Im sure people have come across the videos where ships passing through said canal or similar ones go through one or more “water lock”. Water levels between connected water bodies should be the same right? Why do they need to raise or lower the passing ships?
In: Planetary Science
They need to raise or lower the ships because the height of the water level between different sections of the canal – which don’t share a direct connection – isn’t the same. It was built this way because if all the water level was the same, you would need to dig the entire canal to sea level across the whole of panama, which wasn’t feasible. Instead some parts of the canal are at higher elevations and locks are used to access them
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