An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 m. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth âs surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest and least explored regions on Earth.
Jim Beckwourth. On this day in 1844, Jim Beckwourth discovered a path through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that now bear his name. Beckwourth Pass on U.S. Alt 40 between Reno, Nevada and Sacramento, California made overland travel to the gold fields of California. Tweet.
Ten years earlier, California bound '49ers had turned either north (Oregon Trail) or south (Santa Fe Trail) to avoid the high barriers of the Colorado Rockies. The Smoky Hill Trail was virtually unused for that western migration. With the discovery of gold east of the Rockies, cutoff routes were made to Denver from both the Oregon and the Santa Fe Trails, but the main flow of the '59 gold rush was over the most direct route, the Smoky Hill Trail.