1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
3.
Aleppo
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Aleppo is a city in Syria, serving as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,132,100, Aleppo was the largest Syrian city before the Syrian Civil War, however, now Aleppo is likely the second-largest city in Syria after the capital Damascus. Aleppo is an ancient city, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center midway between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and it was also one of the largest cities in the Levant before the advent of the Syrian Civil War. The citys significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, when the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, in the 1940s, it lost its main access to the sea, Antakya and İskenderun, also to Turkey. Finally, the isolation of Syria in the past few decades further exacerbated the situation and this decline may have helped to preserve the old city of Aleppo, its medieval architecture and traditional heritage. It won the title of the Islamic Capital of Culture 2006, during the Battle of Aleppo the city suffered massive destruction, and has been the worst-hit city in the Syrian Civil War. In December 2016, the Syrian government achieved full control of Aleppo following a successful offensive, modern-day English-speakers commonly refer to the city as Aleppo. It was known in antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, and to the Greeks, during the Crusades, and again during the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon of 1923–1946, the name Alep was used. Aleppo represents the Italianised version of this, the original ancient name, Halab, has survived as the current Arabic name of the city. Some have proposed that halab means iron or copper in Amorite languages, the modern-day Arabic nickname of the city, ash-Shahbaa, which means the white-colored, also allegedly derives from the famous white marble of Aleppo. From the 11th century it was common usage to apply the term Aram-Zobah to the area of Aleppo. Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists, since the city occupies its ancient site. The site has been occupied from around 5000 BC, as shown by excavations in Tallet Alsauda, Aleppo appears in historical records as an important city much earlier than Damascus. The first record of Aleppo comes from the third millennium BC, some historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Aleppo with the capital of an independent kingdom closely related to Ebla, known as Armi, although this identification is contested. The main temple of the storm god Hadad was located on the hill in the center of the city. In the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Empire period, Aleppos name appears in its form as Ḥalab for the first time
4.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
5.
1556 Shaanxi earthquake
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The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake or Jiajing earthquake was a catastrophic earthquake and is also the deadliest earthquake on record, killing approximately 830,000 people. It occurred on the morning of 23 January 1556 in Shaanxi, more than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected. Buildings were damaged slightly in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu, an 840-kilometre-wide area was destroyed, and in some counties as much as 60% of the population was killed. Most of the population in the area at the time lived in yaodongs, artificial caves in loess cliffs, the Shaanxi earthquakes epicenter was in the Wei River Valley in Shaanxi Province, near the cities of Huaxian, Weinan and Huayin. In Huaxian, every building and home was demolished, killing more than half the residents of the city. The situation in Weinan and Huayin was similar, in certain areas, 20-metre deep crevices opened in the earth. Destruction and death were everywhere, affecting places as far as 500 kilometres from the epicenter, the earthquake also triggered landslides, which contributed to the massive death toll. The rupture occurred during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, therefore, in the Chinese historical record, this earthquake is often referred to as the Jiajing Great earthquake.9. While it was the deadliest earthquake and the third deadliest natural disaster in history, following the earthquake, aftershocks continued several times a month for half a year. In the annals of China it was described in this manner, In the winter of 1556, in our Hua County, various misfortunes took place. Mountains and rivers changed places and roads were destroyed, in some places, the ground suddenly rose up and formed new hills, or it sank abruptly and became new valleys. In other areas, a stream burst out in an instant, or the ground broke, huts, official houses, temples and city walls collapsed all of a sudden. The earthquake damaged many of the Forest of Stone steles badly, of the 114 Kaicheng Stone Classics,40 were broken in the earthquake. The scholar Qin Keda lived through the earthquake and recorded details, one conclusion he drew was that at the very beginning of an earthquake, people indoors should not go out immediately. Even if the nest has collapsed, some eggs may remain intact and this may indicate that many people were killed trying to flee while some who stayed put may have survived. The shaking reduced the height of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian from 45 meters to 43.4 meters, millions of people at the time lived in artificial loess caves on high cliffs in the area of the Loess Plateau. Loess is the name for the silty soil that windstorms have deposited on the plateau over the ages, the soft loess clay had formed over thousands of years due to wind blowing silt into the area from the Gobi Desert. Loess is a highly erosion-prone soil that is susceptible to the forces of wind, the Loess Plateau and its dusty soil cover almost all of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces and parts of others
6.
1976 Tangshan earthquake
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The Tangshan earthquake, also known as the Great Tangshan earthquake, was a natural disaster that occurred on July 28,1976. It is believed to be the largest earthquake of the 20th century by death toll, the epicenter of the earthquake was near Tangshan in Hebei, Peoples Republic of China, an industrial city with approximately one million inhabitants. The number of deaths reported by the Chinese government was 655,000. A further 164,000 people were recorded as being severely injured, in traditional Chinese thought, natural disasters are seen as a precursor of dynastic change. The earthquake hit in the morning and lasted 14 to 16 seconds. Chinese government official sources state a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale and it was followed by a major 7.1 magnitude aftershock some 16 hours later, increasing the death toll to over 255,000. The earthquake was generated by the 25-mile-long Tangshan Fault, which runs near the city, well water in a village outside of Tangshan reportedly rose and fell three times the day before the earthquake. Gas began to spout out of a well in another village on July 12 and then increased on July 25, abnormal signals were mentioned for Beijing, Tianjin, Tangshan, Bohai and Zhangjiakou regions. Wang made an effort to publicize the information to 60 people, one of the people listening in Qinglong was official Wang Chunqing. After voicing the concerns to Wang Chunqing, his county took the report very seriously, already some sources showed that the county had been preparing as much as two years earlier. Up to 800 members of his county tried to respond, on July 25 and 26,1976 each community of Qinglong county had emergency meetings to prepare and instruct villagers. Buildings were examined and water reservoirs were given special attention, the high loss of life caused by the earthquake can be attributed to the time it struck and how suddenly it struck, as well as to the quality and nature of building construction in China. The earthquake lacked the foreshocks that sometimes come with earthquakes of this magnitude and it also struck at just before 4 a. m. when most people were asleep and unprepared. Tangshan itself was thought to be in a region with a low risk of earthquakes. Very few buildings had been built to withstand an earthquake, therefore, hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed. The earthquake devastated the city over an area of roughly 6.5 kilometres by 8 kilometres, many of the people who survived the initial earthquake were trapped under collapsed buildings. Tremors were felt as far away as Xian, approximately 760 km away, eighty-five percent of the buildings in the city were collapsed into ruins or became uninhabitable. The seismic waves spread far, with damage in such as Qinhuangdao and Tianjin
7.
Upper Mesopotamia
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Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. This region is approximately correspondent with what was Assyria from the 25th century BC through to the mid-7th century AD and it extends down the Tigris to Samarra and down the Euphrates to Hit. The Khabur River runs for over 400 km across the plain, from Turkey in the north, the major settlements are Mosul, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Al Hasakah, Diyarbakır and Qamishli. The western, Syrian part, is contiguous with the Syrian Al-Hasakah Governorate and is described as Syrias breadbasket. The eastern, Iraqi part, includes and extends slightly beyond the Iraqi Ninewa Governorate, in the north it includes the Turkish provinces of Şanlıurfa, Mardin, and parts of Diyarbakır Province. The name al-Jazira has been used since the 7th century CE by Islamic sources to refer to the section of Mesopotamia. The name means island, and at one time referred to the land between the two rivers, which in Aramaic is Bit Nahren. Historically the name referred to as little as the Sinjar plain coming down from the Sinjar Mountains, in pre-Abbasid times the western and eastern boundaries seem to have fluctuated, sometimes including what is now northern Syria to the west and Adiabene in the east. Al-Jazira is characterised as an outwash or alluvial plain, quite distinct from the Syrian Desert and lower-lying central Mesopotamia, however the area includes eroded hills, the region has several parts to it. In the northwest is one of the largest salt flats in the world, further south, extending from Mosul to near Basra is a sandy desert not unlike the Empty Quarter. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the region has been plagued by drought and this is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus the starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain Karaca Dağ in southern Turkey, where the closest relative to modern wheat still grows wild, domestication of goats and sheep followed within a few generations, but didnt become widespread for more than a millennium. Weaving and pottery followed about two years later. Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC—over five thousand years older than Stonehenge—and thus the absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere, as far as we know today no well-established farming societies existed at the time. Farming seemed to be experimental and only a smallish supplement to continued hunting and gathering. After all, Göbekli Tepe lies just 32 km from Karaca Dağ, the questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East. Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far, Upper Mesopotamia is the heartland of ancient Assyria, founded circa the 25th century BC
8.
Ganja, Azerbaijan
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Ganja is Azerbaijans second largest city with a population close of about 325,200. It was named Elisabethpol in the Russian Empire period, the city regained its original name, Ganja, in 1920 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again in 1935 to Kirovabad, in 1989, during Perestroika, the city regained its original name. The area in which Ganja is located was known as Arran from the 9th to 12th century, its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language. According to the legend, the Arab governor had a dream where a voice told him there was a treasure hidden under one of the three hills around the area where he camped. The voice told him to unearth it and use the money to found a city and he did so and informed the caliph about the money and the city. Caliph made Muhammad the hereditary governor of the city on a condition that he would give the money he found to the caliph, Ganja is also the birthplace of the famous poet Nizami Ganjavi. The city was revived after the Safavids came to power in 1501, for a short period, Ganja was renamed Abbasabad by Shah Abbas after war against the Ottomans. In 1747, Ganja became the center of the Ganja Khanate for a few decades following the death of Nader Shah, until the advent of the Iranian Zand and Qajar dynasties. The khans/dukes who de facto self-ruled the khanate, were subordinate to the rule in mainland Iran and were from a branch of the Iranian Qajar family. From the late 18th century, Russia actively started to increase its enroachments into Iranian, Russian expansion into the South Caucasus met particularly strong opposition in Ganja. Some western sources assert that the capture of the city was followed by a massacre of up to 3,000 inhabitants of Ganja by the Russians. They also claim that 500 of them were slaughtered in a mosque where they had taken refuge, thosaunds of Azeris left Ganja and fled to Iran following the capture. A brief Iranian recapture of its territories happened between 1826-1827 during the Russo-Persian War, but the resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay made its inclusion into the Russian Empire definite. It was renamed Elisabethpol after the wife of Alexander I of Russia, Elisabeth, elizavetpol was an uyezd of Tiflis Governorate before 1868. The Russian name was not accepted by Azerbaijanis who continued to call the city Ganja, in April 1920, the Red Army occupied Azerbaijan. In May 1920, Ganja was the scene of an abortive anti-Soviet rebellion, in 1935, Joseph Stalin renamed the city Kirovabad after Sergei Kirov. In 1991, Azerbaijan re-established its independence, and the ancient name of the city was given back, for many years the 104th Guards Airborne Division of the Soviet Airborne Troops was based in the town
9.
Dead Sea Transform
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The Dead Sea Transform fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a series of faults that run from the Maras Triple Junction to the northern end of the Red Sea Rift. The fault system forms the boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. It is a zone of left lateral displacement, signifying the relative motions of the two plates, both plates are moving in a general north-northeast direction, but the Arabian Plate is moving faster, resulting in the observed left lateral motions along the fault of approximately 107 km. The DST fault system is considered to be a transform fault that has accommodated a 105 km northwards displacement of the Arabian Plate. GPS data give similar rates of movement of the Arabian Plate relative to the Africa Plate. It has also proposed that the fault zone is a rift system that is an incipient oceanic spreading center. The Dead Sea Transform began to form during the early to mid-Miocene, a total displacement of 64 km has been estimated for this early phase of motion. In the Pliocene the DST propagated northwards once more through Lebanon into northwestern Syria before reaching the East Anatolian Fault. The southern section of the DST is about 400 km long, extending from the center in the Red Sea at southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to just north of the Hula basin in southernmost Lebanon. The Gulf of Aqaba was created by movement on four left-stepping strike-slip fault segments in a diagonal stepwise sequence known as echelon formation. In the areas where these segments overlap, pull-apart basins have developed, parts of three of these faults ruptured during the 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake. The Wadi Arabah segment of the DST extends for about 160 km from the Gulf of Aqaba to the end of the Dead Sea. Some researchers have further broken down this segment, recognising two separate segments, Avrona and Arava, the Avrona fault extends from the northern part of the Gulf of Aqaba for about 50 km along the Arava Valley. The Arava fault runs from just north of the Avrona fault segment for about 100 km, a slip rate of 4 ±2 mm per year has been estimated from the offset of gullies across the fault. Four major earthquakes are thought to have occurred due to movement on this fault in the last 1,000 years, the Dead Sea is formed in a pull-apart basin due to the left-stepping offset between the Wadi Arabah and Jordan Valley segments. The part of the basin with a fill of more than 2 km is 150 km long. In the north, the fill reaches its maximum thickness of about 10 km. The Jordan valley segment of the DST, the Jordan Rift Valley, a slip rate of between 4.7 and 5.1 mm per year has been estimated over the last 47,500 years
10.
Fault (geology)
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In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movement. Large faults within the Earths crust result from the action of tectonic forces. Energy release associated with movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. A fault plane is the plane that represents the surface of a fault. A fault trace or fault line is the intersection of a plane with the ground surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on maps to represent a fault. Since faults do not usually consist of a single, clean fracture, the two sides of a non-vertical fault are known as the hanging wall and footwall. By definition, the wall occurs above the fault plane. This terminology comes from mining, when working a tabular ore body, because of friction and the rigidity of rocks, they cannot glide or flow past each other easily, and occasionally all movement stops. A fault in ductile rocks can also release instantaneously when the rate is too great. The energy released by instantaneous strain-release causes earthquakes, a common phenomenon along transform boundaries, slip is defined as the relative movement of geological features present on either side of a fault plane, and is a displacement vector. A faults sense of slip is defined as the motion of the rock on each side of the fault with respect to the other side. In practice, it is only possible to find the slip direction of faults. Based on direction of slip, faults can be categorized as, strike-slip. Dip-slip, offset is predominantly vertical and/or perpendicular to the fault trace, oblique-slip, combining significant strike and dip slip. The fault surface is usually vertical and the footwall moves either left or right or laterally with very little vertical motion. Strike-slip faults with left-lateral motion are known as sinistral faults. Those with right-lateral motion are known as dextral faults
11.
Plate tectonics
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The theoretical model builds on the concept of continental drift developed during the first few decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s, the lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet, is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earths lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates, where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary, convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually, tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle, the material lost is balanced by the formation of new crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the surface of the lithosphere remains the same. This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle, earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking or gradual expansion of the globe. Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earths lithosphere has greater strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the result in convection. Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the ridge and drag, with downward suction. Another explanation lies in the different forces generated by forces of the Sun. The relative importance of each of these factors and their relationship to other is unclear. The outer layers of the Earth are divided into the lithosphere and asthenosphere and this is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter, in terms of heat transfer, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction, whereas the asthenosphere also transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year, to about 160 mm/year. The driving mechanism behind this movement is described below, tectonic lithosphere plates consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either or both of two types of crustal material, oceanic crust and continental crust. Average oceanic lithosphere is typically 100 km thick, its thickness is a function of its age, as passes, it conductively cools
12.
Arabian Plate
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The Arabian Plate is a minor tectonic plate in the northern and eastern hemispheres. It is one of three continental plates that have been moving northward in recent geological history and colliding with the Eurasian Plate, the Arabian Plate consists mostly of the Arabian peninsula, it extends eastward at the Sinai and the Red Sea and northward to the Levant. The Arabian Plate was part of the African plate during much of the Phanerozoic Eon, the opening of the Red Sea rift led to extensive volcanic activity. There are large volcanic fields called the Older Harrats, such as Harrat Khaybar and Harrat Rahat, some activity still continues especially around Medina, and there are regular eruptions within the Red Sea. The collision between the Arabian Plate and Eurasia is pushing up the Zagros Mountains of Iran, because the Arabian Plate and Eurasian Plate collide, many cities are in danger such as those in southeastern Turkey. These dangers include earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, countries within the plate include Lebanon, Syria, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Regions include parts of the Southern Denkalya Subregion, the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Awdal and the Khuzestan Province
13.
African Plate
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The African Plate is a major tectonic plate straddling the equator as well as the prime meridian. It includes much of the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges, between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago, the Somali Plate began rifting from the African Plate along the East African Rift. All of these are divergent or spreading boundaries with the exception of the northern boundary, the cratons are, from south to north, the Kalahari craton, Congo craton, Tanzania craton and West African craton. The cratons were widely separated in the past, but came together during the Pan-African orogeny, the cratons are connected by orogenic belts, regions of highly deformed rock where the tectonic plates have engaged. The African Plate is rifting in the interior of the African continent along the East African Rift. This rift zone separates the African Plate to the west from the Somali Plate to the east, the African Plates speed is estimated at around 2.15 cm per year. It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction and this is drawing it closer to the Eurasian Plate, causing subduction where oceanic crust is converging with continental crust. Along its northeast margin, the African Plate is bounded by the Red Sea Rift where the Arabian Plate is moving away from the African Plate. The New England hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean has probably created a line of mid- to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African Plate. USGS - Understanding plate motions Meijer, P. Th, wortel, M. J. R. Cenozoic dynamics of the African plate with emphasis on the Africa-Eurasia collision. Journal of Geophysical Research, Solid Earth
14.
Edessa
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Edessa was a city in Upper Mesopotamia, founded on an earlier site by Seleucus I Nicator ca.302 BC. It was also known as Antiochia on the Callirhoe from the 2nd century BC and it was the capital of the semi-independent kingdom of Osroene from c.132 BC and fell under direct Roman rule in ca. It became an important early centre of Syriac Christianity and it fell to the Muslim conquest in 639, was briefly re-taken by Byzantium in 1031, and became the center of the Crusader state of the County of Edessa during 1098–1144. It fell to the Turkic Zengid dynasty in 1144 and was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The modern name of the city is Şanlıurfa, in Turkeys Southeast Anatolia Region, the earliest name of the city was Adma recorded Assyrian cuneiform sources in the 7th century BC. It was renamed Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe in the 2nd century BC and it was named Justinopolis in the early 6th century. According to Jewish and Muslim tradition, it is Ur Kasdim, in the second half of the 2nd century BC, as the Seleucid monarchy disintegrated in the wars with Parthia, Edessa became the capital of the Abgar dynasty, who founded the Kingdom of Osroene. This kingdom was established by Nabataean or Arab tribes from North Arabia, and lasted four centuries, under twenty-eight rulers. Edessa was at first more or less under the protectorate of the Parthians, then of Tigranes of Armenia, Edessa was Armenian Mesopotamias capital city, from 212 to 214 the kingdom was a Roman province. The emperor Caracalla was assassinated on the road from Edessa to Carrhae by one of his guards in 217, Edessa became one of the frontier cities of the province of Osroene and lay close to the border of Sassanid Persia. The Battle of Edessa took place between the armies of the Roman Empire under the command of Emperor Valerianus and Sassanid forces under Shahanshah Shapur I in 260. The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces, including Valerian himself, the literary language of the tribes that had founded this kingdom was Aramaic, from which Syriac developed. The precise date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa is not known, however, there is no doubt that even before AD190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that shortly after the royal house joined the church. Yet various sources confirm that the Abgar who embraced the Christian faith was Abgar IX, under him Christianity became the official religion of the kingdom. As for Addai, he was one of the seventy-two disciples as the legend asserts. He was succeeded by Aggai, then by Palout who was ordained about 200 by Serapion of Antioch, a Christian council was held at Edessa as early as 197. In 201 the city was devastated by a flood. In 232 the relics of the apostle Thomas were brought from Mylapore, India, under Roman domination many martyrs suffered at Edessa, Sts
15.
Urfa
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Şanlıurfa, pronounced, often simply known as Urfa or Al-Ruha, in ancient times Edessa, is a city with 561,465 inhabitants in south-eastern Turkey, and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. It is a city with a primarily Arabic, Kurdish and Turkmen population, Urfa is situated on a plain about eighty kilometres east of the Euphrates River. Urfas climate features hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters. The city has been known by names in history, Ուռհա Uṙha in Armenian, ܐܘܪܗܝ Urhai in Syriac, الرها Ar-Ruhā in Arabic and Ορρα. For a while during the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes it was named Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe, during Byzantine rule it was named Justinopolis. Prior to Turkish rule, it was often best known by the name given it by the Seleucids, Ἔδεσσα, the title was achieved following repeated requests by the citys members of parliament, desirous to earn a title similar to those of neighbouring cities Gazi Antep and Kahraman Maraş. The history of Şanlıurfa is recorded from the 4th century BC, but may date back at least to 9000 BC, the city was one of several in the upper Euphrates-Tigris basin, the fertile crescent where agriculture began. According to Jewish and Muslim tradition, Urfa is Ur Kasdim and this identification was disputed by Leonard Woolley, the excavator of the Sumerian city of Ur in 1927 and scholars remain divided on the issue. Urfa is also one of cities that have traditions associated with Job. For the Armenians, Urfa is considered a place since it is believed that the Armenian alphabet was invented there. Although the site of Urfa has been inhabited since prehistoric times, islam had first arrived in Urfa around 638 AD, when the region surrendered to the Rashidun army without resisting, and had become a significant presence under the Ayyubids, Seljuks. Subsequently, Urfa was ruled by Zengids, Ayyubids, Sultanate of Rum, Ilkhanids, Memluks, Akkoyunlu, under the Ottomans Urfa was part of the Aleppo Vilayet. The area became a centre of trade in cotton, leather, there was a small but ancient Jewish community in Urfa, with a population of about 1,000 by the 19th century. Most of the Jews emigrated in 1896, fleeing the Hamidian massacres, there were three Christian communities, Syriac, Armenian, and Latin. According to Lord Kinross,8,000 Armenians were massacred in Urfa in 1895, the last Neo-Aramaic Christians left in 1924 and went to Aleppo. In 1914 Urfa was estimated to have 75,000 inhabitants,45,000 Muslims,25,000 Armenians and 5,000 Syriac/Assyrian Christians, there was also a Jewish presence in the town. During the First World War, Urfa was a site of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides, by the end of the war, the entire Christian population had been killed, had fled, or was in hiding. The British occupation of the city of Urfa started de facto on 7 March 1919 and officially de jure as of 24 March 1919, and lasted until 30 October 1919
16.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
17.
Lebanon
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Lebanon, officially known as the Lebanese Republic, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, Lebanons location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland facilitated its rich history and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity. At just 10,452 km2, it is the smallest recognized country on the entire mainland Asian continent, the earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than seven thousand years, predating recorded history. Lebanon was the home of the Canaanites/Phoenicians and their kingdoms, a culture that flourished for over a thousand years. In 64 BC, the region came under the rule of the Roman Empire, in the Mount Lebanon range a monastic tradition known as the Maronite Church was established. As the Arab Muslims conquered the region, the Maronites held onto their religion, however, a new religious group, the Druze, established themselves in Mount Lebanon as well, generating a religious divide that has lasted for centuries. During the Crusades, the Maronites re-established contact with the Roman Catholic Church, the ties they established with the Latins have influenced the region into the modern era. The region eventually was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918, following the collapse of the empire after World War I, the five provinces that constitute modern Lebanon came under the French Mandate of Lebanon. The French expanded the borders of the Mount Lebanon Governorate, which was populated by Maronites and Druze. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, establishing confessionalism, a unique, foreign troops withdrew completely from Lebanon on 31 December 1946. Lebanon has been a member of the Organisation internationale de la francophonie since 1973, despite its small size, the country has developed a well-known culture and has been highly influential in the Arab world. Before the Lebanese Civil War, the experienced a period of relative calm and renowned prosperity, driven by tourism, agriculture, commerce. At the end of the war, there were efforts to revive the economy. In spite of troubles, Lebanon has the highest Human Development Index and GDP per capita in the Arab world. The name of Mount Lebanon originates from the Phoenician root lbn meaning white, occurrences of the name have been found in different Middle Bronze Age texts from the library of Ebla, and three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The name is recorded in Ancient Egyptian as Rmnn, where R stood for Canaanite L, the name occurs nearly 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, as לְבָנוֹן. The borders of contemporary Lebanon are a product of the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 and its territory was the core of the Bronze Age Phoenician city-states. After the 7th-century Muslim conquest of the Levant, it was part of the Rashidun, Umyayad, Abbasid Seljuk, with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Greater Lebanon fell under French mandate in 1920, and gained independence under president Bechara El Khoury in 1943
18.
Antioch
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Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient Greco-Roman city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. Its ruins lie near the city of Antakya, Turkey. Antioch was founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, the citys geographical, military, and economic location benefited its occupants, particularly such features as the spice trade, the Silk Road, and the Persian Royal Road. It eventually rivaled Alexandria as the city of the Near East. It was also the center of Hellenistic Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period. Most of the development of Antioch was done during the Roman Empire. Antioch was called the cradle of Christianity as a result of its longevity, the Christian New Testament asserts that the name Christian first emerged in Antioch. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis, a single route proceeds south in the Orontes valley. The settlement of Meroe pre-dated Antioch, a shrine of the Semitic goddess Anat, called by Herodotus the Persian Artemis, was located here. This site was included in the suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named Io and this name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians—an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the citys coins. Io may have been an early colony of trading Greeks. John Malalas also mentions a village, Bottia, in the plain by the river. Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and this account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a 4th-century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antiochs status. But the story is not unlikely in itself, after Alexanders death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four sister cities in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch and he is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs. Seleucus founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means, an eagle, the bird of Zeus, had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. Seleucus did this on the 22nd day of the month of Artemisios in the year of his reign
19.
Antakya
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Antakya, is the seat of the Hatay Province in southern Turkey. In ancient times, Antakya was known as Antioch, and was for one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. It was an early center of Christianity. It has a population of about 250,000, most of the population speaks Turkish as their native language, while a minority are native Arabic speakers. Antakya is situated in a well-watered and fertile valley, the area of Antioch has been occupied by humans since the Calcolithic era, as revealed by archeological excavations of the mound of Tell-Açana, among others. The King of Macedonia and Greece Alexander the Great, after defeating the Persians in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, followed the Orontes south into Syria and occupied the area. The city of Antioch was founded in 300 BC, after the death of Alexander, AD with the rise of Islam, and after the 10th c. In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, the city became known in Arabic as أنطاكيّة. In 969, the city was recovered for the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas by Michael Bourtzes and the stratopedarches Peter. It soon became the seat of a dux, who commanded the forces of the themes and was the most important officer on the Empires eastern border. In 1078, Philaretos Brachamios, an Armenian rebel seized power and he held the city until the Seljuk Turks captured it from him in 1084. The Sultanate of Rum held it only fourteen years before the Crusaders arrived, the Crusaders Siege of Antioch resulted in its fall and the Crusaders caused significant damage during the First Crusade including a 3-day massacre of its population both Christian and Muslim. Following the defeat of the Turkish garrison, Bohemond I became its overlord and it remained the capital of the Latin Principality of Antioch for nearly two centuries. In 1268 it fell to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan Baibars after another siege, Baibars proceeded to massacre the Christian population. In addition to suffering the ravages of war, the city lost its importance because trade routes to the Far East moved north following the 13th-century Mongol conquests. Antioch never recovered as a city, with much of its former role falling to the port city of Alexandretta. An account of both cities as they were in 1675 appears in the diary of the English naval chaplain Henry Teonge, the city was the center of the Sanjak of Antakya, part of the Damascus Eyalet. In 1822, Antakya was hit by an earthquake and damaged, when Ottoman general Ibrahim Pasha established his headquarters in the city in 1835, it had only some 5,000 inhabitants
20.
Crusader states
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The name also refers to other territorial gains made by medieval Christendom against Muslim and pagan adversaries. The Crusader States in the Levant were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, the Eastern Romans, or Byzantines, partially recovered lost territory on numerous occasions but over time gradually lost all but Anatolia and parts of Thrace and the Balkans. In the West, the Roman Catholic kingdoms of northern Iberia launched a series of known as the Reconquista to reconquer the peninsula from the Arabized Berbers known as Moors. The conquered Iberian principalities are not customarily called Crusader states, except for the Kingdom of Valencia, professor Barber indicates that, in the Crusader State of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Holy Sepulchre was added to in the 7th century and rebuilt in 1022, after a previous collapse. The situation represented an existential threat for the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire. The Emperor sent a plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid with the goal of restoring the formerly Christian territories to Christian rule, the result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. The first four Crusader states were created in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade, The first Crusader state, the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098, lasted until 1268. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, lasted until 1291, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the Crusades, but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope Innocent III, and later became fully westernized by the Lusignan dynasty. During the Third Crusade, the Crusaders founded the Kingdom of Cyprus, Richard I of England conquered Cyprus on his way to Holy Land. The Templars promptly returned the island to Richard who resold it to the displaced King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan in 1192. For much of its history under the Lusignan Kings, Cyprus was a prosperous Medieval Kingdom, the Kingdoms decline began when it became embroiled in the dispute between the Italian Merchant Republics of Genoa and Venice. Indeed, the Kingdoms decline can be traced to a war with Genoa in 1373–74 which ended with the Genoese occupying the principal port City of Famagusta. Eventually with the help of Venice, the Kingdom recovered Famagusta but by then it was too late and in any event, venetian rule over Cyprus lasted for just over 80 years until 1571, when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II Sarkhosh invaded and captured the entire island. These states faced the attacks of the Byzantine Greek successor states of Nicaea and Epirus, thessalonica and the Latin Empire were reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks by 1261. Descendants of the Crusaders continued to rule in Athens and the Peloponnesus until the 15th century when the area was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The military order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John established itself on Rhodes in 1310, with influx of new blood. The island of Kastellorizo was taken by the Knights of St, other neighbouring territories temporarily under the order were, the cities of Smyrna, Attaleia, the city of Salona and the islands of Ikaria and Kos, all now in Greece. The coins minted in Jerusalem during the 12th century show patriarchal crosses with various modifications, coins minted under Henry I show a cross with four dots in the four quarters, but the Jerusalem cross proper appears only on a coin minted under John II
21.
Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union
22.
Principality of Antioch
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The Principality of Antioch was one of the crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem and it had roughly 20,000 inhabitants in the 12th century, most of whom were Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians, with a few Muslims outside the city itself. Few of the inhabitants apart from the Crusaders were Roman Catholic even though the city was turned into a Latin Patriarchate in 1100. While Baldwin of Boulogne and Tancred headed east from Asia Minor to set up the County of Edessa, Bohemond of Taranto commanded the siege which commenced in October 1097. With over four hundred towers, the defenses were formidable. Bohemond convinced a guard in one of the towers, an Armenian and former Christian named Firouz, only four days later, a Muslim army from Mosul, led by Kerbogha, arrived to besiege the Crusaders themselves. Alexius I Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, was on his way to assist the Crusaders, the Crusaders withstood the siege, with help from a mystic named Peter Bartholomew. Peter claimed he had visited by St. Andrew, who told him that the Holy Lance. The cathedral of St. Peter was excavated, and the Lance was discovered by Peter himself, although Peter most likely planted it there himself, it helped raise the spirits of the Crusaders. There was a dispute over who should control the city. Bohemond and the Italian Normans eventually won, and Bohemond named himself prince, meanwhile, an unknown epidemic spread throughout the Crusader camp, Adhemar of Le Puy was one of the victims. Following Bohemonds capture in battle with the Danishmends in 1100, his nephew Tancred became regent, Tancred expanded the borders of the Principality, seizing the cities of Tarsus and Latakia from the Byzantine Empire. However those newly captured cities along with other territory were lost after the Battle of Harran when Baldwin II of Edessa was captured, Bohemond was released in 1103 and went to Italy to raise more troops in 1104, during which time Tancred remained regent of Antioch. Bohemond used the troops he raised to attack the Byzantines in 1107, Bohemond was defeated at Dyrrhachium in 1108 and was forced by Alexius I to sign the Treaty of Devol, making Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire upon Bohemonds death. Bohemond had promised to any land that was seized from the Muslims when the Crusaders passed through Constantinople in 1097. Bohemond also fought at Aleppo with Baldwin and Joscelin of the County of Edessa, Bohemond left Tancred as regent once more and returned to Italy, where he died in 1111. Alexius wanted Tancred to return the Principality in its entirety to Byzantium, but Tancred was supported by the County of Tripoli, Tancred, in fact, had been the only Crusade leader who did not swear to return conquered land to Alexius. Tancred died in 1112 and was succeeded by Bohemond II, under the regency of Tancreds nephew Roger of Salerno, on June 27,1119, Roger was killed at the Ager Sanguinis, and Antioch became a vassal state of Jerusalem with King Baldwin II as regent until 1126
23.
Mosul
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Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq. Since October 2016 it has been the site of an operation led by the Iraqi Government, under Haider al-Abadi, in an effort to dislodge. The city has been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since June 2014, and no westerner has entered the city until the latest initiative. The Battle of Mosul, an offensive to retake the city begun in October 2016, is the largest deployment of Iraqi forces since the 2003 invasion by U. S. Located some 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank. The metropolitan area has grown to encompass substantial areas on both the Left Bank and the Right Bank, as the two banks are described by the locals compared to the direction of Tigris. Mosuls population grew rapidly around the turn of the millennium and by 2004 was estimated to be 1,846,500, an estimated half million people fled Mosul in the second half of 2014 when the IS fought with government forces for control of the city. On November 17,2014, ISIS attacked the city of Mosul, ultimately killing seven civilians, while some residents returned, more fled in 2015 as fighting and violence increased, and US bombings pounded the city. Historically, important products of the area include Mosul marble and oil, the city of Mosul is home to the University of Mosul and its renowned Medical College, which together was one of the largest educational and research centers in Iraq and the Middle East. The University has since been closed, the Islamic States leadership in Mosul has kept the Medical College open but it is reported to be barely functional. The name of the city is first mentioned by Xenophon in his expeditionary logs in Achaemenid Assyria of 401 BC, there, he notes a small Assyrian town of Mépsila on the Tigris somewhere about where modern Mosul is today. Be that as it may, the name Mepsila is doubtless the root for the modern name, in its current Arabic form and spelling, the term Mosul, or rather Mawsil, stands for the linking point – or loosely, the Junction City, in Arabic. Mosul should not be confused with the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh and this area is known today as the town of Nebi Yunus and is now populated largely by Kurds. It is the only neighborhood in Mosul. The site contains the tomb of the Biblical Jonah, as he lived and died in the capital of ancient Assyria. Today, this area has been absorbed into the Mosul metropolitan area. The indigenous Assyrians still refer to the city of Mosul as Nineveh. The ancient Nineveh was succeeded by Mepsila after the fall of Assyria between 612-599 BC at the hands of a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Scythians, Cimmerians and Sagartians, the Assyrians largely abandoned the city, building new smaller settlements such as Mepsila nearby
24.
Damascus
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Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
25.
Aftershock
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An aftershock is a smaller earthquake that occurs after a previous large earthquake, in the same area of the main shock. If an aftershock is larger than the shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock. Aftershocks are formed as the crust around the fault plane adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Typically, aftershocks are found up to an equal to the rupture length away from the fault plane. The pattern of aftershocks helps confirm the size of area that slipped during the main shock, Aftershocks rates and magnitudes follow several well-established empirical laws. The frequency of aftershocks decreases roughly with the reciprocal of time after the main shock and this empirical relation was first described by Fusakichi Omori in 1894 and is known as Omoris law. It is expressed as n = k where k and c are constants, a modified version of Omoris law, now commonly used, was proposed by Utsu in 1961. N = k p p is a third constant which modifies the decay rate. According to these equations, the rate of aftershocks decreases quickly with time, the rate of aftershocks is proportional to the inverse of time since the mainshock and this relationship can be used to estimate the probability of future aftershock occurrence. These patterns describe only the behavior of aftershocks, the actual times, numbers and locations of the aftershocks are stochastic. N =10 a − b M Where, N is the number of greater or equal to M M is magnitude a and b are constants In summary, there are more small aftershocks. Aftershocks are dangerous because they are unpredictable, can be of a large magnitude. An aftershock sequence is deemed to have ended when the rate of seismicity drops back to a background level, i. e. no further decay in the number of events with time can be detected. Land movement around the New Madrid is reported to be no more than 0.2 mm a year, Aftershocks on the San Andreas are now believed to top out at 10 years while earthquakes in New Madrid are considered aftershocks nearly 200 years after the 1812 New Madrid earthquake. Some scientists have tried to use foreshocks to help predict upcoming earthquakes, on the East Pacific Rise however, transform faults show quite predictable foreshock behaviour before the main seismic event. Reviews of data of past events and their foreshocks showed that they have a low number of aftershocks, seismologists use tools such as the Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence model to study cascading aftershocks. Following a large earthquake and aftershocks, many people have reported feeling phantom earthquakes when in fact no earthquake was taking place and this condition, known as earthquake sickness is thought to be related to motion sickness, and usually goes away as seismic activity tails off. Earthquake Aftershocks Not What They Seemed at Live Science
26.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
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Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
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Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
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Raqqa
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Raqqa, also called Rakka, al-Raqqah, and ar-Raqqah, is a city in Syria located on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometres east of Aleppo. It is located 40 kilometres east of the Tabqa Dam, Syrias largest dam, the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine city and bishopric Callinicum was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809, under the reign of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. With a population of 220,488 based on the 2004 official census, during the Syrian Civil War, the city was captured in 2013 by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIL went on to make the city its headquarters in Syria in 2014, as a result, the city has been hit by airstrikes from the Syrian government, Russia, the United States and several other countries. Most non-Sunni religious structures in the city have been destroyed by ISIL, the modern city traces its history to the Hellenistic period, with the foundation of the city of Nikephorion by the Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator. His successor, Seleucus II Callinicus enlarged the city and renamed it after himself as Kallinikos, in Roman times, it was part of the province of Osrhoene, but had declined by the 4th century. Rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Leo I in 466, it was named Leontopolis after him, the city played an important role in the Byzantine Empires relation with Sassanid Persia and the wars fought between two states. By treaty, it was recognized as one of the few official cross-border trading posts between the two empires. In 580, during war with Persia, the future emperor Maurice scored a victory over the Persians near the city. In the year 639 or 640, the city fell to the Muslim conqueror Iyad ibn Ghanm, since then it has figured in Arabic sources as al-Raqqah. At the surrender of the city, the Christian inhabitants concluded a treaty with Ibn Ghanm and this allowed them freedom of worship in their existing churches, but forbade the construction of new ones. The citys Jewish community also survived until at least the 12th century, Ibn Ghanms successor as governor of Raqqa and the Jazira, Said ibn Amir ibn Hidhyam, built the citys first mosque. This building was enlarged to monumental proportions, measuring some 73×108 metres, with a square brick minaret added later. The mosque survived until the early 20th century, being described by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld in 1907, many companions of Muhammad lived in Raqqa. The city also contained a column with Alis autograph, but this was removed in the 12th century, the strategic importance of Raqqa grew during the wars at the end of the Umayyad period and the beginning of the Abbasid regime. Raqqa lay on the crossroads between Syria and Iraq and the road between Damascus, Palmyra, and the seat of the caliphate Resafa, al-Ruha. Between 771 and 772, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur built a city about 200 metres to the west of Raqqa for a detachment of his Khorasanian Persian army. It was named al-Rāfiqah, the companion, the strength of the Abbasid imperial military is still visible in the impressive city wall of al-Rāfiqah
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Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
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United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
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National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology
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The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology is a research institute for geophysics and volcanology in Italy. INGV is funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities, the institute employs around 1000 people distributed between the headquarters in Rome and the other sections in Milan, Bologna, Pisa, Naples, Catania and Palermo. INGV is amongst the top 20 research institutions in terms of scientific publications production and it participates and coordinates several EU research projects and organizes international scientific meetings in collaboration with other institutions. September 29,1999 – August 11,2011, Enzo Boschi August 12,2011 – December 21,2011, Domenico Giardini March 21,2012 -April 27,2016, Stefano Gresta April 28,2016 – present, Carlo Doglioni
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Springer Science+Business Media
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Springer also hosts a number of scientific databases, including SpringerLink, Springer Protocols, and SpringerImages. Book publications include major works, textbooks, monographs and book series. Springer has major offices in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dordrecht, on 15 January 2015, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group / Nature Publishing Group and Springer Science+Business Media announced a merger. In 1964, Springer expanded its business internationally, opening an office in New York City, offices in Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and Delhi soon followed. The academic publishing company BertelsmannSpringer was formed after Bertelsmann bought a majority stake in Springer-Verlag in 1999, the British investment groups Cinven and Candover bought BertelsmannSpringer from Bertelsmann in 2003. They merged the company in 2004 with the Dutch publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers which they bought from Wolters Kluwer in 2002, Springer acquired the open-access publisher BioMed Central in October 2008 for an undisclosed amount. In 2009, Cinven and Candover sold Springer to two private equity firms, EQT Partners and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, the closing of the sale was confirmed in February 2010 after the competition authorities in the USA and in Europe approved the transfer. In 2011, Springer acquired Pharma Marketing and Publishing Services from Wolters Kluwer, in 2013, the London-based private equity firm BC Partners acquired a majority stake in Springer from EQT and GIC for $4.4 billion. In 2014, it was revealed that Springer had published 16 fake papers in its journals that had been computer-generated using SCIgen, Springer subsequently removed all the papers from these journals. IEEE had also done the thing by removing more than 100 fake papers from its conference proceedings. In 2015, Springer retracted 64 of the papers it had published after it was found that they had gone through a fraudulent peer review process, Springer provides its electronic book and journal content on its SpringerLink site, which launched in 1996. SpringerProtocols is home to a collection of protocols, recipes which provide step-by-step instructions for conducting experiments in research labs, SpringerImages was launched in 2008 and offers a collection of currently 1.8 million images spanning science, technology, and medicine. SpringerMaterials was launched in 2009 and is a platform for accessing the Landolt-Börnstein database of research and information on materials, authorMapper is a free online tool for visualizing scientific research that enables document discovery based on author locations and geographic maps. The tool helps users explore patterns in scientific research, identify trends, discover collaborative relationships. While open-access publishing typically requires the author to pay a fee for copyright retention, for example, a national institution in Poland allows authors to publish in open-access journals without incurring any personal cost - but using public funds. Springer is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, the Academic Publishing Industry, A Story of Merger and Acquisition – via Northern Illinois University
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Galilee earthquake of 363
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The Galilee earthquake of 363 was a pair of severe earthquakes that shook the Galilee and nearby regions on May 18 and 19. The maximum perceived intensity for the events was estimated to be VII on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale, the earthquakes occurred on the portion of the Dead Sea Transform fault system between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. Tzippori, north-northwest of Nazareth, was severely damaged, Nabratein and the Nabratein synagogue were destroyed. The earthquake may have been responsible for the failure of the plan to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem with the permission of the Emperor Julian, Petra, in what is now Jordan, was fatally damaged. Geography of Israel#Seismic activity List of historical earthquakes List of earthquakes in the Levant Sources Petra, The Great Earthquake from the American Museum of Natural History
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749 Galilee earthquake
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The cities of Tiberias, Beit Shean, Hippos and Pella were largely destroyed while many other cities across the Levant were heavily damaged. The casualties numbered in the tens of thousands, in Jewish sources this earthquake is known, in Hebrew, as רעש שביעית, Raash Sheviit, lit. Seventh noise, interpreted by scholars to mean The Earthquake of the Sabbatical Year, because 749 was a sabbatical year, according to historical sources, supported by archaeological findings, Scythopolis, Tiberias, Capernaum, Hippos, Jerash and Pella, suffered widespread damage. A Coptic priest from Alexandria reported that support beams had shifted in houses in Egypt, other sources reported tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea, several days of aftershocks in Damascus, and towns swallowed up in the earth. The town of Umm el Kanatir and its ancient synagogue were destroyed, historical sources describe how the death toll in Jerusalem numbered in the thousands. Many buildings, among them the Al-Aqsa Mosque, were severely damaged, the view of the severity of the damage provoked by the 749 quake is contested by new research. Similarly, the new Arab capital city at Ramla only shows signs of damage. Raash shviit is mentioned in piyyutim, some rabbis believe the earthquake struck in a Sabbatical year, in which case, the translation of the term would be earthquake of the seventh year. List of earthquakes in the Levant List of historical earthquakes Margaliot Mordechai, Determining the Time of Seventh Earthquake, Israel Exploration Society 8, Margaliot Mordechai, A New Record of the Fasting Earthquake, Tarbitz 29, 1959/1960, pp. 339–344. Ferster C, On the Dating of the Seventh Earthquake, Tarbitz 58, 1988/1989, the Seventh Earthquake – The Death of the City
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