What if the panama canal had no locks

Interesting idea, perhaps possible. This canal could be made as wide as necessary-it could even accomodate supertankers. The route would be via Lake Nicaragua-so two locks would be necessay…and the fresh-water lake would prevent the problem of Pacific speciesinvading the Carribean Sea.

Souns like a plan…anybody know if this route has been seriously considered? It has been proposed and considered many times in the past. Nothing has ever come of it. The idea of a Nicaraguan route was an early contender to the Panama Canal, and was revived as the turnover of the Canal Zone came closer to reality. Boosters continue to tout the attractions of this route, but no dirt has been turned.

A couple of topics here that McCullough answers:. The Compagnie Universelle never fully decided what to do with the Chagres River. De Lesseps a fascinating figure had some notion of diverting it through a tunnel to the Pacific side and out of the way, and had reluctantly agreed to the elevated lake with locks approach just before the operation went bankrupt, though.

The river damming also provides hydroelectric power, not only to run the canal, but to power much of Panama. The Nicaraguan and Mexican routes, although they would have required shallower digging to get to sea level, would have been so much longer that the excavated volume would have been much greater, even with rivers and lakes to follow.

Further, the transit times and operating economics for ships would be substantially greater, the number of changes of direction would be much greater, and size limitations would have been much more severe.

Those same problems would exist today. What would happen if the Panama Canal didn't have locks? Factual Questions. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans would remain as separate as they were before work began on the canal. An international congress in Paris in considered a long route across Nicaragua and a shorter Panama route. Ferdinand de Lesseps , builder of the Suez canal , used his international celebrity, rather than any engineering knowledge, to ensure the Panama route, to be built without locks, but with a few tunnelled sections.

However, he seemed unaware of the severe terrain and climate, which would put human survival at risk. Gustave Eiffel strongly advised the use of locks, but was rebuffed. Engineering and financial chaos ensued, and 10 years later, Eiffel was vindicated and contracted to design and construct 10 massive locks. However, the French attempt was doomed; 20, men died mostly from yellow fever and malaria , the affair became a bitter political and financial scandal, and the attempt was abandoned in The Americans finally completed the canal in Locks allow a canal to go up and down hills.

If there were no locks in the Panama canal, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans couldn't flow into each other, because there are hills in between.

The tropical marine life of each ocean, at either end, consists almost entirely of different species. In the ss a sea-level canal was mooted, but ecologists and environmentalists became alarmed that no assessment was being made of the consequences as the marine life of the two oceans began to mix at each end.

There would undoubtedly be new patterns of disease, predation and competition for each ocean, probably leading to an irreversible net loss of biodiversity and fundamental ecosystem changes.

The plans were eventually abandoned. Has anyone fallen in love "at first sight" with someone who is just ordinary looking? I have! The control rooms guide the vessels through the lock chambers using electric towing locomotives. On average, ships require six of such mules, three on each side, when using the locks to enter or exit the canal.

The water level is equalized again and the ship finally exits the lock and enters the 77 km long canal. At the other end of the canal, a similar process will be performed in order to lower the vessel to sea level.

For a ship entering the canal from the Atlantic end, travelling in a southeast direction, the first entry will be into the first sea level lock chamber located at the Gatun Locks. After the vessels entered the chamber, the watertight lock doors are closed by the lock-master and the valve is opened to allow the flow of water from the adjacent second lock chamber, 28 feet above sea level.

However, no pumps are used here; the entire operation of equalizing the water levels between the locking chambers on the Panama Canal depends on the principles of gravity to move the water and on the fact that water seeks its own level. When the water levels of two adjacent chambers are equal, the water stops flowing from the water culverts.

Once the water levels between the first and second chamber are the same, the valve gets closed by the lock-master and the watertight lock doors between the first lock chamber and the second lock chamber are opened subsequently. This process allows the ship to proceed to the second lock chamber. The first operation is repeated then between the second lock chamber and the third lock chamber, which raises the ship to the level of Gatun Lake.

After the closure of the final valve and opening of the watertight lock door, the ship is raised 85 feet above sea level and is able to continue its journey to the Pacific. The same process inversely is followed in order to send the ship back to sea level. At the Pedro Miguel Locks on the Pacific end of the canal, when the ship enters the first chamber, the watertight doors are closed and the valve gets opened on that lock chamber, allowing water to drain from the first lock chamber into the relatively lower second lock chamber.

After the water level between the two chambers is at the same level, the watertight doors are opened allowing the ship to continue to transmit down the Gaillard Cut to the Miraflores Locks, where the operation of lowering the ship to sea level is completed.

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