1.
Abisko National Park
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Abisko National Park is a National Park in Sweden, established in 1909. Abisko is situated in the Swedish province of Lapland near the Norwegian border and it begins at the shores of Torneträsk, one of Swedens largest lakes where the village of Abisko is located, and extends some 15 km to the south-west. It is situated about 195 km. north of the Arctic Circle, the purpose of the Abisko National Park was to preserve an area with northern Nordic fell nature in its original condition and as a reminiscence for scientific research. The region has proved to be of scientific interest, as is shown by the Abisko Scientific Research Station which exists to study the area. Furthermore, the park was intended to be a prominent tourist attraction. Abisko is also home to the Abisko Scientific Research Station, first established in 1903 approximately 31 km west of Abisko in Vassijaura, after a fire in 1910 a new station was built in its present location in Abisko in 1912 and opening in 1913. The research station was incorporated within the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1935 and it is used primarily for biological, climate, ecological, environmental, and geological research and contains on-site laboratories as well as off-site field research stations. The 440 km long Kungsleden hiking trail, which follows the Scandinavian mountain range, starts at the Abisko Turiststation, the Nordkalottruta uses trails of the park as part of its longer passage. The national park is known for its Cross-country skiing opportunities, snowshoeing, as its location is 195 km north of the Arctic Circle, summer hikers enjoy the midnight sun, while winter visitors may find the light pollution-free location ideal for viewing the aurora borealis. Daily passenger electric trains run by SJ AB connect Stockholm with the Norwegian city of Narvik, additional regional trains provide links within the Kiruna-Narvik stretch. Abisko is also reachable by car via the highway E10 which links Kiruna, other local forms of local transportation include hiking and dog-sledding in winter. A chair-lift provides access to the summit of nearby Mt. Nuolja, there are many species of birds in the park. Of the mammals, smaller ones like the marten, stoat, squirrel, the fell lemming and similar are common parts of the fauna
2.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
3.
North Cascades National Park
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North Cascades National Park is a U. S. National Park located in the state of Washington. The park is the largest of the three National Park Service units that comprise the North Cascades National Park Service Complex, several national wilderness areas and British Columbia parkland adjoin the National Park. The park features rugged mountain peaks and protects portions of the North Cascades range, at that time, Native American ancestors of Skagit tribes slowly advanced from Puget Sound into the interior mountainous region as the glacial ice retreated. Hozomeen chert, a type of rock well-suited to the fabrication of implements, was mined from near Hozomeen Mountain, just east of the park border, for the last 8,400 years. The micro blades are part of an assemblage that includes five distinct cultural periods. The archeological excavation at Cascade Pass is one of the 260 prehistoric sites that have identified in the park. When white explorers first entered the area in the late 18th century, the Skagits lived in settlements, culling their needs from the waterways and traveling by way of canoe. Skagits formed a confederation of tribes that united if threatened by outside tribes such as the Haidas. They erected large houses or lodges that might house multiple families, each with their own partitioned area, the Skagits erected totem poles and participated in potlatch ceremonies, similar to the Haidas, but with less complexity and extravagance. By 1910, only about 56 Skagits remained in the region, inland and residing to the north and east of the Skagits, the Nlakapamux, Chelan, Okanogan and Wenatchi tribes lived partly or year-round in the eastern sections of the North Cascades. The Skagits and Thompsons often had disputes, and raided each others camps in search of slaves or to exact retributions, one Wenatchi lodge was described by Thompson as being 240 ft long. Inland tribes were likely to travel on foot or horseback than by canoe since the inland regions were less densely forested. Inland tribes also had less bountiful fisheries and greater weather extremes due to being away from the moderating influence of the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, inland tribes rarely erected totem poles or participated in potlatch ceremonies, the earliest white explorer to enter the North Cascades was most likely a Scotsman named Alexander Ross in 1811, who was in the employ of the Pacific Fur Company, an American-owned company. Fort Okanogon was later owned by the North West Company and then the Hudsons Bay Company, much of the trade in furs was conducted between Native American and a few white trappers at trading posts staffed by representatives of the fur trading company. In one season alone, Ross traded for 1500 beaver pelts, Ross was accompanied by three Indians, one of which was a guide, who led the party to a high pass in the North Cascades. Ross and the guide may have travelled as far west as the Skagit River, aside from isolated trappers, the North Cascades saw no explorations until the 1850s. In 1853, U. S. Army Captain George B, during the late 1850s, members of the U. S. North West Boundary Commission explored the boundary region, attempting to identify which mountains, rivers and lakes belonged to which country
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
Amphitheatre
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An amphitheatre or amphitheater /ˈæmfᵻˌθiːətər/ is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον, from ἀμφί, ancient Roman amphitheatres were oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium. In contrast both ancient Greek and ancient Roman theatres were built in a semicircle, with tiered seating rising on one side of the performance area. In modern usage, amphitheatre is used to describe theatre-style stages with spectator seating on only one side, theatres in the round. Natural formations of similar shape are known as natural amphitheatres. Ancient Roman amphitheatres were major public venues, circular or oval in plan and they were used for events such as gladiator combats, chariot races, venationes and executions. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of the Roman Empire, the earliest Roman amphitheatres date from the middle of the 1st century BC, but most were built under Imperial rule, from the Augustan period onwards. Imperial amphitheatres were built throughout the Roman empire, the largest could accommodate 40, the most elaborate featured multi-storeyed, arcaded façades and were elaborately decorated with marble, stucco and statuary. After the end of games in the 5th century and of staged animal hunts in the 6th. Their materials were mined or recycled, some were razed, and others were converted into fortifications. A few continued as convenient open meeting places, in some of these, in modern usage, an amphitheatre is a circular, semicircular or curved, acoustically vibrant performance space, particularly one located outdoors. Small-scale amphitheatres can serve to host outdoor local community performances, notable modern amphitheatres include the Shoreline Amphitheatre and the Hollywood Bowl. The term amphitheatre is used for some indoor venues such as the Gibson Amphitheatre. The term amphitheatre can also be used to naturally occurring formations which would be ideal for this purpose. Arena Stadium Thingplatz List of Roman amphitheatres List of contemporary amphitheatres List of indoor arenas List of ancient Greek theatres Roman theatre Bomgardner, the Story of the Roman Amphitheatre
6.
Valley
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A valley is a low area between hills, often with a river running through it. In geology, a valley or dale is a depression that is longer than it is wide, the terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys. Most valleys belong to one of two main types or a mixture of them, with respect to the cross section of the slopes or hillsides. A valley in its broadest geographic sense is known as a dale. A valley through which a river runs may also be referred to as a vale, a small, secluded, and often wooded valley is known as a dell or in Scotland as a glen. A wide, flat valley through which a river runs is known in Scotland as a strath, a mountain cove is a small valley, closed at one or both ends, in the central or southern Appalachian Mountains which sometimes results from the erosion of a geologic window. A small valley surrounded by mountains or ridges is sometimes known as a hollow, a deep, narrow valley is known as a cwm. Similar geological structures, such as canyons, ravines, gorges, gullies, chines, a valley formed by erosion is called an erosional valley, a valley formed by geologic events such as drop faults or the rise of highlands is called a structural valley. A valley formed by flowing water, or river valley, is usually V-shaped, the exact shape will depend on the characteristics of the stream flowing through it. Rivers with steep gradients, as in mountain ranges, produce steep walls, shallower slopes may produce broader and gentler valleys. However, in the lowest stretch of a river, where it approaches its base level, it begins to deposit sediment, in prehistory, the rivers were used as a source of fresh water and food, as well as a place to wash and a sewer. The proximity of water moderated temperature extremes and provided a source for irrigation, most of the first civilizations developed from these river valley communities. In geography, a vale is a river valley, usually with a particularly wide flood plain or flat valley bottom. In Southern England, vales commonly occur between the escarpment slopes of pairs of chalk formations, where the dome has been eroded, exposing less resistant underlying rock. Rift valleys, such as the Albertine Rift, are formed by the expansion of the Earths crust due to tectonic activity beneath the Earths surface, there are various forms of valley associated with glaciation that may be referred to as glacial valleys. A valley carved by glaciers is normally U-shaped, the valley becomes visible upon the recession of the glacier that forms it. When the ice recedes or thaws, the remains, often littered with small boulders that were transported within the ice. Floor gradient does not affect the shape, it is the glaciers size that does
7.
Glacier
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A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight, it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs and they also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice, between 35°N and 35°S, glaciers occur only in the Himalayas, Andes, Rocky Mountains, a few high mountains in East Africa, Mexico, New Guinea and on Zard Kuh in Iran. Glaciers cover about 10 percent of Earths land surface, continental glaciers cover nearly 13,000,000 km2 or about 98 percent of Antarcticas 13,200,000 km2, with an average thickness of 2,100 m. Greenland and Patagonia also have huge expanses of continental glaciers, Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Within high altitude and Antarctic environments, the temperature difference is often not sufficient to release meltwater. A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue as large quantities of water appear blue and this is because water molecules absorb other colors more efficiently than blue. The other reason for the color of glaciers is the lack of air bubbles. Air bubbles, which give a color to ice, are squeezed out by pressure increasing the density of the created ice. The word Glaceon is a loanword from French and goes back, via Franco-Provençal, to the Vulgar Latin glaciārium, derived from the Late Latin glacia, the processes and features caused by or related to glaciers are referred to as glacial. The process of establishment, growth and flow is called glaciation. The corresponding area of study is called glaciology, Glaciers are important components of the global cryosphere. Glaciers are categorized by their morphology, thermal characteristics, and behavior, cirque glaciers form on the crests and slopes of mountains. A glacier that fills a valley is called a valley glacier, a large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano is termed an ice cap or ice field. Ice caps have a less than 50,000 km2 by definition. Glacial bodies larger than 50,000 km2 are called ice sheets or continental glaciers, several kilometers deep, they obscure the underlying topography. Only nunataks protrude from their surfaces, the only extant ice sheets are the two that cover most of Antarctica and Greenland. They contain vast quantities of water, enough that if both melted, global sea levels would rise by over 70 m
8.
Erosion
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In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that remove soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earths crust, then transport it away to another location. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, the rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Feedbacks are also possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material that is carried by, for example. Processes of erosion that produce sediment or solutes from a place contrast with those of deposition, while erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10-40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. At well-known agriculture sites such as the Appalachian Mountains, intensive farming practices have caused erosion up to 100x the speed of the rate of erosion in the region. Excessive erosion causes both on-site and off-site problems, on-site impacts include decreases in agricultural productivity and ecological collapse, both because of loss of the nutrient-rich upper soil layers. In some cases, the end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads. Intensive agriculture, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion, however, there are many prevention and remediation practices that can curtail or limit erosion of vulnerable soils. Rainfall, and the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four types of soil erosion, splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion. Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the erosion process. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a crater in the soil. The distance these soil particles travel can be as much as 0.6 m vertically and 1.5 m horizontally on level ground. If the soil is saturated, or if the rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil. If the runoff has sufficient flow energy, it will transport loosened soil particles down the slope, sheet erosion is the transport of loosened soil particles by overland flow. Rill erosion refers to the development of small, ephemeral concentrated flow paths which function as both sediment source and sediment delivery systems for erosion on hillslopes, generally, where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are typically of the order of a few centimetres or less and this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics very different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when water accumulates and rapidly flows in narrow channels during or immediately after heavy rains or melting snow
9.
Scottish Gaelic
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Scottish Gaelic or Scots Gaelic, sometimes also referred to as Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish. The 2011 census of Scotland showed that a total of 57,375 people in Scotland could speak Gaelic at that time, the census results indicate a decline of 1,275 Gaelic speakers from 2001. A total of 87,056 people in 2011 reported having some facility with Gaelic compared to 93,282 people in 2001, only about half of speakers were fully literate in the language. Nevertheless, revival efforts exist and the number of speakers of the language under age 20 has increased, Scottish Gaelic is neither an official language of the European Union nor the United Kingdom. Outside Scotland, a group of dialects collectively known as Canadian Gaelic are spoken in parts of Atlantic Canada, mainly Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. In the 2011 census, there were 7,195 total speakers of Gaelic languages in Canada, with 1,365 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island where the responses mainly refer to Scottish Gaelic. About 2,320 Canadians in 2011 also claimed Gaelic languages as their mother tongue, with over 300 in Nova Scotia, aside from Scottish Gaelic, the language may also be referred to simply as Gaelic. In Scotland, the word Gaelic in reference to Scottish Gaelic specifically is pronounced, outside Ireland and Great Britain, Gaelic may refer to the Irish language. Scottish Gaelic should not be confused with Scots, the Middle English-derived language varieties which had come to be spoken in most of the Lowlands of Scotland by the modern era. Prior to the 15th century, these dialects were known as Inglis by its own speakers, from the late 15th century, however, it became increasingly common for such speakers to refer to Scottish Gaelic as Erse and the Lowland vernacular as Scottis. Today, Scottish Gaelic is recognised as a language from Irish. Gaelic in Scotland was mostly confined to Dál Riata until the 8th century, when it began expanding into Pictish areas north of the Firth of Forth, by 900, Pictish appears to have become extinct, completely replaced by Gaelic. An exception might be made for the Northern Isles, however, however, though the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly, a process of Gaelicisation was clearly underway during the reigns of Caustantín and his successors. By a certain point, probably during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, by the 10th century, Gaelic had become the dominant language throughout northern and western Scotland, the Gaelo-Pictic Kingdom of Alba. Its spread to southern Scotland, was even and totalizing. Place name analysis suggests dense usage of Gaelic in Galloway and adjoining areas to the north and west as well as in West Lothian, less dense usage is suggested for north Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, the Clyde Valley and eastern Dumfriesshire. In south-eastern Scotland, there is no evidence that Gaelic was ever widely spoken, the area shifted from Cumbric to Old English during its long incorporation into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria
10.
Cauldron
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A cauldron is a large metal pot for cooking and/or boiling over an open fire, with a large mouth and frequently with an arc-shaped hanger. The word cauldron is first recorded in Middle English as caudroun and it was borrowed from Norman caudron. It represents the evolution of Vulgar Latin *caldario for Classical Latin caldārium hot bath. The Norman-French word replaces probably the not initial new English sentence ċetel, the word kettle is a borrowing of the Old Norse variant ketill cauldron. Cauldrons have largely fallen out of use in the world as cooking vessels. In fiction, witches often prepare their potions in a cauldron, also, in Irish folklore, a cauldron is purported to be where leprechauns keep their gold and treasure. In some forms of Wicca, incorporating aspects of Celtic mythology, welsh legend also tells of cauldrons that were useful to warring armies. It was suspected that they lacked souls and these warriors could go back into battle until they were killed again. In Wicca and some forms of neopagan or pagan belief systems the cauldron is still used in magical practices. Most often a cauldron is made of cast iron and is used to burn incense on a charcoal disc, to make black salt, for mixing herbs. Cauldrons symbolize not only the Goddess but also represent the womb, cauldrons are often sold in New Age or metaphysical stores and may have various symbols of power inscribed on them. This may have resulted from the combination of the legend with earlier Celtic myths of magical cauldrons. The common translation for ding is often referred to as a cauldron, in Chinese history and culture, possession of one or more ancient dings is often associated with power and dominion over the land. Therefore, the ding is often used as a symbolism for power. The term inquiring of the ding is often used interchangeably with the quest for power
11.
Welsh language
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Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, historically it has also been known in English as the British tongue, Cambrian, Cambric and Cymric. The United Kingdom Census 2011 counted 3.1 million residents of Wales, 27% of whom had been born outside Wales, and 73% of whom reported having no Welsh language skills. Of residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read and this can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20. 8% of the population reported being able to speak Welsh. 787,854 of residents in Wales aged three and over had one or more skills in Welsh, in surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language. An estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, the name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning foreign speech. The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and for the name of the country of Wales it is Cymru, Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons. Classified as Insular Celtic, the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth. During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and it is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or Early Poets – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material. An 8th century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns, the next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh, poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. Both the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were in this era, Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts, Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells, in his Descriptio Cambriae, during one of the Kings many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire whether the Welsh people could resist his army
12.
Overdeepening
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Overdeepening is a characteristic of basins and valleys eroded by glaciers. An overdeepened valley profile is often eroded to depths which are hundreds of metres below the deepest continuous line along a valley or watercourse. When the channel produced by a glacier is filled with debris and these overdeepened cuts into bedrock structures can reach a depth of several hundred metres below the valley floor. Overdeepened fjords and lakes have significant economic value as harbours and fisheries, overdeepening is exhibited across the range of glacially eroded geologic features. Fjords are formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by erosion of the surrounding bedrock, the Sognefjord in Norway stretches 205 kilometres inland. It reaches a depth of 1,308 metres below sea level, and, as is characteristic of overdeepening. Near its mouth, the bottom rises abruptly to a sill about 100 metres below sea level, the average width of the main branch of the Sognefjord is about 4.5 kilometres. Cliffs surrounding the fjord rise almost sheer from the water to heights of 1,000 metres, the Skelton Inlet in Antarctica shows similar overdeepening to 1,933 m, as does the Messier Channel in Chile which deepens to 1,288 m. Nesje writes. glaciers are necessary for fjord formation, the strongest indication for glacial erosion is the overdeepening of fjord floors well below present and past sea level and their outer rock threshold. Measured in volume eroded within a time span, an ice stream forming its own clearly defined drainage channel is apparently one of the most significant erosive agents in operation on Earth. Some freshwater lakes which have formed in long glacially-carved valleys with extensive overdeepening, fjord lakes are commonly formed in mountainous regions which channel ice flows through narrow valleys. Although they exist in countries, the fjord lakes found in British Columbia. There the interior plateau is dissected by numerous elongated, glacially overdeepened lakes, one such lake is Okanagan Lake, which is 3. Similar fjord lakes in excess of 100 km in length are found elsewhere in British Columbia, tunnel valleys exhibit classical overdeepening with maximum depths that may vary between 50 and 400 m, they vary in depth along the long axis. Their cross-sections exhibit steep sided flanks and flat bottoms typical of subglacial glacial erosion, tunnel valleys were formed by subglacial erosion by water and served as subglacial drainage pathways carrying large volumes of melt water. They presently appear as dry valleys, lakes, seabed depressions, if they are filled with sediment their lower layers are filled primarily with glacial, glaciofluvial or glaciolacustrine sediment, supplemented by upper layers of temperate infill. They can be found in areas covered by glacial ice sheets including Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, Australia and offshore in the North Sea. Tunnel valleys appear in the literature under several terms, including tunnel channels, subglacial valleys
13.
Tarn (lake)
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A tarn is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. It is formed when rain or river water fills the cirque. A moraine may form a dam below a tarn. The word is derived from the Old Norse word tjörn meaning pond and its more specific use as a mountain lake emerges as it is the commonly used term for all ponds in the upland areas of Northern England. Here, it retains a use, referring to any small lake or pond, regardless of its location. In Scandinavian languages, a tjern or tjärn, tärn or tjørn is a natural lake
14.
Moraine
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A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris previously carried along by a glacier, lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders. The debris is typically sub-angular to rounded in shape, moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into passive and active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking and these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice and these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are often composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may also form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin and these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape. Some moraine types are only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier, the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin until the glacier melts, lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier advances and retreats, ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges, often forming gently rolling hills or plains. They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, in alpine glaciers, ground moraines are often found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice, Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet. The depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs, Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, Sweden, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier and they usually reflect the shape of the glaciers terminus. Glaciers act much like a belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines
15.
Glacial till
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Till or glacial till is unsorted glacial sediment. Till is derived from the erosion and entrainment of material by the ice of a glacier. It is deposited some distance down-ice to form terminal, lateral, medial, till is classified into primary deposits, laid down directly by glaciers, and secondary deposits, reworked by fluvial transport and other processes. Glacial drift is the graded and extremely heterogeneous sediment of a glacier. Its content may vary from clays to mixtures of clay, sand, gravel and this material is mostly derived from the subglacial erosion and entrainment by the moving ice of the glaciers of previously available unconsolidated sediments. Bedrock can also be eroded through the action of glacial plucking and abrasion, eventually, the sedimentary assemblage forming this bed will be abandoned some distance down-ice from its various sources. This is the process of glacial till deposition, when this deposition occurs at the base of the moving ice of a glacier, the sediment is called lodgement till. Rarely, eroded unconsolidated sediments can be preserved in the till along with their original sedimentary structures, till is deposited at the terminal moraine, along the lateral and medial moraines and in the ground moraine of a glacier. Prospectors use trace minerals in tills as clues to follow the glacier upstream to find kimberlite diamond deposits, in cases where till has been indurated or lithified by subsequent burial into solid rock, it is known as the sedimentary rock tillite. Matching beds of ancient tillites on opposite sides of the south Atlantic Ocean provided early evidence for continental drift, the same tillites also provide some support to the Precambrian Snowball Earth glaciation event hypothesis. There are various types of classifying tills, primary deposits – laid down directly by glacier action secondary deposits – reworked by fluvial transport, erosion, traditionally a further set of divisions has been made to primary deposits, based upon the method of deposition. Lodgement tills – sediment which has been deposited by plastering of glacial debris from a sliding glacier bed, deformation tills – Sediment which has been disaggregated and homogenised by shearing in the sub glacial deformed layer. Melt out tills – Released by melting of stagnant or slowly moving debris-rich glacier ice, split up into sub glacial melt out till and supraglacial melt-out till. Sublimation till – similar to melt out till, except the ice is lost through sublimation rather than melt, often occurs only in extremely cold and arid conditions, mainly in Antarctica. Van der Meer et al.2003 have suggested that these classifications are outdated and should instead be replaced with only one classification
16.
Makhtesh
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A makhtesh (Hebrew, מַכְתֵּשׁ, plural, מַכְתְּשִׁים is a geological landform considered unique to the Negev desert of Israel and the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. A makhtesh has steep walls of resistant rock surrounding a deep closed valley which is drained by a single wadi. The valleys have limited vegetation and soil, containing a variety of different colored rocks and diverse fauna, the best known and largest makhtesh is Makhtesh Ramon. Although commonly referred to as craters, these formations are erosion cirques, craters are formed by the impact of a meteor or volcanic eruption, whereas makhteshim are created by erosion. The word makhtesh is the Hebrew word for a mortar grinder, the geological landform was given this name, because of its similarity to a grinding bowl. Where a hard layer of rock covers softer rocks, erosion removes the softer minerals relatively quickly. The harder rocks eventually collapse under their own weight and a crater-like valley structure is formed, in Negev and Sinai makhteshim, the hard rocks are limestone and dolomite, while the inner softer rocks are chalk or sandstone. The center of the Negev is dominated by northeast-southwest anticlinal ridges, the crests of four ridges host five deep valleys surrounded by steep walls. The upper half consists of limestone and dolomite and the bottom of friable sandstone. Each valley, known as a makhtesh, is drained by a river bed. The Negev has five makhteshim, Makhtesh Ramon, Makhtesh Gadol, Makhtesh Katan, Makhtesh Ramon is exceptional as it is drained by two rivers. It is the largest makhtesh at over 40km long, 2–10km wide, the rocks in this makhtesh contain thousands of ammonite fossils, as well as volcanic and metamorphic rocks. Makhtesh Gadol At the time of naming, Makhtesh Ramon was uncharted and so this was thought to be the largest makhtesh, Makhtesh Katan is the smallest major makhtesh at 5km by 7km and was charted in 1942 by Jewish explorers. The two makhteshim in Sinai, Egypt, have no names for the basin, but their walls have several names including Jabal al-Manzur or Gebel Maghara, mazor, Emanuel and Krasnov, Boris, editors The Makhteshim Country - a Laboratory of Nature. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia,2001,411 pages
17.
Karst
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Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves and it has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes, the English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century. The German word came into use before the 19th century, according to the prevalent interpretation, the term is derived from the German name for the Karst region, a limestone plateau above the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic. Scholars disagree, however, on whether the German word was borrowed from Slovene, the Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century. The Slovene words arose through metathesis from the reconstructed form *korsъ, ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin, believed to derive from some Romanized Illyrian base. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- rock, the name may also be connected to the oronym Karsádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius. The development of karst occurs whenever acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock near its cracks, as the bedrock continues to degrade, its cracks tend to get bigger. As time goes on, these fractures will become wider, if this underground drainage system does form, it will speed up the development of karst formations there because more water will be able to flow through the region, giving it more erosive power. The carbonic acid that causes karstic features is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up carbon dioxide, once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that can provide much more CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution, which dissolves calcium carbonate. The oxidation of sulfides leading to the formation of acid can also be one of the corrosion factors in karst formation. As oxygen -rich surface waters seep into deep anoxic karst systems, they bring oxygen, sulfuric acid then reacts with calcium carbonate, causing increased erosion within the limestone formation. This chain of reactions is, This reaction chain forms gypsum, the karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes, runnels, limestone pavement, medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes, vertical shafts, foibe, disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys, mature karst landscapes, where more bedrock has been removed than remains, may result in karst towers, or haystack/eggbox landscapes. Beneath the surface, complex underground systems and extensive caves. Some of the most dramatic of these formations can be seen in Thailands Phangnga Bay, calcium carbonate dissolved into water may precipitate out where the water discharges some of its dissolved carbon dioxide. Rivers which emerge from springs may produce tufa terraces, consisting of layers of calcite deposited over extended periods of time, in caves, a variety of features collectively called speleothems are formed by deposition of calcium carbonate and other dissolved minerals
18.
Fluvial
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Fluvial is a term used in geography and geology to refer to the processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, fluvial processes include the motion of sediment and erosion or deposition on the river bed. Erosion by moving water can happen in two ways, firstly, the movement of water across the bed exerts a shear stress directly onto the bed. However, if the river carries significant quantities of sediment, this material can act as tools to enhance wear of the bed, at the same time the fragments themselves are ground down, becoming smaller and more rounded. Sediment in rivers is transported as either bedload or suspended load, there is also a component carried as dissolved material. For each grain size there is a velocity at which the grains start to move. However the grains will continue to be transported even if the velocity falls below the entrainment velocity due to the friction between the grains and the river bed. Eventually the velocity will fall low enough for the grains to be deposited and this is shown by the Hjulstrøm curve. A river is continually picking up and dropping solid particles of rock, where the river flow is fast, more particles are picked up than dropped. Where the river flow is slow, more particles are dropped than picked up, areas where more particles are dropped are called alluvial or flood plains, and the dropped particles are called alluvium. Even small streams make alluvial deposits, but it is in the plains and deltas of large rivers that large. The amount of matter carried by a river is enormous. The names of rivers derive from the color that the transported matter gives the water. For example, the Huang He in China is literally translated Yellow River, and it has been estimated that the Mississippi River annually carries 406 million tons of sediment to the sea, the Yellow River 796 million tons, and the Po River in Italy 67 million tons. Lacustrine - of or relating to a lake maritime - of or relating the sea oceanic - of or relating to an ocean palustrine - of or relating to a marsh
19.
Firn line
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Firn is partially compacted névé, a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than névé. It is ice that is at a stage between snow and glacial ice. Firn has the appearance of wet sugar, but has a hardness that makes it resistant to shovelling. Its density generally ranges from 0.4 g/cm³ to 0.83 g/cm³, snowflakes are compressed under the weight of the overlying snowpack. Individual crystals near the point are semiliquid and slick, allowing them to glide along other crystal planes. Where the crystals touch they bond together, squeezing the air between them to the surface or into bubbles, in the summer months, the crystal metamorphosis can occur more rapidly because of water percolation between the crystals. By summers end, the result is firn, the minimum altitude that firn accumulates on a glacier is called the firn limit, firn line or snowline. USGS Glossary of Selected Glacier and Related Terminology Fundamentals of Physical Geography Firn definition on Encyclopædia Britannica /Greenland Meltwater Storage in Firn Limited
20.
Cliff
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In geography and geology, a cliff is a vertical, or nearly vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms by the processes of weathering, Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually formed by rock that is resistant to weathering, sedimentary rocks most likely to form cliffs include sandstone, limestone, chalk, and dolomite. Igneous rocks such as granite and basalt also often form cliffs, an escarpment is a type of cliff, formed by the movement of a geologic fault or a landslide. Most cliffs have some form of slope at their base. In arid areas or under high cliffs, they are generally exposed jumbles of fallen rock, in areas of higher moisture, a soil slope may obscure the talus. Many cliffs also feature tributary waterfalls or rock shelters, sometimes a cliff peters out at the end of a ridge, with tea tables or other types of rock columns remaining. Coastal erosion may lead to the formation of sea cliffs along a receding coastline, the Ordnance Survey distinguishes between cliffs and outcrops. Cliff is a Romance loanword that has its origins in the Latin forms clivus / clevus. Given that a cliff need not be vertical, there can be ambiguity about whether a given slope is a cliff or not. For example, given a vertical rock wall above a very steep slope. Listings of cliffs are thus inherently uncertain, some of the largest cliffs on Earth are found underwater. For example, an 8,000 m drop over a 4,250 m span can be found at a ridge sitting inside the Kermadec Trench. One candidate for highest cliff in the world is Nanga Parbats Rupal Face, according to other sources, the highest cliff in the world, about 1,340 m high, is the east face of Great Trango in the Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan. The location of the worlds highest sea cliffs depends also on the definition of cliff that is used, guinness World Records states it is Kalaupapa, Hawaii, at 1,010 m high. Another contender is the face of Mitre Peak, which drops 1,683 m to Milford Sound. These are subject to a less stringent definition, as the slope of these cliffs at Kaulapapa is about 1.7, corresponding to an angle of 60 degrees. A more vertical drop into the sea can be found at Maujit Qaqarssuasia which is situated in the Torssukátak fjord area at the tip of South Greenland
21.
Ice segregation
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Ice segregation is the geological phenomenon produced by the formation of ice lenses, which induce erosion when moisture, diffused within soil or rock, accumulates in a localized zone. Ice lenses grow parallel to the surface and several centimeters to several decimeters deep in the soil or rock, studies between 1990 and present have demonstrated that rock fracture by ice segregation is a more effective weathering process than the freeze-thaw process which older texts proposed. Ice lenses play the key role in fracture of bedrock and frost induced heaving of soils, frost heaving creates debris and dramatically shapes landscapes into complex patterns. Rock fracture in periglacial regions has often attributed to the freezing and volumetric expansion of water trapped within pores. However the majority of frost heaving and of bedrock fracture results instead from ice segregation in ice lenses in the frozen regions. Ice segregation results in rock fracture and frost heave, frost heave is the process by which the freezing of water-saturated soil causes the deformation and upward thrust of the ground surface. This process can distort and crack pavement, damage the foundations of buildings, moist, fine-grained soil at certain temperatures is most susceptible to frost heaving. Frost heave is common in arctic tundra because the permafrost maintains ground frozen at depth and prevents snowmelt, as a result, conditions are optimal for deep ice lens formation with large ice accumulations and significant soil displacement. Differential frost heave producing complex patterns will occur if the correct conditions exist, feedback from one years frost heave influences the effects in subsequent years. For example, a increase in overburden will affect the depth of ice formation. Time-dependent models of the frost heave indicate that over a long period the short-separation perturbations damp out, while mid-range perturbations grow. Bands of sediment or glacial till have been observed below Antarctic ice sheets, in the faster flowing glacial regions, the ice sheet is sliding over water saturated sediments or actually being floated upon a layer of water. The till and water served to reduce friction between the base of the ice sheet and the bedrock and these subglacial waters come from surface water which seasonally drains from melting at the surface, as well as from ice-sheet base melting. Ice lens growth within the bedrock below the glacier is projected during the months when there is ample water at the base of the glacier. Ice lenses will form within the bedrock, accumulating until the rock is sufficiently weakened that it shears or spalls off, layers of rock along the interface between glaciers and the bedrock are freed, producing much of the sediments in these basal regions of glaciers. Since the rate of movement is dependent upon the characteristics of this basal ice. The term premelting is used to describe the reduction in the temperature which results from the surface curvature of porous media confining water. Premelted water exists as a layer on the surface of ice
22.
Abrasion (geology)
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Abrasion is the mechanical scraping of a rock surface by friction between rocks and moving particles during their transport by wind, glacier, waves, gravity, running water or erosion. After friction, the moving particles dislodge loose and weak debris from the side of the rock, the intensity of abrasion depends on the hardness, concentration, velocity and mass of the moving particles. Coastal abrasion occurs as breaking waves which contain sand and larger fragments erode the shoreline or headland and this removes material resulting in undercutting and possible collapse of unsupported overhanging cliffs. Abrasion platforms are shore platforms where wave action abrasion is a prominent process, if it is currently being fashioned, it will be exposed only at low tide, but there is a possibility that the wave-cut platform will be hidden sporadically by a mantle of beach shingle. If the platform is exposed above the high-water mark, it is probably a raised beach platform. Erosion Glacial striation Sedimentary Marine terrace
23.
Cirque glacier
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A cirque glacier is formed in a cirque, a bowl-shaped depression on the side of or near mountains. Snow and ice accumulation in corries often occurs as the result of avalanching from higher surrounding slopes, if a cirque glacier advances far enough, it may become a valley glacier. Additionally, a glacier retreats enough that it is within the cirque. In these depressions, snow persists through summer months, and becomes glacier ice, snow may be situated on the leeward slope of a mountain, where it is sheltered from wind. Rock fall from above slopes also plays an important role in sheltering the snow, if enough rock falls onto the glacier, it may become a rock glacier. Randklufts may form beneath corrie glaciers as open space between the ice and the bedrock, where meltwater can play a role in deposition of the rock, norwegian Cirque Glaciers, Royal Geographical Society Research Series 4
24.
Bowl
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A bowl is a round, open-top container used in many cultures to serve hot and cold food. Bowls are also used for drinking, as in the case of caffè latte, bowls used for storing non-food items range from small bowls used for holding tips at a coffee shop to large bowls used for storing DVDs or CDs. Bowls are typically small and shallow, as in the case of bowls used for single servings of soup or cereal, some bowls, such as punch bowls, serving bowls, fruit bowls and salad bowls are larger and often intended to serve many people. Modern bowls can be made of ceramic, metal, wood, plastic and their appearance can range from very simple designs of a single color to designs sophisticated artwork. Bowls have existed for thousands of years, very early bowls have been found in China, Ancient Greece, Crete and in certain Native American cultures. In classical Greece, small bowls, including phiales and pateras, some Mediterranean examples from the Bronze Age manifest elaborate decoration and sophistication of design. For example, the bridge spouted vessel design appeared in Minoan at Phaistos, in the 4th century BCE, evidence exists that the Uruk culture of ancient Mesopotamia mass-produced beveled rim bowls of standardized sizes. Moreover, in Chinese pottery, there are elaborately painted bowls. As of 2009, the oldest found is 18,000 years old, a bowl is also a standard unit of measure, as defined by the American Institute of Measurements. One bowl is the equivalent of 3.75 cups or 887.2059 ml, bridge spouted vessel Buffet Dishware List of eating utensils C. Michael Hogan Phaistos fieldnotes, The Modern Antiquarian,2007 Vincas P. Steponaitis. Ceramics, Chronology, and Community Patterns, An Archaeological Study at Moundville, history of Ancient Pottery, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, pp 140, 191–192. The Phiale of Achyris - On the website of the Archeological Institute of America, the Phiale is dated from 300 BC and is made of gold, includes pictures
25.
Plucking (glaciation)
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Plucking, also referred to as quarrying, is a glacial phenomenon that is responsible for the erosion and transportation of individual pieces of bedrock, especially large joint blocks. This occurs in a type of glacier called a valley glacier, as a glacier moves down a valley, friction causes the basal ice of the glacier to melt and infiltrate joints in the bedrock. This produces large pieces of rock called joint blocks, eventually these joint blocks come loose and become trapped in the glacier. In this way, plucking has been linked to regelation, rocks of all sizes can become trapped in the bottom of the glacier. Joint blocks up to three meters have been plucked and transported and these entrained rock fragments can also cause abrasion along the subsequent bedrock and walls. Plucking also leads to chatter marks, wedge shaped indentations left on the bedrock or other rock surfaces, glacial plucking both exploits pre-existing fractures in the bedrock and requires continued fracturing to maintain the cycle of erosion. Glacial plucking is most significant where the surface is well jointed or fractured or where it contains exposed bed planes, as this allows meltwater. Plucking of bedrock also occurs in upland rivers, and shares a number of similarities with glacial examples. Glacial plucking is largely dependent on the amount of stress exerted on a clast overlain by glacial ice and this relationship is a balance between the sheer stress exerted on the clast and the normal pressure on the clast by a body of ice. Plucking is increased where there are preexisting fractures in a rock bed, as the glacier slides down a mountain, energy from friction, pressure or geothermal heat causes glacial meltwater to infiltrate the spaces between rocks. This process, known as frost wedging, puts stress on the structure as water expands when it freezes. Impacts from large clasts carried in the bedload can cause stress to the bedrock. Glacial plucking is the mechanism of other small scale mechanical glacial erosion such as striation, abrasion. The heavier the sediment load, the extreme the erosion of the downhill landscape. Erosion is largely dependent on the amount of flow and its velocity. A rock that has been subject to glacial erosion will often show a pattern in which the rock appears scratched. Long parallel lines cover the rock and show the appearance of something having been dragged along the top of it. Although striations can form on any sort of rock, they are present on more stable bedrock such as quartzite or granite where erosion processes are more readily preserved
26.
Bergschrund
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A bergschrund is a crevasse that forms where moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice or firn above. It is often an obstacle for mountaineers, who sometimes abbreviate bergschrund to schrund. In a corrie or cirque, the bergschrund is positioned at the rear and it is caused by the rotational movement of the glacier. In a longitudinal glacier, the bergschrund is at the top end of the glacier at an angle to the flow of the glacier. It is caused by the flow of the glacier. Bergschrunds extend to the bedrock and can have a depth of well over 100 metres, in winter, a bergschrund is often filled by snow from avalanches from the mountain above it. In later summer, due to melting, it lies open, the bergschrund is distinct from the randkluft, which is the crevasse of which one face is the rock, back wall of the corrie. The randkluft arises in part from the melting of the ice arising from the presence of the rock face. However, the randkluft is sometimes called a bergschrund, on the South Col route to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a deep bergschrund lies at the bottom of the Lhotse face, separating Camp II from Camp III
27.
Mount Field National Park
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Mount Field National Park is a national park in Tasmania, Australia,64 km northwest of Hobart. The landscape ranges from eucalyptus temperate rainforest to alpine moorland, rising to 1,434 metres at the summit of Mount Field West, Mount Field National Park was founded in 1916, making it, along with Freycinet National Park, Tasmanias oldest national park. The area around Russell Falls has been protected for its natural beauty since 1885, the last known wild thylacine was captured in the region in 1933. The reserve was called National Park before 1946, but was renamed to its present name in 1947. During the Pleistocene period a snowfield covered the top of the Mount Field plateau which fed glaciers in the surrounding valleys, a large,12 km long glacier formed the broad river valley and the cirque walls above Lake Seal. Twisted Tarn, Twilight Tarn and the tarns on the tarn shelf were formed by glacial scouring, a glacier flowed south from the Rodway Range, forming lakes Belcher and Nelton, and north to form the Hayes Valley and Lake Hayes. In alpine areas podzolic, humus and leached soil is most common, the podzols often occur on deep periglacial solifluction deposits down to 450 m. Alluvial floodplains have developed in the park on deposits of quaternary alluvium. The park has good representation of much of native Tasmanian fauna including Wombats, Platypuses, eastern barred bandicoots, echidnas, Mount Field National Park is also home to an enormous diversity of fungi. Fungi are ecologically important and megadiverse, yet their significance in underpinning the terrestrial ecology of the Park is little recognised. While the Management Plan for Mt Field National Park only mentions fungi in the context of their destructive effects, in fact, most fungi perform positive rather than negative roles. Even parasitic fungi – often regarded only negatively – are a part of healthy ecosystems. As primary recyclers of organic matter, saprobic fungi break down fallen branches and leaf litter, other fungi form symbiotic relationships with other organisms. Although rarely acknowledged, the majority of plants in Mount Field National Park form mutually beneficial mycorrhizal relationships with fungi. Given the great diversity of plants, specialist habitats and micro-climates in the park, two hundred and eighty-nine species have already been recorded by field naturalists and interested individuals and a list can be found in the Atlas of Living Australia. The Green Elfcup is found growing on wood in wetter parts of the park. Even when its fruitbodies are not conspicuous, its presence can often be detected by the staining of the wood it inhabits. The Australian citizen-science organisation, Fungimap is documenting and mapping the distribution of fungi including those that occur in National Parks, despite their essential roles in supporting ecosystems, fungi are barely recognised as a vital part of Australias biodiversity
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Tasmania
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Tasmania is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 519,100, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, Tasmanias area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2. Though an island state, due to an error the state shares a land border with Victoria at its northernmost terrestrial point, Boundary Islet. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, the island is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population has been described by historians as an act of genocide by the British. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed and the year the state received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia, the state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemens Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856, Tasmania was sometimes referred to as Dervon, as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is Tassie, Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to Tas, especially when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state, the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago, much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the worlds largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains, the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerite. Mount Wellington above Hobart is an example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes
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Pyramidal peak
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It may be an example of a nunatak. Glaciers, typically forming in drainages on the sides of a mountain, cirque glaciers have rotational sliding that abrades the floor of the basin more than walls and that causes the bowl shape to form. As cirques are formed by glaciation in an environment, the headwall. This occurs due to freeze/thaw and mass wasting beneath the ice surface and it is widely held that a common cause for headwall steepening and extension headward is the crevasses known as bergschrund that occur between the moving ice and the headwall. Plucking and shattering can be here by those exploring the crevasses. A cirque is exposed when the glacier that created it recedes, when three or more of these cirques converge on a central point, they create a pyramid-shaped peak with steep walls. These horns are a shape for mountain tops in highly glaciated areas. The number of faces of a horn depends on the number of involved in the formation of the peak. Horns with more than four faces include the Weissmies and the Mönch, a peak with four symmetrical faces is called a Matterhorn The peak of a glacial horn will often outlast the arêtes on its flanks. As the rock around it erodes, the gains in prominence. Eventually, a glacial horn will have vertical faces on all sides. In the Alps, horn is also the name of very exposed peaks with slope inclinations of 45-60°, upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall. Illustrated Glossary of Alpine Glacial Landforms
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Matterhorn
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The Matterhorn is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a huge and near-symmetrical pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. The four steep faces, rising above the glaciers, face the four compass points and are split by the Hörnli, Furggen, Leone. The mountain overlooks the Swiss town of Zermatt in the canton of Valais to the north-east, just east of the Matterhorn is Theodul Pass, the main passage between the two valleys on its north and south sides and a trade route since the Roman Era. The Matterhorn was studied by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in the eighteenth century. It remained unclimbed after most of the other great Alpine peaks had been attained, the first ascent of the Matterhorn was finally made in 1865 from Zermatt by a party led by Edward Whymper but ended disastrously when four of its members fell to their deaths on the descent. That climb and disaster, later portrayed in films, marked the end of the golden age of alpinism. The north face was not climbed until 1931, and is amongst the three biggest north faces of the Alps, known as the ‘The Trilogy’, the west face, which is the highest of the four, was completely climbed only in 1962. It is estimated that over 500 alpinists have died on the Matterhorn since the first climb in 1865, making it one of the deadliest peaks in the world. The current shape of the mountain is the result of erosion due to multiple glaciers diverging from the peak, such as the Matterhorn Glacier at the base of the north face. Sometimes referred to as the Mountain of Mountains, the Matterhorn has become an emblem of the Swiss Alps. Since the end of the 19th century, when railways were built in the area, each year a large number of mountaineers try to climb the Matterhorn from the Hörnli Hut via the northeast Hörnli ridge, the most popular route to the summit. Many trekkers also undertake the 10-day-long circuit around the mountain, the Matterhorn is part of the Swiss Federal Inventory of Natural Monuments since 1983. Decomposing Matterhorn yields Matter and Horn, here Matter is Matte in the case. Commonly, prepositions related to Zermatt are dropped as in Matterhorn, Mattertal, in Sebastian Münsters Cosmography, published in 1543, the name Matter is given to the Theodul Pass, which seems to be the origin of the present German name of the mountain. On Münsters topographical map this group is marked under the names of Augstalberg, the French name Cervin, from which the Italian term Cervino derives, stems from the Latin Mons Silvanus where silva, means forest which was corrupted to Selvin and then Servin. The change of the first letter s to c is attributed to Horace Bénédict de Saussure, servius Galba, in order to carry out Caesars orders, came with his legions from Allobroges to Octodurum in the Valais, and pitched his camp there. It is unknown when the new name of Servin, or Cervin, replaced the old, the Matterhorn is also named Gran Becca by the Valdôtains and Horu by the local Walliser German speaking people
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Alps
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The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc, Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,810 m is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains about a hundred peaks higher than 4000 metres, the altitude and size of the range affects the climate in Europe, in the mountains precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m. Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era, a mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991. By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established, Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800 Napoleon crossed one of the passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, in World War II, Adolf Hitler kept a base of operation in the Bavarian Alps throughout the war. The Alpine region has a cultural identity. The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, at present, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors. The English word Alps derives from the Latin Alpes, maurus Servius Honoratus, an ancient commentator of Virgil, says in his commentary that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts. The term may be common to Italo-Celtic, because the Celtic languages have terms for high mountains derived from alp and this may be consistent with the theory that in Greek Alpes is a name of non-Indo-European origin. According to the Old English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might possibly derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb hill, Albania, a name not native to the region known as the country of Albania, has been used as a name for a number of mountainous areas across Europe. In Roman times, Albania was a name for the eastern Caucasus, in modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to a grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks. An alp refers to a mountain pasture where cows are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where hay barns can be found. The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in a 800 km arc from east to west and is 200 km in width, the mean height of the mountain peaks is 2.5 km. The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, the range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia. To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the border of Bavaria in Germany
32.
Zastler Loch
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The Zastler Loch or Zastler Cirque on the northern side of the Feldberg summit in the Black Forest is the highest cirque in the German Central Uplands. It forms the head of the Zastler valley, through which the Zastlerbach stream flows northwards into the Dreisam, the lowest floor has retained its old hollow shape and is entirely covered by bog. This bog, east of the Zastler Hut, is about 100 metres long and 40 metres across, the bog is sealed on the right hand rock face by a 12-metre-high curved false embankment. This consists of gneiss covered by terminal moraine material, between the bank and the rock face there is a small hollow, about two metres deep, that was probably formed by a small river of ice from the gully to the southeast. The height difference between the lower cirque step and the edge of the rock face is 150 to 200 metres. Glacial striations may be seen on free-standing rocks around the Zastler Hut, Das Zastler Loch is the source region of the Zastlerbach stream. In winter the slopes of the cirque are prone to the formation of cornices, sometimes the snow remains until well into the summer months. Around 1840, when a period dominated Europe, the inhabitants of the eastern and northern Feldberg region cut the snowfield to the ground because they feared a glaciation of the Feldberg. Since 1651 there has been grazing in the Zastler Loch, the former cattle hut, the Zastler Hut is a restaurant today. Next to it is the Freiburger Hut which was built in 1952 for the Freiburg Ski Club, charcoal burning sites may also be seen in the Zastler Loch. The Zastler Loch is part of the Feldberg Nature Reserve and forms one of the most valuable locations within it for plant species. An initiative by members of the Black Forest Club and the Black Forest Conservation Working Party prevent plans in the 1960s for ski slopes, on 23 February 1941 three skiers in the Zastler Loch were caught by an avalanche. The mountain rescue team was hit by another avalanche, in which a team member, Fritz Nübling from Freiburg. On 2 February 1953 a cornice collapsed causing a 54-year-old skier from Heidelberg to fall to his death, on 20 January 1959 a woman from Düsseldorf who was studying in Freiburg died when a cornice collapsed. On 9 January 1966 the body of a rescuer from Kirchzarten. Almost at the spot a 28-year-old lieutenant in the Gebirgsjäger, Wolfgang Ehret. On 30 January 2015 two touring skiers were buried in an avalanche from the cornice above the Zastler Hut, whilst one of the two was able to free himself, a 20-year-old man from Freiburg was not found until just under 2 hours after the accident. Despite resuscitation being carried out, he died later that afternoon, ekkehard Liehl, Das Zastler Loch, der Kern des subalpinen Naturschutzgebietes Feldberg
33.
Black Forest
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The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It is bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south and its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres. The region is roughly oblong in shape with a length of 160 km, the Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain, in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar, the Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands and much of it is densely wooded. From north to south the Black Forest extends for over 150 kilometres, attaining a width of up to 50 kilometres in the south, and up to 30 kilometres in the north. Tectonically the range forms a lifted fault block, which rises prominently in the west from the Upper Rhine Plain and it is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height are found. The valleys are narrow and ravine-like, but rarely basin-shaped. The summits are rounded and there are also the remnants of plateaux, geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South, the boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Middle Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz, a pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a tripartite division himself. It is divided into six so-called major units and this division was refined and modified in several, successor publications up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Middle Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and its southern boundary varied with each edition. In 1998 the Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg, to the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills, along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. Their exit valleys from the range are all oriented towards the northwest
34.
Steephead valley
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A steephead valley, steephead or blind valley is a deep, narrow, flat bottomed valley with an abrupt ending. Such closed valleys may arise in limestone or karst landscapes, where a layer of rock lies above an impermeable substrate such as marl. Water flowing through a steephead valley leaves via one or more ponors or sinkholes, blind valleys are typically dry at their lower ends. A blind valley can also be dry, if the ponor cannot contain the high runoff during a flood event an intermittent flow may continue through the valley beyond the sink. Such a landform is called a semi-blind or half-blind valley, at the head of the valley the stream emerges from the rock as a spring. In North America, blind valleys are found in the Driftless Area and other karst regions
35.
Negev
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The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The regions largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba, in the north, at its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin cities, including Rahat and Tel as-Sabi and Lakyah. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker, the origin of the word negev is from the Hebrew root denoting dry. In the Bible, the word Negev is also used for the direction south, during the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district. The Negev covers more than half of Israel, over some 13,000 km² or at least 55% of the land area. It forms a triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features, among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim, which are unique to the region, Makhtesh Ramon, Makhtesh Gadol, and Makhtesh Katan. The Negev is a rocky desert and it is a melange of brown, rocky, dusty mountains interrupted by wadis and deep craters. It can be split into five different ecological regions, northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau, the northern Negev, or Mediterranean zone, receives 300 mm of rain annually and has fairly fertile soils. The western Negev receives 250 mm of rain per year, with light, sand dunes can reach heights of up to 30 metres here. The high plateau area of Ramat HaNegev stands between 370 metres and 520 metres above sea level with temperatures in summer and winter. The area gets 100 mm of rain per year, with inferior, the Arabah Valley along the Jordanian border stretches 180 km from Eilat in the south to the tip of the Dead Sea in the north. The Arabah Valley is very arid with barely 50 mm of rain annually and it has inferior soils in which little can grow without irrigation and special soil additives. Vegetation in the Negev is sparse, but certain trees and plants there, among them Acacia, Pistacia, Retama, Urginea maritima. A small population of Arabian leopards, an animal in the Arabian peninsula. The Negev Tortoise is a endangered species that currently lives only in the sands of the western. The Negev shrew is a species of mammal of the family Soricidae found only in Israel, hyphaene thebaica or doum palm can be found in the Southern Negev
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Makhtesh Ramon
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Makhtesh Ramon is a geological feature of Israels Negev desert. The crater is 40 km long, 2–10 km wide and 500 meters deep, the only settlement in the area is the small town of Mitzpe Ramon located on the northern edge of the crater. Today the crater and surrounding area forms Israels largest national park, hundreds of millions of years ago, the Negev desert was covered by an ocean. Slowly, this started to recede northwards leaving behind a hump-shaped hill, the hump was slowly flattened by water and climatic forces. Approximately five million years ago, the Arava Rift Valley was formed, with changing their courses. The crater bottom continued to deepen at a faster rate than the surrounding walls. As the crater deepened, more layers of ancient rock were exposed with rocks at the bottom of the crater being up to 200 million years old, Makhtesh Ramon contains a diversity of rocks including clay hills known for their fantastic red and yellow colors and forms. Limestone covered by basalt can also be found in smaller hills in the southern part of the makhtesh. Shen Ramon is a made of magma which hardened whilst underground. It later rose up through cracks in the Earths surface, and today stands in striking contrast with the nearby creamy coloured southern wall of the crater, as a black sharp-edged rock. In the centre of the makhtesh is HaMinsara, a low hill made up of columnar jointed sandstone - polygonal prismatic columns of quartzite, the pterioid bivalve Family Ramonalinidae is found in early Middle Triassic rocks of Makhtesh Ramon and was named after this feature. The Asian wild ass has been reintroduced to Makhtesh Ramon, in 1995 the population had increased to 40 adults in the area. The animals are hybrids of two different subspecies of the Asian Wild Ass and it is derived from the Turkmenian kulan and the Persian onager. The original subspecies, the Syrian wild ass, is completely extinct, other larger mammals of the area include Nubian ibexes, Dorcas gazelles, striped hyenas and few Arabian leopards. The ruins of a prehistoric stone structure known as Khan Saharonim are found in the makhtesh, as it lies along the ancient Incense Route. These ruins acted as a way station for the traders and their animals as they proceeded further westwards to the Mediterranean seaport city of Gaza, mazor, Emanuel and Krasnov, Boris, editors The Makhteshim Country - a Laboratory of Nature. Birds eye view of Ramon Crater
37.
Burgundy
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Burgundy is a historical territory and a former administrative region of east-central France, entities that trace their name from the Burgundians, a Germanic people. Historically, Burgundy has referred to political entities, including kingdoms. The first known inhabitants of the area that became Burgundy were Celts, during the 4th century, the Burgundians, a Germanic people, who may have originated in Bornholm, settled in the western Alps. They founded the Kingdom of the Burgundians, which was conquered in the 6th century by another Germanic tribe, under Frankish dominion, the Kingdom of Burgundy continued for several centuries. Later, the region was divided between the Duchy of Burgundy and the Free County of Burgundy, burgundys modern existence is rooted in the dissolution of the Frankish Empire. In the 880s, there were four Burgundies, which were the Kingdom of Upper and Lower Burgundy, the duchy, during the Middle Ages, Burgundy was the seat of some of the most important Western churches and monasteries, among them Cluny, Cîteaux, and Vézelay. During the Hundred Years War, King John II of France gave the duchy to his youngest son, the duchy soon became a major rival to the crown. The court in Dijon outshone the French court both economically and culturally, in 1477, at the battle of Nancy during the Burgundian Wars, the last duke Charles the Bold was killed in battle, and the Duchy itself was annexed by France and became a province. However the northern part of the empire was taken by the Austrian Habsburgs, with the French Revolution in the end of the 18th century, the administrative units of the provinces disappeared, but were reconstituted as regions during the Fifth Republic in the 1970s. The modern-day administrative region comprises most of the former duchy, as of he region of Burgundy is both larger than the old Duchy of Burgundy and smaller than the area ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, from the modern Netherlands to the border of Auvergne. Today, Burgundy is made up of the old provinces, Burgundy, Côte-dOr, Saône-et-Loire and this corresponds to the old duchy of Burgundy. However, the old county of Burgundy is not included inside the Burgundy region, also, a small part of the duchy of Burgundy is now inside the Champagne-Ardenne region. Nivernais, now the department of Nièvre, the climate of this region is essentially oceanic, with a continental influence. The regional council of Burgundy is the legislative assembly, the council has been chaired by the Socialist François Patriat since 2004. The councils seat is in the capital city Dijon, at 17 boulevard de la Trémouille, Burgundy is one of Frances main wine producing areas. The region is divided into the Côte-dOr, where the most expensive and prized Burgundies are found, and Beaujolais, Chablis, with regard to cuisine, the region is famous for the Burgundian dishes coq au vin, beef bourguignon, and époisses de Bourgogne cheese. Earlier, the part of Burgundy was heavily industrial, with coal mines near Montceau-les-Mines and iron foundries. These industries declined in the half of the twentieth century
38.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
39.
Indian Ocean
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The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the worlds oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, the Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara, the mine of gems in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar, in Hindi. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf, the oceans continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres in width. An exception is found off Australias western coast, where the width exceeds 1,000 kilometres. The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m and its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m deep, Sunda Trench has a depth of 7, 258–7,725 m. North of 50° south latitude, 86% of the basin is covered by pelagic sediments. The remaining 14% is layered with terrigenous sediments, glacial outwash dominates the extreme southern latitudes. The major choke points include Bab el Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is in this ocean, marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include, The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April, from May until October south, in the Arabian Sea the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are milder. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean warming is the largest among the tropical oceans, and about 3 times faster than the warming observed in the Pacific. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming, and changes in the frequency, among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy River. The oceans currents are controlled by the monsoon. Two large gyres, one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise, during the winter monsoon, however, currents in the north are reversed. Deep water circulation is controlled primarily by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, north of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C, exceeding 28 °C to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude, temperatures drop quickly, surface water salinity ranges from 32 to 37 parts per 1000, the highest occurring in the Arabian Sea and in a belt between southern Africa and south-western Australia
40.
Piton de la Fournaise
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Piton de la Fournaise, Peak of the Furnace is a shield volcano on the eastern side of Réunion island in the Indian Ocean. It is currently one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along with Kīlauea in the Hawaiian Islands, Stromboli, Etna, a previous eruption began in August 2006 and ended in January 2007. The volcano erupted again in February 2007, on 21 September 2008, on 9 December 2010, the most recent eruption began on 31 January 2017. The volcano is located within Réunion National Park, a World Heritage site, Piton de la Fournaise is often known locally as le Volcan, it is a major tourist attraction on Réunion island. The top part of the volcano is occupied by the Enclos Fouqué, high cliffs known as remparts form the calderas rim. The caldera is breached to the southeast into the sea and it is unstable and is in the initial stages of failure. It will eventually collapse into the Indian Ocean, whether it will generate a so-called megatsunami is controversial. There is evidence on the flanks and abyssal plain of earlier failures. The lower slopes are known as the Grand Brûlé, most volcanic eruptions are confined to the caldera. Inside the caldera is a 400 meter high lava shield known as Dolomieu, atop the lava shield are Bory Crater and Dolomieu Crater, named for French geologist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, which is by far the wider of the two. Many craters and spatter cones can be found inside the caldera, at the beginning of the path that leads to the summit, there lies a noticeable small crater known as Formica Leo, named for its similar shape to the pitfall built by the antlion. Some of the beaches there are of a colour, because of the olivine sand resulting from picrite basalt lavas. Iridium is being ejected through these vents, there were three episodes of caldera collapses 250,000,65,000 and 5,000 years ago. The volcano was formed by the Réunion hotspot, which is believed to have been active for the past 66 million years, there is evidence for explosive eruptions in the past. One explosive eruption about 4,700 years ago may have had a VEI of 5, most eruptions of Piton de la Fournaise are of the Hawaiian style, fluid basaltic lava flowing out with fire fountaining at the vent. Lava flows crossing the Grand Brûlé occasionally reach the sea, with spectacular results, Piton de la Fournaise is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with more than 150 recorded eruptions since the 17th century. Eruptions within the caldera do not cause much devastation, because the caldera is uninhabited, lava flows are generally confined to the caldera. However, lava flows have been known to cross the N2 highway, in the early 2000s, the highway thus was destroyed once or more times a year, road engineering services then wait for the lava to cool off and build another stretch of road
41.
Piton des Neiges
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The Piton des Neiges is a massive 3,069 m shield volcano on Réunion, one of the French volcanic islands in the Mascarene Archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean. It is located about 800 kilometres east of Madagascar, Piton des Neiges is the highest point on Réunion and is considered to be the highest point in the Indian Ocean. The volcano was formed by the Réunion hotspot and emerged from the sea about two years ago. Now deeply eroded, the volcano has been inactive for 20,000 years and is surrounded by three massive crater valleys, the Cirques, Piton des Neiges forms the northwestern two thirds of Réunion, with the very active Piton de la Fournaise comprising the rest. Despite its name, snow practically never falls on the summit, the volcanic island is considered to be about three million years old, the other two islands in the archipelago, Mauritius and Rodrigues, are 7.8 million and 1½ million years old, respectively. The island possesses a high endemism of flowering plants, this has justified the creation of a reserve on the lower slopes of the Piton des Neiges. There are three medium-difficulty tracks leading up to the peak, one from the Cirque de Salazie, one from the Cirque de Cilaos and they meet at a staffed mountain hut about an hours walk below the peak at la Caverne Dufour. Walkers often arrive there after a day trek up the mountain. The mountain hut offers heated indoor lodging, outdoor tent lodging and it is best to make reservations. The hike starting from Cilaos is about 6.5 hours up and 4 hours down, to reach the start of the hike, drive through Cilaos toward la Mare à St Joseph. About 3 km past Cilaos, you see a sign. You may also leave your car downtown and follow the road to the trail head, the hike is very steep, and one should be cautious if the trail is wet. The hike starting from la Plaine des Cafres is about 8 hours up and 5 hours down with a change in elevation of 1700m, to access the hike, follow RN3 past Le Tampon, all the way to La Plaine des Cafres and Bourg Murat. 2.5 km after Bourg Murat, take a left on the GR R2 road toward Savane Mare à Boue, follow for 2 km and park at the trail head. List of volcanoes in Réunion List of islands by highest point List of Ultras of Africa Piton des Neiges – Gros Morne Important Bird Area Reunion island Hike starting from la Plaine des Cafres
