1.
Palearctic realm
–
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earths surface. It consists of Europe, Asia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, North Africa, the Palearctic realm comprises the smaller terrestrial ecoregions of the Euro-Siberian region, the Mediterranean Basin, the Sahara and Arabian Deserts, and Western, Central and East Asia. The Palaearctic realm also has rivers and lakes, forming several freshwater ecoregions. Some of the rivers were the source of water for the earliest recorded civilizations that used irrigation methods, the Palearctic realm includes mostly boreal/subarctic-climate and temperate-climate ecoregions, which run across Eurasia from western Europe to the Bering Sea. South of the taiga are a belt of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and this vast Euro-Siberian region is characterized by many shared plant and animal species, and has many affinities with the temperate and boreal regions of the Nearctic ecoregion of North America. Many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm, the Palearctic and Nearctic also share many plant species, which botanists call the Arcto-Tertiary Geoflora. The Mediterranean basins mosaic of Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub are home to 13,000 endemic species. Formerly the region was covered with forests and woodlands, but heavy human use has reduced much of the region to the sclerophyll shrublands known as chaparral, matorral, maquis. Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the biodiversity hotspots. A great belt of deserts, including the Atlantic coastal desert, Sahara desert, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau are home to dry steppe grasslands and desert basins, with montane forests, woodlands, and grasslands in the regions high mountains and plateaux. In southern Asia the boundary of the Palearctic is largely altitudinal, the middle altitude foothills of the Himalaya between about 2000–2500 m form the boundary between the Palearctic and Indomalaya ecoregions. East Asia was not much affected by glaciation in the ice ages, the mountains of southwest China are also designated as a biodiversity hotspot. In Southeastern Asia, high mountain ranges form tongues of Palearctic flora and fauna in northern Indochina, isolated small outposts occur as far south as central Myanmar, northernmost Vietnam and the high mountains of Taiwan. One bird family, the accentors is endemic to the Palearctic region, the Holarctic has four other endemic bird families, the divers or loons, grouse, auks, and waxwings. There are no endemic mammal orders in the region, but several families are endemic, Calomyscidae, Prolagidae, contributions to the zooarchaeology of Iceland, some preliminary notes. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, pages 203–227,1989, buckland, P. C. et al. Holt in Eyjafjasveit, Iceland, a paleoecological study of the impact of Landnám. in Acta Archaeologica 61, pp. 252–271
2.
Physiographic regions of the world
–
This foundational model, which Fenneman used to classify the United States, was the basis for similar classifications of other continents later, and is still considered basically valid. During the early 1900s, the study of geomorphology was termed physiography. In current usage, physiography still lends itself to confusion as to which meaning is meant, for the remainder of this article, emphasis will remain on the more geomorphological usage, which is based upon geological landforms, not on climate, vegetation, or other non-geological criteria. For the purposes of mapping, landforms are classified according to both their geologic structures and histories. A maturely dissected plateau may grade without a break from rugged mountains on the one hand to mildly rolling farm lands on the other, so also, forms which are not classified together may be superficially similar, for example, a young coastal plain and a peneplain. In a large number of cases, the lines are also geologic lines. The history of itself is at best a complicated effort. Much of the complications arise from how the term has evolved over time, in 1848, Mary Somerville published her book Physical Geography which gave detailed descriptions of the topography of each continent, along with the distribution of plant, animals and humans. This work gave impetus to further works along the field, in Germany, Oscar Peschel in 1870, proposed that geographers should study the morphology of the Earths surface, having an interest in the study of landforms for the development of human beings. As the chair of geography in Bonn, Germany, Ferdinand von Richthofen made the study of landforms the main field for himself. Elsewhere, Thomas Henry Huxleys Physiography was published in 1877 in Britain, shortly after, the field of physical geography itself was renamed as physiography. In conjunction with these advances in physiography, physically and visually mapping these descriptive areas was underway as well, the early photographers and balloonists, Nadar and Triboulet, experimented with aerial photography and the view it provided of the landscape. The block diagrams of Fenneman, Raisz, Lobeck and many others were based in part upon both aerial photography and topographic maps, giving an oblique birds-eye view, by 1901, there were clear differences in the definition of the term physiography. In England, physiography is regarded as the introduction to science in general. It is made to include the elements of physics, chemistry, astronomy, physical geography, and geology, in America, the term has a somewhat different meaning. It is sometimes used as a synonym for physical geography, and is defined as the science which describes. Although the term has since been limited by some writers to one part of the subject. In the stricter sense, physical geography is part of geography which involves the processes of contemporary change in the crust
3.
Plain
–
In geography, a plain is a flat, sweeping landmass that generally does not change much in elevation. Plains occur as lowlands along the bottoms of valleys or on the doorsteps of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. In a valley, a plain is enclosed on two sides but in other cases a plain may be delineated by a complete or partial ring of hills, where a geological region contains more than one plain, they may be connected by a pass. Coastal plains would mostly rise from sea level until they run into elevated features such as mountains or plateaus, plains are one of the major landforms on earth, where they are present on all continents, and would cover more than one-third of the world’s land area. Plains may have formed from flowing lava, deposited by water, ice, wind, or formed by erosion by these agents from hills. Plains would generally be under the grassland, steppe, savannah or tundra biomes, in a few instances, deserts and rainforests can also be plains. Structural plains are relatively undisturbed horizontal surfaces of the Earth and they are structurally depressed areas of the world that make up some of the most extensive natural lowlands on the Earths surface. Erosional plains have been leveled by various agents of such as running water, rivers, wind and glacier which wear out the rugged surface. Plain resulting from the action of these agents of denudation are called peneplains while plains formed from wind action are called pediplains, depositional plains formed by the deposition of materials brought by various agents of transportation such as rivers, wind, waves, and glaciers. Their fertility and economic relevance depend greatly on the types of sediments that are laid down, flood plain, adjacent to a stream, river, lake or wetland that experiences occasional or periodic flooding. Scroll plain, a plain through which a river meanders with a low gradient. Lacustrine plain, a plain that originally formed in a lacustrine environment, lava plain, formed by sheets of flowing lava. Glacial plains, formed by the movement of glaciers under the force of gravity, Sandur, sandar consist mainly of stratified gravel and sand. Till plain, a plain of glacial till that forms when a sheet of ice becomes detached from the body of a glacier. Till plains are composed of unsorted material of all sizes, abyssal plain, a flat or very gently sloping area of the deep ocean basin. Planitia, the Latin word for plain, is used in the naming of plains on extraterrestrial objects, such as Hellas Planitia on Mars or Sedna Planitia on Venus
4.
Europe
–
Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
5.
Mountain
–
A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is steeper than a hill. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces or volcanism and these forces can locally raise the surface of the earth. Mountains erode slowly through the action of rivers, weather conditions, a few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in huge mountain ranges. High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level and these colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains, different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction and recreation, the highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m, there is no universally accepted definition of a mountain. Elevation, volume, relief, steepness, spacing and continuity have been used as criteria for defining a mountain, whether a landform is called a mountain may depend on local usage. The highest point in San Francisco, California, is called Mount Davidson, notwithstanding its height of 300 m, similarly, Mount Scott outside Lawton, Oklahoma is only 251 m from its base to its highest point. Whittows Dictionary of Physical Geography states Some authorities regard eminences above 600 metres as mountains, in addition, some definitions also include a topographical prominence requirement, typically 100 or 500 feet. For a while, the US defined a mountain as being 1,000 feet or taller, any similar landform lower than this height was considered a hill. However, today, the United States Geological Survey concludes that these terms do not have technical definitions in the US, using these definitions, mountains cover 33% of Eurasia, 19% of South America, 24% of North America, and 14% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earths land mass is mountainous, there are three main types of mountains, volcanic, fold, and block. All three types are formed from plate tectonics, when portions of the Earths crust move, crumple, compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upward, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity. Volcanoes are formed when a plate is pushed below another plate, at a depth of around 100 km, melting occurs in rock above the slab, and forms magma that reaches the surface. When the magma reaches the surface, it builds a volcanic mountain. Examples of volcanoes include Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the magma does not have to reach the surface in order to create a mountain, magma that solidifies below ground can still form dome mountains, such as Navajo Mountain in the US
6.
Landform
–
A landform is a natural feature of the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography, landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure, and soil type. Oceans and continents exemplify the highest-order landforms, landform elements are parts of a high-order landforms that can be further identified and systematically given a cohesive definition such as hill-tops, shoulders, saddles, foreslopes and backslopes. Some generic landform elements including, pits, peaks, channels, ridges, passes, pools, Terrain is the third or vertical dimension of land surface. Topography is the study of terrain, although the word is used as a synonym for relief itself. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used, in cartography, many different techniques are used to describe relief, including contour lines and TIN. Elementary landforms are the smallest homogeneous divisions of the land surface and these are areas with relatively homogeneous morphometric properties, bounded by lines of discontinuity. A plateau or a hill can be observed at various scales ranging from few hundred meters to hundreds of kilometers, hence, the spatial distribution of landforms is often scale-dependent as is the case for soils and geological strata. A number of factors, ranging from plate tectonics to erosion and deposition, can generate, landforms do not include man-made features, such as canals, ports and many harbors, and geographic features, such as deserts, forests, and grasslands. Many of the terms are not restricted to refer to features of the planet Earth, examples are mountains, hills, polar caps, and valleys, which are found on all of the terrestrial planets. The scientific study of landforms is known as geomorphology, landforms may be extracted from a digital elevation model using some automated techniques where the data has been gathered by modern satellites and stereoscopic aerial surveillance cameras. Until recently, compiling the data found in data sets required time consuming. The most detailed DEMs available are measured directly using LIDAR techniques, geomorphology Land List of landforms Open-geomorphometry project Terrain Open-Geomorphometry Project
7.
Highland
–
The term highland or uplands is used to denote any mountainous region or elevated mountainous plateau. Generally speaking, upland tends to refer to ranges of hills, Highland is usually reserved for ranges of low mountains. Probably the most known highlands in the anglosphere are the Scottish Highlands in the United Kingdom, the Highland council area is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and Britains largest local government area. Many countries have areas that are officially or unofficially referred to as highlands, other than Scotland, these include parts Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Syria, Cantabria and Nova Scotia. The highlands in Australia are often above the elevation of 500 metres and these areas often receive snowfalls through winter. Most of the lead up to large alpine or sub-alpine mountainous regions such as the Australian Alps, Snowy Mountains, Great Dividing Range, Northern Tablelands. The most mountainous region of Tasmania is the Central Highlands area, many of these areas are highly elevated alpine regions. A spine of mountains runs the length of the island of New Guinea, the highlands of Iceland cover about 40% of the country and are mostly inhospitable to humans. They are generally referred to as land above 500 meters, additionally, the mountainous natural region of the Thai highlands is found in Northern Thailand. The Cameron Highlands are an area and hill station in Northern Malaysia. Shillong in India in the state of Meghalaya is a station which is surrounded by highlands. Officers of the British Raj referred to Shillong as The Scotland of the East, Highland continents – or terrae – are areas of topographically unstable terrain, with high peaks and valleys. They resemble highlands on Earth, but the term is applied to larger areas on other planets. They can be found on Venus, Mercury, Mars and the Moon
8.
Pyrenees
–
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain. For the most part, the main crest forms a divide between France and Spain, with the microstate of Andorra sandwiched in between. The Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre have historically extended on both sides of the range, with smaller northern portions now in France and larger southern parts now in Spain. The demonym for the noun Pyrenees in English is Pyrenean, in Greek mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe, Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his hosts daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention of wild beasts who tear her to pieces. After his victory over Geryon, Hercules passes through the kingdom of Bebryx again, and all the rock-cliffs and wild-beast haunts echo back Pyrene. … The mountains hold on to the name through the ages. Pliny the Elder connects the story of Hercules and Pyrene to Lusitania, the Spanish Pyrenees are part of the following provinces, from east to west, Girona, Barcelona, Lleida, Huesca, Navarra and Gipuzkoa. The French Pyrenees are part of the following départements, from east to west, Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Ariège, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, the independent principality of Andorra is sandwiched in the eastern portion of the mountain range between the Spanish Pyrenees and French Pyrenees. Physiographically, the Pyrenees may be divided into three sections, the Atlantic, the Central, and the Eastern Pyrenees, together, they form a distinct physiographic province of the larger Alpine System division. In the Western Pyrenees, from the Basque mountains near the Bay of Biscay of the Atlantic Ocean, at the eastern end on the southern side lies a distinct area known as the Sub-Pyrenees. On the French side the slopes of the range descend abruptly. The Pyrenees are older than the Alps, their sediments were first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, the intense pressure and uplifting of the Earths crust first affected the eastern part and moved progressively to the entire chain, culminating in the Eocene Epoch. The eastern part of the Pyrenees consists largely of granite and gneissose rocks, the massive and unworn character of the chain comes from its abundance of granite, which is particularly resistant to erosion, as well as weak glacial development. Low passes are lacking, and the roads and the railroads between France and Spain run only in the lowlands at the western and eastern ends of the Pyrenees. A notable visual feature of mountain range is La Brèche de Roland, a gap in the ridge line. Coal deposits capable of being profitably worked are situated chiefly on the Spanish slopes, the open pit of Trimoun close to the commune of Luzenac is one of the greatest sources of talc in Europe
9.
Bay of Biscay
–
The Bay of Biscay /ˈbɪskeɪ, -ki/ is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Point Penmarch to the Spanish border, the average depth is 1,744 metres and the greatest depth is 4,735 metres. The Bay of Biscay is named after Biscay on the northern Spanish coast, the Bay of Biscay is home to some of the Atlantic Oceans fiercest weather. Large storms occur in the bay, especially during the winter months, up until recent years it was a regular occurrence for merchant vessels to founder in Biscay storms. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bay of Biscay as a line joining Cap Ortegal to Penmarch Point, the southernmost portion is the Cantabrian Sea. The phenomenon of June Gloom is common, in late spring and early summer a large fog triangle fills the southwestern half of the bay, covering just a few kilometres inland. As winter begins, weather becomes severe and these depressions cause severe weather at sea and bring light though very constant rain to its shores. The Gulf Stream enters the bay following the continental shelfs border anti-clockwise, the main cities on the shores of the Bay of Biscay are Bordeaux, Bayonne, Biarritz, Brest, Nantes, La Rochelle, Donostia-San Sebastián, Bilbao, Santander, Gijón and Avilés. The southern end of the gulf is called in Spanish Mar Cantábrico, from the Estaca de Bares, as far as the mouth of Adour river. It was named by Romans in the 1st century BC as Sinus Cantabrorum and also, on some medieval maps, the Bay of Biscay is marked as El Mar del los Vascos. The Bay of Biscay has been the site of famous naval engagements over the centuries. In 1592 the Spanish defeated an English fleet during the eponymous Battle of the Bay of Biscay, the USS Californian sank here after striking a naval mine on June 22,1918. On December 28,1943, the Battle of the Bay of Biscay was fought between HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise and a group of German destroyers as part of Operation Stonewall during World War II. U-667 sank on 25 August 1944 in position 46°00′N 01°30′W, when she struck a mine, often specialist groups take the ferries to hear more information. Volunteers and employees of Biscay Dolphin Research regularly observe and monitor cetacean activity from the bridge of the ships on the P&O Ferries Portsmouth to Bilbao route, many species of whales and dolphins can be seen in this area. Most importantly, it is one of the few places where the beaked whales and this is the best study area in the world for beaked whales. Other records in the late 20th century include one off Galicia at 43°00′N 10°30′W in September 1977 reported by a whaling company and another one seen off the Iberian Peninsula. The best areas to see the larger cetaceans lie in the deep waters beyond the shelf, particularly over the Santander Canyon
10.
Ural Mountains
–
The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. Vaygach Island and the islands of Novaya Zemlya form a continuation of the chain to the north into the Arctic Ocean. The mountains lie within the Ural geographical region and significantly overlap with the Ural Federal District and they have rich resources, including metal ores, coal, precious and semi-precious stones. Since the 18th century the mountains have contributed significantly to the sector of the Russian economy. As attested by Sigismund von Herberstein, in the 16th century Russians called the range by a variety of names derived from the Russian words for rock and it might have been a borrowing from either Turkic stone belt, or Ob-Ugric. From the 13th century, in Bashkortostan there has been a legend about a hero named Ural and he sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave, which later turned into the Ural Mountains. Possibilities include Bashkir үр elevation, upland or Mansi ур ала mountain peak, top of the mountain, tatischev believes that this oronym is set to belt and associates it with the Turkic verb oralu- gird. Dobrodomov suggests a transition from Aral to Ural explained on the basis of ancient Bulgar-Chuvash dialects, hawks believes that the name goes back to the Bashkir folklore Ural-Batyr. Shumilov suggested a Mongolian origin, Khural Uul, that is, the Evenk geographical term era mountain has also been theorized. Finno-Ugrist scholars consider Ural deriving from the Mansi word urr meaning a mountain, turkologists, on the other hand, have achieved majority support for their assertion that ural in Tatar means a belt, and recall that an earlier name for the range was stone belt. During the next few centuries Novgorodians engaged in fur trading with the population and collected tribute from Yugra and Great Perm. The rivers Chusovaya and Belaya were first mentioned in the chronicles of 1396 and 1468, in 1430 the town of Solikamsk was founded on the Kama at the foothills of the Ural, where salt was produced in open pans. Ivan III of Moscow captured Perm, Pechora and Yugra from the declining Novgorod Republic in 1472, with the excursions of 1483 and 1499–1500 across the Ural Moscow managed to subjugate Yugra completely. The Middle and Southern Ural were still largely unavailable and unknown to the Russian or Western European geographers, the Stroganovs land provided the staging ground for Yermaks incursion into Siberia. Yermak crossed the Ural from the Chusovaya to the Tagil around 1581, in 1597 Babinovs road was built across the Ural from Solikamsk to the valley of the Tura, where the town of Verkhoturye was founded in 1598. Customs was established in Verkhoturye shortly thereafter and the road was made the legal connection between European Russia and Siberia for a long time. In 1648 the town of Kungur was founded at the foothills of the Middle Ural. During the 17th century the first deposits of iron and copper ores, mica, gemstones, iron and copper smelting works emerged
.svg)
