Golden Spiral by Hannah Elizabeth White
Honorable - Natural Category
School: The Walker School
Teacher: Sandra Rhoades
The image you are looking at is a breaking wave in the Sweet Water Valley River. It was during the fall and the water in the river was acting as a plane mirror to reflect the yellow and orange trees on the other side of the riverbank. A plane mirror creates an image that is the same size, upright, reversed, and virtual. This image was distorted in the wave, causing the different areas of golden water. The spiral wave in the water is the wave breaking. A breaking wave happens when the amplitude of the wave reaches a critical level. The base of the wave can no longer support the top of the wave and breaking becomes unavoidable. This happened because the water moved from an area of deeper water to an area of shallow water quickly.
