranean-like winter experienced in the mountains, wanes in early summer, and is generally absent until autumn rain and winter snow return. (Read More...)