Glen Canyon Dam
1
6.0
- proper noun
:
presa Glen Canyon
- Much of what we know about sites in the Grand Canyon is thanks to a series of large-scale excavations carried out in the 1960s, not long after the construction of Glen Canyon Dam upriver in 1963.
- Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell
- Glen Canyon Dam and Lake
Examples
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The Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1964, created the vast Lake Powell on the Colorado River.
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Glen Canyon Dam tamed a large stretch of the Colorado River for agriculture, power production, and flood prevention.
Academic text (2009) -
It gives one pause to stand on the brink of Glen Canyon Dam and look down at the Colorado River on one side and Lake Powell on the other.
Academic text (1993) -
A few miles below Glen Canyon Dam, the Charles H. Spencer lies near Lee's Ferry, a popular point for rafters to begin their run through the Grand Canyon.
Academic text (1993) -
And there's no time to lose: the river—its flow patterns changed since the 1960s by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam upstream—is busy eating away at the sites and artifacts buried along its banks.
Academic text (2009) -
The Glen Canyon Dam plays a crucial role in managing water flow for irrigation and power generation.
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Visitors to the Glen Canyon Dam can learn about its construction and impact on the surrounding environment.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'canyon' + 'dam' signals a dam associated with a canyon, and 'Glen' functions as a place-name modifier (even if the learner doesn't know 'Glen' as a lexical item). This place-name + feature pattern is cross-linguistically common and makes the referent (a dam at/for Glen Canyon) readily inferable by a B1 learner who knows 'canyon' and 'dam'.
Etymology
Glen Canyon Dam is named for Glen Canyon, the deep valley where the Colorado River runs; engineers built a large wall there to stop the river and fill what is now Lake Powell. So, the name points to the big dam that holds water in that canyon and helps make electricity.