Title: Upper Mississippi River - Wikipedia
Headings: Upper Mississippi River
Upper Mississippi River
Contents
History
Characteristics
Ecology
Navigation
Expansion proposals for locks
List of pools and locks
See also
References
External links

Content: Upper Mississippi River - Wikipedia
Upper Mississippi River
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For the wine region, see Upper Mississippi Valley AVA. Upper Mississippi River
The Upper Mississippi River near Harpers Ferry, Iowa
Location
Country
US, Canada
Physical characteristics

Source

• location
Lake Itasca, Minnesota
• coordinates
47°15′11″N 95°12′43″W ﻿ / ﻿
47.253°N 95.212°W
﻿ / 47.253; -95.212
• elevation
450 m (1,480 ft)

Mouth

• location
St. Louis, Missouri (flows into the Middle Mississippi)
Length
1,300 miles (2092.147 km)
Basin size
490,000 km 2 (190,000 sq mi)

Discharge

• average
5,796 m 3 /s (204,700 cu ft/s)

Barge going under the Mississippi River Bridge (La Crosse, Wisconsin)
The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, at the confluence of its main tributary, the Missouri River. Contents
1 History
2 Characteristics
3 Ecology
4 Navigation
5 Expansion proposals for locks
6 List of pools and locks
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
History
In terms of geologic and hydrographic history, the Upper Mississippi east and south of Fort Snelling is a portion of the now-extinct Glacial River Warren which carved the valley of the Minnesota River, permitting the immense Glacial Lake Agassiz to join the world's oceans at the Gulf of Mexico. The collapse of ice dams holding back Glacial Lake Duluth and Glacial Lake Grantsburg carved out the Dalles of the St. Croix River at Interstate Park. The Upper Mississippi River valley likely originated as an ice-marginal stream during the Pre-Illinoian Stage. The Driftless Area is a portion of North America left unglaciated at that ice age's height, hence not smoothed out or covered over by previous geological processes. Inasmuch as the Wisconsin glaciation formed lobes that met (and blocked) where the Mississippi now flows, and given that huge amounts of glacial meltwater were flowing into the Driftless Area, and that there is no lakebed, it is assumed that there were instances of ice dams bursting. Characteristics
The upper Mississippi River valley upstream from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
The Upper Mississippi from below St. Anthony Falls ( Minneapolis, Minnesota) downstream to St. Paul, Minnesota is a gorge with high limestone bluffs carved by the waterfall. Upstream of the waterfall the land slopes gently to rivers edge.