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On top, several vessels waiting at Gatun Lake to cross the locks. At the bottom is exit canal to the Atlantic Ocean (Caribbean Sea). At the left of the existing locks, the construction area for the new set of locks with water saving chambers part of the Panama Canal expansion project which opened for traffic in June 2016. [2
The Gatun Dam is an earthen dam across the Chagres River in Panama, near the town of Gatun.The dam, constructed between 1907 and 1913, is a crucial element of the Panama Canal; it impounds the artificial Gatun Lake, which carries ships 33 kilometres (21 mi) of their transit across the Isthmus of Panama.
Gatun (Spanish: Gatún) is a small town on the Atlantic Side of the Panama Canal, located south of the city of Colón at the point in which Gatun Lake meets the channel to the Caribbean Sea. The town is best known as the site of the Panama Canal's Gatun Locks and Gatun Dam, built by the United States between 1906–1914.
The cut forms part of the Panama Canal, linking Gatun Lake, and thereby the Atlantic Ocean, to the Gulf of Panama and hence the Pacific Ocean. It is 7.8 miles (12.6 km) from the Pedro Miguel lock on the Pacific side to the Chagres River arm of Lake Gatun, with a water level 85 feet (26 m) above sea level.
USS Missouri (Battleship #11) in Gatun Lake, Panama Canal, 1915. Created in 1913 by damming the Chagres River, Gatun Lake is a key part of the Panama Canal, providing the millions of litres of water necessary to operate its locks each time a ship passes through. [3] When constructed, Gatun Lake was the largest artificial lake in the world.
Panama Canal pilots were initially unprepared to handle the flight decks of aircraft carriers, which protrude beyond the hull on either side of the ship. When USS Saratoga made her first trip through the Gatun Locks in 1928, the ship knocked over all the concrete lamp posts along the canal. [86]
The Centennial Bridge is the second major road crossing of the Panama Canal, the first being the Bridge of the Americas. (Small service bridges are built in the lock structures at Miraflores and Gatún Locks, but these bridges are only usable when the lock gates are closed and have limited capacity.)
Miraflores is the name of one of the three locks that form part of the Panama Canal, and the name of the small lake that separates these locks from the Pedro Miguel Locks upstream. In the Miraflores locks, vessels are lifted (or lowered) 54 feet (16.5 m) in two stages, allowing them to transit to or from the Pacific Ocean port of Balboa in ...