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The canal is threatened by low water levels during droughts. The Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage, the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Channel. Its ...
A plan and side view of a generic, empty canal lock. A lock chamber separated from the rest of the canal by an upper pair and a lower pair of mitre gates.The gates in each pair close against each other at an 18° angle to approximate an arch against the water pressure on the "upstream" side of the gates when the water level on the "downstream" side is lower.
Madden Dam, completed in 1935, impounds the Chagres River in Panama to form Lake Alajuela, a reservoir that is an essential part of the Panama Canal watershed. The lake has a maximum level of 250 feet (76 m) above sea level. It can store one third of the canal's annual water requirements for the operation of the locks.
The Panama Canal's water levels have not recovered enough as the end of the rainy season approaches and limits on daily transit and vessel draft will stay in place for the rest of the year and ...
The caisson lock is a type of canal lock in which a narrowboat is floated into a sealed watertight box and raised or lowered between two different canal water levels. It was invented in the late 18th century as a solution to the problem posed by the excessive demand for water when conventional locks were used to raise and lower canal boats ...
Unlike the Suez Canal, which does not have locks, the Panama Canal relies on fresh water to operate three sets of locks that allow ships to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through a ...
Gatun Lake (Spanish: Lago Gatún) is a freshwater artificial lake to the south of Colón, Panama. At approximately 26 m (85 ft) above sea level, it forms a major part of the Panama Canal, carrying ships 33 km (21 mi) of their transit across the Isthmus of Panama. It was created June 27, 1913 when the gates of the spillway at Gatun Dam were ...
A ship is guided through the Panama Canal's Miraflores locks near Panama City on April 24, 2023. (Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images)