These new roller coasters will make your head spin

Consider it the summer of the coaster. Theme parks from east to west are unveiling new roller coasters made of wood, steel and a combination thereof that soar through the air, plunge through water and perform gravity-defying stunts.

A look at some a few of the new ones.

Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio adds to its fat portfolio (16!) of coasters with GateKeeper, which makes its debut Saturday. The steel, wing roller coaster will suspend riders 170 feet above the Cedar Point Beach then send them hurtling through six inversions and stomach-dropping falls at close to 70 mph.

Also opening Saturday is Dollywood's RiverRush, a water coaster in the Pigeon Forge, Tenn.'s Splash Country water park. Four-person boats cruise through an acre of hills, twists and tunnels at heights of up to 237 feet.

On the West Coast, California's Great America in Santa Clara is introducing Goldstriker in May (no specific date yet) that lasts more then two minutes, hits speeds of 54 mph and has the longest initial descent tunnel (174 feet) of any wooden coaster. Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park unveils Coast Rider on May 25. It's a 1,339-foot-long, 52-foot-tall ride and is meant to evoke the twists and turns of the state's winding coastline. On the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a steel coaster dubbed Undertow opens this summer. The spinning coaster sports individual four-seat cars in which passengers' weight distribution determines the vehicle's rotation. And at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Full Throttle features a triple launch — two forward and one backward — and hits speeds of more than 70 mph. It's opening this summer, but the exact date hasn't been determined.

In Orlando, Fun Spot America (formerly Fun Spot Action Park) introduces its 2,000-foot-long White Lightning coaster as part of a $40 million expansion.