1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
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Morocco
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Morocco, officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco, is a sovereign country located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Geographically, Morocco is characterized by a mountainous interior, large tracts of desert. Morocco has a population of over 33.8 million and an area of 446,550 km2 and its capital is Rabat, and the largest city is Casablanca. Other major cities include Marrakesh, Tangier, Tetouan, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, a historically prominent regional power, Morocco has a history of independence not shared by its neighbours. Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, the Alaouite dynasty, the current ruling dynasty, seized power in 1666. In 1912 Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with a zone in Tangier. Moroccan culture is a blend of Arab, indigenous Berber, Sub-Saharan African, Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, leading to a war with indigenous forces until a cease-fire in 1991. Peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy, the king can issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. He can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister, Moroccos predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight. The Moroccan dialect, referred to as Darija, and French are also widely spoken, Morocco is a member of the Arab League, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the African Union. It has the fifth largest economy of Africa, the full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah translates to Kingdom of the West, although the West in Arabic is الغرب Al-Gharb. The basis of Moroccos English name is Marrakesh, its capital under the Almoravid dynasty, the origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed, but is most likely from the Berber words amur akush or Land of God. The modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc, in Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish Marruecos, the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the Iberomaurusian Mechta-Afalou burials and European Cro-Magnon remains, the Iberomaurusian was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco
3.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
4.
Atlas Mountains
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The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb. It stretches around 2,500 km through Algeria, Morocco, the ranges highest peak is Jebel Toubkal, with an elevation of 4,167 metres in southwestern Morocco. It separates the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert, the Atlas mountains are primarily inhabited by Berber populations. The terms for mountain in some Berber languages are adrar and adras, the mountains are home to a number of plant and animal species unique in Africa, often more like those of Europe, many of them are endangered and some have already gone extinct. The basement rock of most of Africa was formed during the Precambrian period, the Atlas was formed during three subsequent phases of Earths geology. The first tectonic deformation phase involves only the Anti-Atlas, which was formed in the Paleozoic Era as the result of continental collisions, North America, Europe and Africa were connected millions of years ago. The Anti-Atlas Mountains are believed to have originally formed as part of Alleghenian orogeny. These mountains were formed when Africa and America collided, and were once a chain rivaling todays Himalayas, today, the remains of this chain can be seen in the Fall Line region in the Eastern United States. Some remnants can also be found in the later formed Appalachians in North America, a second phase took place during the Mesozoic Era. It consisted of an extension of the Earths crust that rifted and separated the continents mentioned above. This extension was responsible for the formation of many thick intracontinental sedimentary basins including the present Atlas, most of the rocks forming the surface of the present High Atlas were deposited under the ocean at that time. Such convergent tectonic boundaries occur where two plates slide towards each other forming a zone, and/or a continental collision. However, there is a lack of evidence for the nature of the subduction in the Atlas region, or for the thickening of the Earths crust generally associated with continental collisions. In fact, one of the most striking features of the Atlas to geologists is the small amount of crustal thickening. Recent studies suggest that deep processes rooted in the Earths mantle may have contributed to the uplift of the High, the Atlas are rich in natural resources. There are deposits of ore, lead ore, copper, silver, mercury, rock salt, phosphate, marble. The range can be divided into four regions, Middle Atlas. The Middle Atlas is a portion of the Atlas mountain range lying completely in Morocco, the Middle Atlas is the westernmost of three Atlas Mountains chains that define a large, plateaued basin extending eastward
5.
Orogeny
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An Orogeny is an event that leads to a large structural deformation of the Earths lithosphere due to the interaction between tectonic plates. Orogens or orogenic belts develop when a plate is crumpled and is pushed upwards to form mountain ranges. Orogeny is the mechanism by which mountains are built on continents. The word orogeny comes from Ancient Greek, though it was used before him, the term was employed by the American geologist G. K. Gilbert in 1890 to describe the process of mountain building as distinguished from epeirogeny. Formation of an orogen is accomplished in part by the processes of subduction or convergence of two or more continents. Orogeny usually produces long arcuate structures, known as orogenic belts, generally, orogenic belts consist of long parallel strips of rock exhibiting similar characteristics along the length of the belt. Orogenic belts are associated with zones, which consume crust, produce volcanoes. Geologists attribute the arcuate structure to the rigidity of the descending plate and these island arcs may be added to a continent during an orogenic event. The processes of orogeny can take tens of millions of years, frequently, rock formations that undergo orogeny are severely deformed and undergo metamorphism. Orogenic processes may push deeply buried rocks to the surface, sea-bottom and near-shore material may cover some or all of the orogenic area. If the orogeny is due to two continents colliding, very high mountains can result, an orogenic event may be studied, as a tectonic structural event, as a geographical event, and as a chronological event. The foreland basin forms ahead of the orogen due mainly to loading and resulting flexure of the lithosphere by the mountain belt. The basin migrates with the front and early deposited foreland basin sediments become progressively involved in folding and thrusting. Sediments deposited in the basin are mainly derived from the erosion of the actively uplifting rocks of the mountain range. The fill of many such shows an change in time from deepwater marine through shallow water to continental sediments. Although orogeny involves plate tectonics, the tectonic forces result in a variety of associated phenomena, including magmatism, metamorphism, crustal melting, what exactly happens in a specific orogen depends upon the strength and rheology of the continental lithosphere, and how these properties change during orogenesis. In addition to orogeny, the orogen is subject to other processes, for example, the Caledonian Orogeny refers to the Silurian and Devonian events that resulted from the collision of Laurentia with Eastern Avalonia and other former fragments of Gondwana. The Caledonian Orogen resulted from events and various others that are part of its peculiar orogenic cycle
6.
Alleghanian orogeny
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The Alleghanian orogeny or Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming events that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. The term and spelling Alleghany orogeny was originally proposed by H. P, the Alleghanian orogeny occurred approximately 325 million to 260 million years ago over at least five deformation events in the Carboniferous to Permian period. The orogeny was caused by Africa colliding with North America, at the time, these continents did not exist in their current forms, North America was part of the Euramerica super-continent, while Africa was part of Gondwana. This collision formed the super-continent Pangaea, which contained all major land masses. The collision provoked the orogeny, it exerted massive stress on what is today the Eastern Seaboard of North America, forming a wide and high mountain chain. Evidence for the Alleghanian orogeny stretches for hundreds of miles on the surface from Alabama to New Jersey. In the north, the Alleghanian deformation extends northeast to Newfoundland, subsequent erosion wore down the mountain chain and spread sediments both to the east and to the west. As the continents collided, the rock material trapped in-between was crushed and forced upward, with nowhere to go, rocks along the eastern margin of the North American continent were shoved far inland. Close to the boundary between the plates, tectonic stresses contributed to the metamorphism of the rock. The sedimentary rock in the eastern Appalachian Basin region was squeezed into great folds that ran perpendicular to the direction of forces, the greatest amount of deformation associated with the Alleghanian orogeny occurred in the Southern Appalachians. In that region, a series of great faults developed in addition to the folds, the relative amount of deformation gradually diminishes as one travels northward. The fold belt extends northward through Pennsylvania and gradually fades in the vicinity of the New York border, the Kittatinny Mountains in northwestern New Jersey mark the Northeastern-most extension of the high ridges of the Valley and Ridge Province. The influence of Alleghanian deformation on the regions east of the Valley and Ridge Province must have even more intense, however. Rocks of Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian age are missing along the Eastern Seaboard, the mountains formed by the Alleghanian orogeny were once rugged and high, but in our time are now eroded into only a small remnant, the heavily-eroded hills of the Piedmont. Sediments that were carried eastward formed the coastal plain and part of the continental shelf, thus, the coastal plain and Piedmont are largely the byproducts of erosion that took place from 150+ million years ago to the present. Sediments that were carried westward formed the Allegheny and Cumberland Plateau, which in some areas are popularly called mountains, a portion of the Alleghanian mountain system departed with Africa when Pangaea broke up and the Atlantic Ocean began to form. Today, this forms the Anti-Atlas mountains of Morocco, the Anti-Atlas have been geologically uplifted in relatively recent times, and are today much more rugged than their Alleghanian relatives. Geology of the Appalachians Central Pangean Mountains Mauritanide Belt Inliers and outliers
7.
Geologic time scale
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The table of geologic time spans, presented here, agrees with the nomenclature, dates and standard color codes set forth by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Evidence from radiometric dating indicates that Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, the geology or deep time of Earth’s past has been organized into various units according to events which took place in each period. Older time spans, which predate the reliable record, are defined by their absolute age. Some other planets and moons within the Solar System have sufficiently rigid structures to have preserved records of their own histories, for example, Venus, Mars, dominantly fluid planets, such as the gas giants, do not preserve their history in a comparable manner. Apart from the Late Heavy Bombardment, events on other planets probably had little influence on the Earth. Construction of a scale that links the planets is, therefore, of only limited relevance to the Earths time scale. The existence, timing, and terrestrial effects of the Late Heavy Bombardment is still debated, the largest defined unit of time is the supereon, composed of eons. Eons are divided into eras, which are in turn divided into periods, epochs, the terms eonothem, erathem, system, series, and stage are used to refer to the layers of rock that correspond to these periods of geologic time in Earths history. Geologists qualify these units as early, mid, and late when referring to time, and lower, middle, for example, the lower Jurassic Series in chronostratigraphy corresponds to the early Jurassic Epoch in geochronology. The adjectives are capitalized when the subdivision is formally recognized, and lower case when not, thus early Miocene but Early Jurassic. Geologic units from the time but different parts of the world often look different and contain different fossils. For example, in North America the Lower Cambrian is called the Waucoban series that is subdivided into zones based on succession of trilobites. In East Asia and Siberia, the unit is split into Alexian, Atdabanian. A key aspect of the work of the International Commission on Stratigraphy is to reconcile this conflicting terminology, the term Anthropocene is used informally by popular culture and a growing number of scientists to describe the current epoch in which we are living. The term was coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to describe the current time, others say that humans have not even started to leave their biggest impact on Earth, and therefore the Anthropocene hasnt even started yet. Whatever the case, the ICS has not officially approved the term, leonardo da Vinci concurred with Aristotles interpretation that fossils represented the remains of ancient life. The 11th-century Persian geologist Avicenna and the 13th-century Dominican bishop Albertus Magnus extended Aristotles explanation into a theory of a petrifying fluid. Avicenna also first proposed one of the principles underlying geologic time scales, the Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo also recognized the concept of deep time
8.
Paleozoic
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The Paleozoic Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon, from 541 to 252.17 million years ago. It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, and is subdivided into six periods, the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous. The Paleozoic comes after the Neoproterozoic era of the Proterozoic and is followed by the Mesozoic, the Paleozoic was a time of dramatic geological, climatic, and evolutionary change. The Cambrian witnessed the most rapid and widespread diversification of life in Earths history, known as the Cambrian explosion, fish, arthropods, amphibians, anapsids, synapsids, euryapsids and diapsids all evolved during the Paleozoic. Life began in the ocean but eventually transitioned onto land, and by the late Paleozoic, Great forests of primitive plants covered the continents, many of which formed the coal beds of Europe and eastern North America. Towards the end of the era, large, sophisticated diapsids and synapsids were dominant, the Paleozoic Era ended with the largest extinction event in the history of Earth, the Permian–Triassic extinction event. The effects of this catastrophe were so devastating that it took life on land 30 million years into the Mesozoic Era to recover, recovery of life in the sea may have been much faster. The Paleozoic era began and ended with supercontinents and in between were the rise of mountains along the margins, and flooding and draining of shallow seas between. At its start, the supercontinent Pannotia broke up, paleoclimatic studies and evidence of glaciers indicate that central Africa was most likely in the polar regions during the early Paleozoic. During the early Paleozoic, the huge continent Gondwana formed or was forming, by mid-Paleozoic, the collision of North America and Europe produced the Acadian-Caledonian uplifts, and a subduction plate uplifted eastern Australia. There are six periods in the Paleozoic Era, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, the Cambrian spans from 541 million years to 485 million years and is the first period of the Paleozoic era of the Phanerozoic. The Cambrian marked a boom in evolution in an event known as the Cambrian explosion in which the largest number of creatures evolved in any period of the history of the Earth. Creatures like algae evolved, but the most ubiquitous of that period were the armored arthropods, almost all marine phyla evolved in this period. During this time, the supercontinent Pannotia begins to break up, the Ordovician spanned from 485 million years to 443 million years ago. The Ordovician is a time in Earths history in many of the biological classes still prevalent today evolved, such as primitive fish, cephalopods. The most common forms of life, however, were trilobites, snails, more importantly, the first arthropods went ashore to colonize the empty continent of Gondwana. By the end of the Ordovican, Gondwana was at the pole, early North America had collided with Europe. Glaciation of Africa resulted in a drop in sea level
9.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
10.
Berber languages
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Berber or the Berber languages or the Amazigh language are a family of similar and closely related languages and dialects indigenous to North Africa. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, numbering today about 4 million, have been living in Western Europe, about half of this population was born in Europe. Berber constitutes a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and has been attested since ancient times, the number of Berbers is much higher than the number of Berber speakers. The bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors, in Algeria, for example, a majority of the population consists of Arabized Berbers. There is a cultural and political movement among speakers of the closely related varieties of Northern Berber to promote and unify them under a standard language, called. The name Tamaziɣt is the current native name of the Berber language in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas region, the Rif regions, in other Berber-speaking area this name was lost. There is historical evidence, from medieval Berber manusctipts, that all native North Africans from Libya to Morocco have called their language, Tamaziɣt. The name Tamaziɣt is currently being used by educated Berbers to refer to the written Berber language. Around 90 percent of the Berber-speaking population speak one of six major varieties of Berber and they are, in the order of demographic weight, Tashelhit, Kabyle, Atlas Tamazight, Riffian, Shawi and Tuareg. The Berber languages and dialects have had a tradition, on and off, for about 2,500 years, although the tradition has been frequently disrupted by cultural shifts. They were first written in the Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh abjad, still used by the Tuareg, the oldest dated inscription is from about 200 BCE. The Berber Latin alphabet was used by most European and Berber linguists during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th and 20th century European and native Berber linguists, a modernized form of the Tifinagh alphabet, called Neo-Tifinagh, was adopted in Morocco in 2003 for writing Berber, but many Moroccan Berber publications still use the Berber Latin alphabet. Algerians mostly use the Berber Latin alphabet in Berber language education at public schools, Mali and Niger recognize a Tuareg-Berber Latin alphabet customized to the Tuareg phonological system. However, traditional Tifinagh is still used in those countries, the term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century, and is still used today. It was borrowed from Latin Barbari, the Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for these populations, البربر, al-Barbar, see names of the Berber people. Etymologically, the Berber root Mazigh means free man, noble man, the feminine Tamazight traditionally referred specifically to the Riffian and Central Atlas Tamazight languages. European languages distinguish between the words Berber and barbaric, while Arabic has the same word al-barbari for both meanings, some other Berber writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Berber with Amazigh when writing about it in French or English
11.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
12.
Ouarzazate
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Ouarzazate, nicknamed The door of the desert, is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in Drâa-Tafilalet region of south-central Morocco. Ouarzazate is at an elevation of 1,160 metres in the middle of a plateau south of the High Atlas Mountains. To the south of the town is the desert, the town is chiefly inhabited by Berber-speakers, who constructed many of the prominent kasbahs and buildings for which the area is known. Ouarzazate is an important holiday destination in Morocco, as a base for excursions across the Draa Valley, the fortified village of Ait Benhaddou west of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Ouarzazate area is a noted film-making location, with Moroccos biggest studios inviting many international companies to work here, the Ouarzazate solar power station invested and created by the Arab League is expected to open its first phase in December 2015. Its name comes from a Berber phrase meaning without noise or without confusion, for a long time, Ouarzazate was a small crossing point for African traders on their way to northern Morocco and Europe. During the French period, Ouarzazate expanded considerably as a town, administrative centre. It is home to the kasbah of Taourirt, which was the casbah of the former caïd, the Krupp field gun which secured Glaoui power is displayed outside the kasbah today. The area is known for its Ouazguita carpets with geometric designs of red-orange on black background. Ouarzazate is hot and dry in summer, but can be cold in winter. Atlas Studios is one of the largest movie studios in the world, several historical movies were shot here, including The Living Daylights, Asterix & Obelix, Mission Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King, Kingdom of Heaven and Babel. It was also the location of an episode of the television series The Amazing Race 10, prison Break Season 5 is also located here. The kasbah-town of Aït Benhaddou is nearby, many excursions through the valley of the Draa River into the Sahara start from the city. These include trips to Zagora, a town surrounded by palm tree plantations and a departure point for camel trains to Timbuktu. These days the border to Algeria is closed, stopping the Timbuktu route, the city was part of the route of the 2006 and 2007 Dakar Rally. Detailed maps are hard to obtain in Morocco, the French IGN mapping at a 1,100,000 scale has been reproduced by the Moroccan Division de la carte. These maps are out of date and obtained with special permission in Rabat. Soviet mapping on a 1,200,000 scale is available on the Internet, a new series of maps are available, including the Ouarzazate Region
13.
Tafilalt
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Tafilalt or Tafilet, historically Sijilmasa, is a region and the largest oasis in Morocco. The word Tafilalt is an Amazigh word and it means Jug, in the area, the town of Sijilmasa founded by Miknasa Amazigh leader Moussa ben Nasser in 757, formerly existed. It was on the caravan route from the Niger river to Tangier. A decade after this, a small revolt built up in Tafilalt against the sultan, later, Tafilalt was a major center of the Dilaites. In 1648, a custom was established of the Moorish sultans of Morocco sending superfluous sons or daughters to Tafilalt, medieval traveler Ibn Batuta wrote about visiting Sijilmasa in the fourteenth century on his journey from Fez to Mali, the country of the blacks. It was later destroyed in 1818 by the Aït Atta, but its ruins remain, the first European to visit Tafilalt in the modern era was René Caillié, and later Gerhard Rohlfs. English writer WB Harris described Tafilalt in a journal after his visit, entirely located along the Ziz River, the oasis ten days journey south of Fez and Meknes, across the Atlas Mountains. It is known for its dates and it is the birthplace of the famed Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira, known as the Baba Sali. Tafilet, The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration in the Atlas Mountains and the Oases of the North-west Sahara, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood and Sons
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Sahara
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The Sahara is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its area of 9,200,000 square kilometres is comparable to the area of the United States. The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of tropical savanna around the Niger River valley. The Sahara can be divided into several regions including, the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, the name Sahara is derived from ṣaḥārā, the plural of the Arabic word for desert. The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and it covers 9 million square kilometres, amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with an annual precipitation of less than 250 mm were included. It is one of three physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division. The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada, Ergs form only a minor part, wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features, sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains, dry valleys, dry lakes, and salt flats. Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania, several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad. The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation, the northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are subdivisions of the great desert, Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years, the northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, the southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha, or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. The Sahara is the worlds largest low-latitude hot desert and this steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere
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Massif
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In geology, a massif is a section of a planets crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its structure while being displaced as a whole. The term is used to refer to a group of mountains formed by such a structure. In mountaineering and climbing literature, a massif is frequently used to denote the mass of an individual mountain. The massif is a structural unit of the crust than a tectonic plate and is considered the fourth largest driving force in geomorphology. The word is taken from French, where it is used to refer to a mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains forming an independent portion of a range. One of the most notable European examples of a massif is the Massif Central of the Auvergne region of France, the Face on Mars is an example of an extraterrestrial massif. Massifs may also form such as with the Atlantis Massif
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Draa River
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Dra is also the abbreviation for the constellation Draco. The Draa is Moroccos longest river,1,100 kilometres and it is formed by the confluence of the Dadès River and Imini River. It flows from the High Atlas mountains south-ward to Tagounite and from Tagounite mostly westwards to the Atlantic Ocean somewhat north of Tan-Tan, most of the year the part of the Draa after Tagounite falls dry. The water from the Draa is used to irrigate palm groves, the inhabitants of the Draa are called in Arabic Drawa, in Shilha Idrawiyn, the most famous Drawi undoubtedly being Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh. Outside of the Draa region this name is used to refer to the dark skinned people of Draa which make up the largest portion of its inhabitants. In the first half of the 20th century the Draa lowest course marked the boundary between the French protectorate of Morocco and the area under Spanish rule, about 225,000 people live in the valley of the Draa, which measures 23,000 square kilometres. The valley corresponds with the province of Zagora, created in 1997, in the province there are 23 villages and two towns, Zagora and Agdz. The village of Tamegroute, near Zagora, is known for its Zawiya. In the fossilized fauna were numerous organisms previously thought to have died out after the mid-Cambrian and this statue is possibly the oldest human figurine ever found. It dates back more than three hundred thousand years, from all main periods of the prehistory of the Sahara rock-engravings and rock-paintings have been found. Foum Chenna, Aït Ouaazik Tiouririne e Tisguinine are amongst the best known sites in the Draa region, at lghir Ntidri between Tagounite and Mhamid al-Ghizlane there is the necropolis of Foum Larjam. The necropolis is the largest of North Africa and consists of several kilometers of tumuli and it is one of the few sites where not just rock-drawings but also rock-paintings were found. An extensive investigation into the date and origin of its inhabitants has yet to be made. The Punic text of the record of this journey was engraved in the Temple of Chronos at Carthage, there is only one Greek version, dating perhaps to the 3rd century B. C. These are the words of the Periplus, The Voyage of Hanno, King of the Carthaginians, to the Libyan regions of the earth. Having visited the Carthaginian colonies of the Atlas in Morocco, Hanno proceeded southward, on the banks nomads, the Lixites, were feeding their flocks. We stayed for some time with people and made friends with them. Upstream from them lived the unfriendly Ethiopians whose land is full of wild beasts and they also say that about these mountains dwell the strange-looking Troglodytes
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Berbers
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Berbers or Amazighen are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. The majority of Berbers are predominantly Sunni Muslim, the Berber identity is usually wider than language and ethnicity, and encompasses the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity and they encompass a range of phenotypes, societies and ancestries, the unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language, or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history. There are some twenty-five to thirty million Berber speakers in North Africa, the number of ethnic Berbers is far greater, as a large part of the Berbers have acquired other languages over the course of many decades or centuries, and no longer speak Berber today. The majority of North Africas population is believed to be Berber in origin, Berbers call themselves some variant of the word i-Mazigh-en, possibly meaning free people or noble men. The name likely had its ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for Berbers, dihya or Kahina was a religious and military leader who led a fierce Berber resistance against the Arab-Muslim expansion in Northwest Africa. Kusaila was a leader of the Awraba tribe of the Berber people. A history by a Roman consul in Africa made the first reference of the barbarian to describe Numidia. The use of the term Berber spread in the following the arrival of the Vandals during their major invasions. The English term was introduced in the 19th century, replacing the earlier Barbary, for the historian Abraham Isaac Laredo the name Amazigh could be derived from the name of the ancestor Mezeg which is the translation of biblical ancestor Dedan son of Sheba in the Targum. According to Leo Africanus, Amazigh meant free man, though this has been disputed, further, it also has a cognate in the Tuareg word Amajegh, meaning noble. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines mentioned various tribes with similar names living in Greater Libya in the areas where Berbers were later found, later tribal names differ from the classical sources, but are probably still related to the modern Amazigh. The Meshwesh tribe among them represents the first thus identified from the field, all those names are similar and perhaps foreign renditions of the name used by the Berbers in general for themselves, Imazighen. The Maghreb region in northwestern Africa is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers from at least 10,000 BC, local cave paintings, which have been dated to twelve millennia before present, have been found in the Tassili nAjjer region of southern Algeria. Other rock art has been observed in Tadrart Acacus in the Libyan desert, a Neolithic society, marked by domestication and subsistence agriculture, developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean region of northern Africa between 6000 and 2000 BC. This type of life, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer cave paintings of southeastern Algeria, prehistorical Tifinagh scripts were also found in the Oran region. During the pre-Roman era, several independent states existed before the king Masinissa unified the people of Numidia
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Shilha people
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The Shilha people, also called Shluh or Chleuh, are a major Berber subgroup primarily inhabiting the southwestern mountains, Sous River, and southern coastal regions of Morocco. The Shilha traditionally call themselves Shlḥi and this endonym is rendered as Chleuhs in French. The Shilha are also known as Shluh and Shlöh, among Arabic speakers, Shluh serves as an appellation for Berbers generally, although Amazigh/Imazighin is the proper Berber self-name for Berbers as a whole. The Shilha people live mainly in Moroccos southern Atlantic coast, the High Atlas Mountains, the Anti Atlas mountains, and they are of Berber origin, which along with the Shluh people, includes other ethnic subgroups such as the Tuareg, Rif, Kabyle, Shawia and Beraber. The Shilha people are a part of Moroccos Berber-speaking minority, in antiquity, Berbers traded with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in commercial entrepots and colonies along the northwestern littoral. They established the ancient kingdom of Mauretania, which fell under Roman rule in 33 CE, during the 7th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Berber and Byzantine strongholds in the Maghreb, seizing Carthage in 698 AD. Although the Umayyads nominally controlled Morocco over the years, their rule was tenuous due to Berber resistance. The polity eventually collapsed and was taken over by the Abbasid dynasty, in 789 AD, with the approval of the locals, a former Umayyad courtier established the Idrisid dynasty. It lasted until 970 AD, as various petty states vied for control over the ensuing centuries, after 1053, Morocco was ruled by a succession of Muslim dynasties founded by Berber tribes. Among these were the Almoravid dynasty, the Almohad dynasty, in 1668, a sharifan family from the east assumed control and established the incumbent Alawite dynasty. Over this period, many Shilha moved to the Atlas Mountains to avoid Arab hegemony, the Berber groups that had not retreated to the highlands intermarried with the colonists. However, although the Shilha gradually adopted Islam, they and other Berbers in the mountains have held on to their language, culture. A small minority of the Shilha people are Christians and Jewish, the French and Spanish colonial empires partitioned Morocco in 1904, and the southern part of the territory was declared a French protectorate in 1912. Arabization remained a state policy under both the colonial and succeeding post-independence governments. With the spread of the Berber Spring to Shilha territory during the 1980s and this culminated with a proposal by Shilha nationalists in 2013 to establish an independent Sousse state within a greater Morocco federation. The Shilha mainly live in Moroccos Atlas Mountains and Sous Valley, traditionally, they are farmers who also keep herds. Some are semi-nomadic, growing crops during the season when water is available, the Shluh communities in the southwestern mountains of Morocco cooperated with each other in terms of providing reciprocal grazing rights as seasons changed, as well as during periods of war. These alliances were re-affirmed by annual festive gatherings, where one Shilha community would invite nearby, the Shilha speak the Shilha language, a Tashelhiyt dialect
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Tafraout
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Tafraout is a town in Tiznit Province, Souss-Massa region, Morocco, in the central part of the Anti-Atlas mountains. According to the 2004 census it has a population of 4,931, the basic meaning of the Shilha feminine noun tafrawt is basin or cistern in which water drawn from a well is poured, with a derived meaning valley. The centre of the town of Tafraout is actually situated in a small valley, a single male inhabitant is called in Shilha u Tfrawt, plural ayt Tfrawt, a single female inhabitant is ult Tfrawt, plural ist Tfrawt. Destaing, E. Etude sur la tachelḥît du Soûs, laoust, E. Cours de berbère marocain. Dialectes du Sous du Haut et de lAnti-Atlas, paris, Société déditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales
20.
Cave painting
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Cave paintings are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, to some 40,000 years ago in Eurasia. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known, evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that cave paintings may have been a way of communicating with others, the paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being common subjects that give the most impressive images. Humans mainly appear as images of hands, mostly hand stencils made by blowing pigment on a hand held to the wall. The earliest known cave paintings/drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and are found in Pettakere cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, previously it was believed that the earliest paintings were in Europe. The earliest non-figurative rock art dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago, nearly 340 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself, the choice of subject matter can also indicate chronology. For instance, the reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the drawings in the last Ice Age. The oldest date given to a cave painting is now a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old at Pettakere cave in Sulawesi. Indonesian and Australian scientists have dated other non-figurative paintings on the walls to be approximately 40,000 years old, the method they used to confirm this was dating the age of the stalactites that formed over the top of the paintings. The art is similar in style and method to that of the Indonesian caves as there were also hand stencils and this date coincides with the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Europe. Because of the cave arts age, some scientists have conjectured that the paintings may have made by Neanderthals. The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France and these paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE according to radiocarbon dating. Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era, the radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet,35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago. In 2009, cavers discovered drawings in Coliboaia Cave in Romania, an initial dating puts the age of an image in the same range as Chauvet, about 32,000 years old. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of thousands of years. This was created roughly between 10,000 and 5,500 years ago, and painted in rock shelters under cliffs or shallow caves, though individual figures are less naturalistic, they are grouped in coherent grouped compositions to a much greater degree
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Jbel Saghro
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The Jbel Saghro or Djebel Sahrho is a mountain range in southern Morocco. It is located south of the High Atlas and east of the Anti-Atlas in the northwest of Africa, northeast of Taliouine, the Jbel Saghro is an eastern prolongation of the Anti-Atlas, separated from it by the valley of the Draâ. To the north of the runs the valley of the Dadès. Saghro in the Tamazight language means drought, an apt name considering that the Jbel Saghro is the driest mountain area of the whole Atlas Mountain System, annual rainfall is only 100 mm in the southern slopes and 300 mm at the summits. However, the desolation of the landscapes of the massive dry mountains with the many areas of bare rock. Therefore these mountain area is popular with trekkers and adventure-tourists, the highest summit of the range is 2,712 m high Amalou nMansour, located southeast of the village of Iknioun, other notable peaks are 2,592 m high Jbel Kouaouch, Jbel Afougal and Jbel Amlal. One of the most important mountain passes of the range is the 2,283 m high Tizi nTazazert, the Jbel Saghro area is a traditional region of the Aït Atta Berber tribe. It is sparsely inhabited, the notable villages being NKob. There are cave paintings in certain areas of the range, Anti-Atlas Dadès Gorges Geography of Morocco Media related to Jbel Saghro at Wikimedia Commons Trekking across the Jbel Sarhro Travelling through the Jbel Sarhro by mule
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High Atlas
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High Atlas, also called the Grand Atlas Mountains is a mountain range in central Morocco in Northern Africa. The High Atlas rises in the west at the Atlantic Ocean, at the Atlantic and to the southwest the range drops abruptly and makes an impressive transition to the coast and the Anti-Atlas range. To the north, in the direction of Marrakech, the range descends less abruptly, the range includes Jbel Toubkal, which at 4,167 m is the highest in the range and lies in Toubkal National Park. The range serves as a weather barrier in Morocco running east-west and separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and continental zones to the north. In the higher elevations of the massif, snow falls regularly, snow lasts well into late spring in the High Atlas, mostly on the northern faces of the range. On the Western High Atlas, there is Oukaïmeden, one of three main ski stations in Morocco, the High Atlas forms the basins for a multiplicity of river systems. The majority of the rivers flow to the north, providing the basis for the settlements there. A number of wadis and seasonal rivers terminate in the deserts to the south, the High-Atlas Mountains are inhabited by Berbers, who live from agriculture and pastoralism in the valleys. In the steppe zone of the High-Atlas, where precipitations are low, the created a smart technique in managing the low precipitations. They turn the rather semi-arid lands into fertile valleys called locally by Agdal and this technique has intrigued many Western agriculturalists, in which they were impressed by the high efficiency of this agricultural system. Many scientists, particularly French scientists, make yearly expeditions to observe the community and these regions are relatively humid with irregular precipitations but occasionally torrential. Generally, it falls annually between 600 mm to 1000 mm, the drought in the summer months, interrupted by thunderstorms, is usually intense. Snow falls between November and April, but can persist from September to June in the peaks, important rivers flow through the valleys supply the fertile basins like Aït Bou Guemez and Imilchil. These conditions allow the existence of pine, oak and cedar forests, however, these forests are declining because of the reducing of annual precipitation, over-exploitation of the trees, and sheep-goat overgrazing. These regions are marked by variations in temperatures and it extends southward from the steppe lands into rocky desert. In addition, some localized valleys supplied by irrigation make agriculture possible and this portion of High-Atlas is very similar to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States. In the west lies the oldest portion of the range and its high point is the Jbel Toubkal at 4167 m, which is visible from the city of Marrakech. Jbel Toubkal lies in the Toubkal national park, which was created in 1942, the massif consists of Jurassic and Cretaceous formations notched by deep erosion-carved valleys
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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
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Precambrian
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The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
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Supercontinent
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In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earths continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, the definition of a supercontinent can be ambiguous, Many earth scientists, such as P. F. Hoffman, use the term supercontinent to mean a clustering of all continents. This definition leaves room for interpretation when labeling a continental body and is easier to apply to Precambrian times, the landmass of Pangaea is the collective name describing all of these continental masses when they were most recently in proximity to one another. This would classify Pangaea as a supercontinent, according to the definition by Rogers and Santosh, a supercontinent does not exist today. Supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past, the positions of continents have been accurately determined back to the early Jurassic. However, beyond 200 Ma, continental positions are less certain. The following table displays historical supercontinents, using a general definition, there are two contrasting models for supercontinent evolution through geological time. The first model theorizes that at least two separate supercontinents existed comprising Vaalbara and Kenorland, the Neoarchean supercontinent consisted of Superia and Sclavia. These parts of Neoarchean age broke off at ~2300 and 2090 Ma, Nuna continued to develop during the Mesoproterozoic, primarily by lateral accretion of juvenile arcs, and in ~1000 Ma Nuna collided with other land masses, forming Rodinia. Between ~800 and 700 Ma Rodinia broke apart, however, before completely breaking up, some fragments of Rodinia had already come together to form Gondwana by ~530 Ma. Pangaea formed by ~300 Ma through the collision of Gondwana, Laurentia, Baltica, during the intervening periods, the poles conform to a unified apparent polar wander path. The explanation for the duration of the Protopangea-Paleopangea supercontinent appears to be that Lid Tectonics prevailed during Precambrian times. Plate Tectonics as seen on the contemporary Earth became dominant only during the part of geological times. The Phanerozoic supercontinent Pangaea began to break up 180 Ma and is doing so today. Because Pangaea is the most recent of Earths supercontinents, it is the most well known, contributing to Pangaeas popularity in the classroom is the fact that its reconstruction is almost as simple as fitting the present continents bordering the Atlantic-type oceans like puzzle pieces. A supercontinent cycle is the break-up of one supercontinent and the development of another, supercontinent cycles are not the same as the Wilson cycle, which is the opening and closing of an individual oceanic basin. The Wilson cycle rarely synchronizes with the timing of a supercontinent cycle, however, supercontinent cycles and Wilson cycles were both involved in the creation of Pangaea and Rodinia
26.
Euramerica
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Euramerica was a minor supercontinent created in the Devonian as the result of a collision between the Laurentian, Baltica, and Avalonia cratons,433 million years ago. In the Late Carboniferous, tropical rainforests lay over the equator of Euramerica, a major, abrupt change in vegetation occurred when the climate aridified. The forest fragmented and the lycopsids which dominated these wetlands thinned out, there was also a great loss of amphibian diversity and simultaneously the drier climate spurred the diversification of reptiles. Euramerica became a part of the major supercontinent Pangaea in the Permian, in the Jurassic, when Pangaea rifted into two continents, Gondwana and Laurasia, Euramerica was a part of Laurasia. In the Cretaceous, Laurasia split into the continents of North America, the Laurentian craton became a part of North America while Baltica became a part of Eurasia, and Avalonia was split between the two. Permian, Euramerica became a part of the supercontinent Pangaea, Jurassic, Pangaea rifted into Gondwana and Laurasia. Cretaceous, Laurasia split into the continents of North America and Eurasia, continental drift Eurasia Main Uralian Fault Palaeos Earth, Geography, Euramerica Paleogeographic globe of the Devonian Earth
27.
Gondwana
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In paleogeography, Gondwana, also Gondwanaland, is the name given to an ancient supercontinent. It is believed to have sutured about 600 to 530 million years ago, Gondwana formed prior to Pangaea, and later became part of it. Around 335 to 250 million years ago Gondwana and Laurasia joined together to form the supercontinent Pangaea, Gondwana then separated from Laurasia in the breakup of Pangaea, drifting farther south after the split. Gondwana itself then also broke apart, the continent of Gondwana was named by Austrian scientist Eduard Suess, after the Gondwana region of central northern India which is derived from Sanskrit for forest of the Gonds. The name had previously used in a geological context, first by H. B. From which the Gondwana sedimentary sequences are also described, for example, the plant family Proteaceae, known only from southern South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, is considered to have a Gondwanan distribution. This pattern is considered to indicate an archaic, or relict. The assembly of Gondwana was a protracted process, several orogenies led to its final amalgamation 550 to 500 million years ago at the end of the Ediacaran, and into the Cambrian. These include the Brasiliano Orogeny, the East African Orogeny, the Malagasy Orogeny, the final stages of Gondwanan assembly overlapped with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean between Laurentia and western Gondwana. During this interval, the Cambrian explosion occurred and this is the Famatinian block and it formerly continued the line of the Appalachians southwards. One of the sites of Gondwanan amalgamation was the East African Orogeny. The East African Orogeny at about 650–630 Mya affected a part of Arabia, north-eastern Africa, East Africa. Collins and Windley propose that in this orogeny, Azania collided with the Congo–Tanzania–Bangweulu Block, the later Malagasy orogeny at about 550–515 Mya affected Madagascar, eastern East Africa and southern India. In it, Neoproterozoic India collided with the already combined Azania and Congo–Tanzania–Bangweulu Block, at the same time, in the Kunga Orogeny Neoproterozoic India collided with the Australia/Mawson continent. Other large continental masses, including the core cratons of North America, Europe, when Pangaea broke up, two large masses, Gondwana and Laurasia, were formed. During the late Paleozoic, Gondwana extended from a point at or near the South Pole to near the Equator, across much of Gondwana, the climate was mild. During the Mesozoic, the world was on average warmer than it is today. Gondwana was then host to a variety of flora and fauna for many millions of years
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Appalachians
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
29.
Himalayas
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The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
30.
Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
31.
Neogene
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The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
32.
Iberian Peninsula
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The Iberian Peninsula /aɪˈbɪəriən pəˈnɪnsjᵿlə/, also known as Iberia /aɪˈbɪəriə/, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is divided between Portugal and Spain, comprising most of their territory. With an area of approximately 582,000 km2, it is the second largest European peninsula, at that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabos Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the land mass southwest of there. The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with. According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country side of the Ἶβηρος as far north as the river Rhône in France. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, elsewhere he says that Saguntum is on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia. Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people of the Iberian stock living in the Pyrenees, according to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political, the Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia, literally translates to land of the Hiberians. This word was derived from the river Ebro, which the Romans called Hiberus, hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics, the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, and Lusitania, Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, the Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so known it was hardly necessary to state, for example. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called the whole of Spain Hiberia because of the Hiberus River, the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus, with reference to this border, Polybius states that the native name is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination
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Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
34.
Thyme
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Thyme is an evergreen herb with culinary, medicinal, and ornamental uses. The most common variety is Thymus vulgaris, Thyme is of the genus Thymus of the mint family, and a relative of the oregano genus Origanum. Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming, the ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage. The spread of thyme throughout Europe was thought to be due to the Romans, as used it to purify their rooms and to give an aromatic flavour to cheese. In the European Middle Ages, the herb was placed beneath pillows to aid sleep, in this period, women also often gave knights and warriors gifts that included thyme leaves, as it was believed to bring courage to the bearer. Thyme was also used as incense and placed on coffins during funerals, the name of the genus of fish Thymallus, first given to the grayling originates from the faint smell of the herb thyme, which emanates from the flesh. Thyme is best cultivated in a hot, sunny location with well-drained soil and it is generally planted in the spring, and thereafter grows as a perennial. It can be propagated by seed, cuttings, or dividing rooted sections of the plant, the plants can take deep freezes and are found growing wild on mountain highlands. In some Levantine countries, and Assyria, the condiment zaatar contains thyme as a vital ingredient and it is a common component of the bouquet garni, and of herbes de Provence. Thyme is sold fresh and dried. While summer-seasonal, fresh greenhouse thyme is often available year round, the fresh form is more flavourful, but also less convenient, storage life is rarely more than a week. Although the fresh form only lasts a week or two under refrigeration, it can last many months if carefully frozen, fresh thyme is commonly sold in bunches of sprigs. A sprig is a single stem snipped from the plant and it is composed of a woody stem with paired leaf or flower clusters spaced 1⁄2 to 1 inch apart. A recipe may measure thyme by the bunch, or by the sprig, dried thyme is widely used in Armenia in tisanes. Depending on how it is used in a dish, the whole sprig may be used, or the leaves removed, usually, when a recipe specifies bunch or sprig, it means the whole form, when it specifies spoons, it means the leaves. It is perfectly acceptable to substitute dried for whole thyme, leaves may be removed from stems either by scraping with the back of a knife, or by pulling through the fingers or tines of a fork. Thyme retains its flavour on drying better than other herbs. Oil of thyme, the oil of common thyme, contains 20–54% thymol
35.
Rosemary
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It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which includes many other herbs. The name rosemary derives from the Latin for dew and sea, the plant is also sometimes called anthos, from the ancient Greek word ἄνθος, meaning flower. Rosemary has a root system. Rosmarinus officinalis is one of 2–4 species in the genus Rosmarinus, the other species most often recognized is the closely related, Rosmarinus eriocalyx, of the Maghreb of Africa and Iberia. The genus was named by the 18th-century naturalist and founding taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, Rosemary is an aromatic evergreen shrub with leaves similar to hemlock needles. It is native to the Mediterranean and Asia, but is hardy in cool climates. It can withstand droughts, surviving a severe lack of water for lengthy periods, forms range from upright to trailing, the upright forms can reach 1.5 m tall, rarely 2 m. The leaves are evergreen, 2–4 cm long and 2–5 mm broad, green above, the plant flowers in spring and summer in temperate climates, but the plants can be in constant bloom in warm climates, flowers are white, pink, purple or deep blue. Rosemary also has a tendency to flower outside its normal flowering season, it has known to flower as late as early December. According to legend, it was draped around the Greek goddess Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, the Virgin Mary is said to have spread her blue cloak over a white-blossomed rosemary bush when she was resting, and the flowers turned blue. The shrub then became known as the Rose of Mary, Rosemary is used as a decorative plant in gardens where it may have pest control effects. The leaves are used to various foods, such as stuffings. Since it is attractive and drought-tolerant, rosemary is used as a plant in gardens and for xeriscape landscaping. It is considered easy to grow and pest-resistant, Rosemary can grow quite large and retain attractiveness for many years, can be pruned into formal shapes and low hedges, and has been used for topiary. It is easily grown in pots, the groundcover cultivars spread widely, with a dense and durable texture. Rosemary grows on friable loam soil with good drainage in an open and it will not withstand waterlogging and some varieties are susceptible to frost. It grows best in neutral to alkaline conditions with average fertility and it can be propagated from an existing plant by clipping a shoot 10–15 cm long, stripping a few leaves from the bottom, and planting it directly into soil. Numerous cultivars have been selected for garden use, fresh or dried leaves are used in traditional Mediterranean cuisine
36.
Argania
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Argania is a genus of flowering plants containing the sole species Argania spinosa, known as argan, a tree endemic to the calcareous semidesert Sous valley of southwestern Morocco. Currently, it can be only in an area of approximately 8,000 km2 in the southwest of Morocco. Argan grows to 8–10 m high and lives up to 200 years and they are thorny, with gnarled trunks and wide spreading crown. The crown have a circumference of about 70 m and the lean towards the ground. The leaves are small, 2–4 cm long, and oval with a rounded apex, the flowers are small, with five pale yellow-green petals, flowering is in April. The fruit is 2–4 cm long and 1. 5–3 cm broad, with a thick, bitter peel surrounding a sweet-smelling and this surrounds the very hard nut, which contains one small, oil-rich seeds. The fruit takes over a year to mature, ripening in June to July of the following year. The scientific name argania is derived from argan, the name of the tree in Tasussit, Tasussit has a rich vocabulary for the various parts of the fruit, its stages of ripeness, and its harvesting and processing. The oil is also called argan, in medieval Arabic pharmacological sources, the tree is known as harjān, a name which is also derived from Tasussit argan. In Morocco, arganeraie forests now cover some 8,280 km2 and are designated as a UNESCO biosphere reserve and their area has shrunk by about half during the last 100 years, due to charcoal-making, grazing, and increasingly intensive cultivation. The best hope for the conservation of the trees may lie in the recent development of an export market for argan oil as a high-value product. However, the wealth brought by argan oil export has also created threats to argan trees in the form of increased goat population. Locals use the wealth to buy more goats and the goats stunt the growth of the argan trees by climbing up and eating their leaves. Argan is grown in Israel, in the Arabah, and Negev, in some parts of Morocco, argan takes the place of the olive as a source of forage, oil, timber, and fuel in Berber society. Especially near Essaouira, the tree is frequently climbed by goats. Argan fruit falls in July, when black and dry, until this happens, goats are kept out of the argan woodlands by wardens. Rights to collect the fruit are controlled by law and village traditions, the leftover nuts are gathered after consumption and excretion by the goats. Argan oil is produced by several womens co-operatives in the parts of Morocco
37.
Moroccan citron
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The Moroccan citron is a true citron variety native to Assads, Morocco, which is still today its main center of cultivation. The Moroccan citron was described by the Moroccan professor Henri Chapot, as being a sweet citron, the Moroccan citron which is acidless is completely lacking the red color. Chapot was probably first to describe this variety of citron in detail, along with illustrations of many forms of the fruit, the only other known sweet citron is the Corsican. The exact date when the variety came into use for etrog is unknown, according to the local Jewry, it was with them since they were exiled to Morocco after the destruction of the Second Temple. From then on it was revered by all the rabbis and communities of North Africa. During time, it got accepted also by Ashkenazi communities all over Europe, the precise location of cultivation is at the village Assads in the Taroudant Province, and a 100 km east of Agadir, as was numerously reported by rabbinical and secular sources. In 1995, professor Eliezer E. Goldschmidt asked the Moroccan professor of horticulture, namely Mohamed El-Otmani from Agadir, the delegation presented their finding to Eliashiv, who was very happy about the information that the Moroccan wilderness still presents the unbroken lineage, of a non-grafted etrog. The Moroccan citron is allegedly noted for its seedlessness, and the Yemenite for its pulplessness, minhag Morocco Moroccan Jews Maghrebi Jews Berber Jews History of the Jews in Morocco Letter by Rabbi Kluger, the son of Rabbi Solomon Kluger about the Moroccan citron. The Report by professor Eliezer E. Goldschmidt, in Halichoth Sadeh תשנח, is available for reading in Otzar haChochma, the etrogim of Morocco, by Rabbi Yashar Livi
38.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
39.
Etrog
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Etrog is the yellow citron or Citrus medica used by Jewish people during the week-long holiday of Sukkot, as one of the four species. Together with a lulav, hadass and aravah, the etrog is to be taken in each Jewish hand, some taxonomic experts, like Hodgson and others, have mistakenly treated etrog as one specific variety of citron. The various Jewish rites utilize different varieties, according to their tradition or the decision of their respective Posek, the romanization as Etrog according to the Sephardic pronunciation, is widely used in Israel through Modern Hebrew. The Ashkenazi pronunciation as in Yiddish, is esrog or esrig and it has been transliterated as Ethrog or Ethrogh in scholarly work, which is according to Yemenite Hebrew. The Hebrew word is thought to derive from the Persian name for the fruit, turung, rabbinic Judaism believes the Biblical phrase peri eitz hadar refers to the etrog. Grammatically, the Hebrew phrase is ambiguous, it is translated as fruit of a beautiful tree. Etrogs are carefully selected for the performance of the Sukkot holiday rituals, in modern Hebrew, hadar refers to the genus Citrus. Nahmanides suggests that the word was the original Hebrew name for the citron, according to him, the word etrog was introduced over time, adapted from the Aramaic. The Arabic name for the fruit, itranj, mentioned in hadith literature, is also associated with the Hebrew. Etrog have been cultivated in the Holy Land extensively at the times of the Second Temple and is found in many archaeological foundlings of that era and those include mosaics of Maon Synagogue, Beth Alpha Synagogue, Hamat Tiberias Synagogue and more. In all those cites it is depicted alongside other important religious symbols and it is also found on numerous Bar Kokhba coins. The earliest reference to etrog in the land is still the recent discovery of citron pollen that was found in excavations on the Ramat Rachel site. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, exiled Jews planted citron orchards wherever they settled, in Europe as well as in North Africa and Asia Minor. Jews who resided in north of warm citron-growing areas were dependent on imported etrogim. By the seventeenth century some of the most popular sources were the islands of Corsica, Jewish communities in Europe and America then turned to Palestine, where etrog farmers had been marketing etrogim to Europe since the late 1850s through The Fruit of the Goodly Tree Association. Some Jewish communities still preferred citrons from Italy, Greece, Morocco, or Yemen, but many Jews seeking citrons turned to Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. These days, American Jews continue to import the majority of their holiday etrogim from Israel, a pitam or pitom is composed of a style, and a stigma, and usually falls off during the growing process. An etrog with an intact pitam is considered valuable
40.
Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
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Kasbah
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A kasbah, or in older English casbah, and qasbah or qassabah in India, is a type of medina, or fortress. It was a place for the leader to live and a defense when a city was under attack. A kasbah has high walls, usually without windows, sometimes, they were built on hilltops so that they could be more easily defended. Some were placed near the entrance to harbors, having a kasbah built was a sign of wealth of some families in the city. When colonization started in 1830, in northern Algeria, there were a number of kasbahs that lasted for more than 100 years. The word kasbah may also be used to describe the old part of a city, the Spanish word alcazaba is a cognate naming the equivalent building in Andalusia or Moorish Spain. In Portuguese, it evolved into the word alcáçova, in Catalan, the evolution resulted in alcassaba. In Turkish and Urdu the word refers to a settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city, in short. In Serbo-Croatian, kasaba means an undeveloped, provincial small town, in India, a qasbah is a small town distinguished by the presence of Muslim families of rank. Bab Ksiba Kasbah of the Udayas, in Rabat, Morocco Casbah of Algiers, Algeria Kasbah of Béja, Tunisia Battle of Port Lyautey Alcazaba Rock the Casbah The Casbah Coffee Club Ksar
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Terrace (agriculture)
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This type of landscaping, therefore, is called terracing. Graduated terrace steps are used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain. Terraced fields decrease both erosion and surface runoff, and may be used to growing crops that require irrigation. The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the significance of this technique, terraced paddy fields are used widely in rice, wheat and barley farming in east, south, and southeast Asia, as well as other places. In the South American Andes, farmers have used terraces, known as andenes, for over a years to farm potatoes, maize. Terraced farming was developed by the Wari and other peoples of the south-central Andes before 1000 AD, centuries before they were used by the Inca, the terraces were built to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops. The Inca built on these, developing a system of canals, aqueducts and these terraced farms are found wherever mountain villages have existed in the Andes. They provided the necessary to support the populations of great Inca cities. Terracing is also used for sloping terrain, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may have built on an artificial mountain with stepped terraces. At the seaside Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, the gardens of Julius Caesars father-in-law were designed in terraces to give pleasant. Terraced fields are common in islands with steep slopes, the Canary Islands present a complex system of terraces covering the landscape from the coastal irrigated plantations to the dry fields in the highlands. These terraces, which are named cadenas, are built with walls of skillful design. In Old English, a terrace was also called a lynch, an example of an ancient Lynch Mill is in Lyme Regis. The water is directed from a river by a duct along a terrace and this set-up was used in steep hilly areas in the UK. Anden Banaue Rice Terraces Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras Satoyama Terrace garden Terrace Fields around the World
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Dry stone
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Dry stone is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction method. Dry stone technology is best known in the context of wall construction, but dry stone artwork, buildings, bridges, Dry stone walls have been traditionally used in building construction as field boundaries and garden or churchyard walls, and on steep slopes as retaining walls for terracing. Some dry-stone wall constructions in north-west Europe have been dated back to the Neolithic Age, some Cornish hedges are believed by the Guild of Cornish Hedgers to date from 5000 BC, although there appears to be little dating evidence. In County Mayo, Ireland, a field system made from dry-stone walls. The cyclopean walls of the acropolis of Mycenae have been dated to 1350 BC, in Belize, the Mayan ruins at Lubaantun illustrate use of dry stone construction in architecture of the 8th and 9th centuries AD. When used as boundaries, dry stone structures often are known as dykes. Dry stone walls are characteristic of areas of Britain and Ireland where rock outcrops naturally or large stones exist in quantity in the soil. They are especially abundant in the West of Ireland, particularly Connemara and they may also be found throughout the Mediterranean, including retaining walls used for terracing. Such constructions are common where large stones are plentiful or conditions are too harsh for hedges capable of retaining livestock to be grown as field boundaries. Many thousands of miles of such walls exist, most of them centuries old, the technique of construction was brought to America primarily by English and Scots-Irish immigrants. The technique was taken to Australia and New Zealand. Similar walls also are found in the Swiss-Italian border region, where they are used to enclose the open space under large natural boulders or outcrops. The higher-lying rock-rich fields and pastures in Bohemias South-Western border range of Šumava are often lined by dry stone walls built of field-stones removed from the arable or cultural land and they serve both as cattle/sheep fences and the lots borders. Sometimes also the dry stone terracing is apparent, often combined with parts of masonry that are held together by a clay-cum-needles composite mortar. Great Zimbabwe is a city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe, near Lake Mutirikwe. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe during the countrys Late Iron Age, construction on the monument began in the 11th century and continued until the 15th century. The exact identity of the Great Zimbabwe builders is at present unknown, the stone city spans an area of 722 hectares which, at its peak, could have housed up to 18,000 people
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Retaining wall
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Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to. A retaining wall is a designed and constructed to resist the lateral pressure of soil. A basement wall is one kind of retaining wall. But the term refers to a cantilever retaining wall, which is a freestanding structure without lateral support at its top. These are cantilevered from a footing and rise above the grade on one side to retain a level grade on the opposite side. The walls must resist the pressures generated by loose soils or, in some cases. Every retaining wall supports a “wedge” of soil, the wedge is defined as the soil which extends beyond the failure plane of the soil type present at the wall site, and can be calculated once the soil friction angle is known. As the setback of the wall increases, the size of the wedge is reduced. This reduction lowers the pressure on the retaining wall, the most important consideration in proper design and installation of retaining walls is to recognize and counteract the tendency of the retained material to move downslope due to gravity. Lateral earth pressures are zero at the top of the wall, earth pressures will push the wall forward or overturn it if not properly addressed. Also, any groundwater behind the wall that is not dissipated by a system causes hydrostatic pressure on the wall. The total pressure or thrust may be assumed to act at one-third from the lowest depth for lengthwise stretches of uniform height. Unless the wall is designed to retain water, It is important to have proper drainage behind the wall in order to limit the pressure to the design value. Drainage materials will reduce or eliminate the pressure and improve the stability of the material behind the wall. Drystone retaining walls are normally self-draining.5 against lateral sliding and overturning, gravity walls depend on their mass to resist pressure from behind and may have a batter setback to improve stability by leaning back toward the retained soil. For short landscaping walls, they are made from mortarless stone or segmental concrete units. Dry-stacked gravity walls are somewhat flexible and do not require a rigid footing, earlier in the 20th century, taller retaining walls were often gravity walls made from large masses of concrete or stone. Cantilevered retaining walls are made from a stem of steel-reinforced
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