1.
Bahrain
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Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a small Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf. Bahrains population is 1,234,567, including 666,172 non-nationals and it is 780 km2 in size, making it the third smallest nation in Asia after the Maldives and Singapore. Bahrain is the site of the ancient Dilmun civilisation and it has been famed since antiquity for its pearl fisheries, which were considered the best in the world into the 19th century. Bahrain was one of the earliest areas to convert to Islam, following a period of Arab rule, Bahrain was occupied by the Portuguese in 1521, who in turn were expelled in 1602 by Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty under the Persian Empire. In 1783, the Bani Utbah clan captured Bahrain from Nasr Al-Madhkur and it has since been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family, in the late 1800s, following successive treaties with the British, Bahrain became a protectorate of the United Kingdom. Formerly a state, Bahrain was declared a Kingdom in 2002, in 2011, the country experienced protests inspired by the regional Arab Spring. Bahrain had the first post-oil economy in the Persian Gulf, since the late 20th century, Bahrain has invested in the banking and tourism sectors. Many large financial institutions have a presence in Manama, the countrys capital, Bahrain has a high Human Development Index and was recognised by the World Bank as a high income economy. In Arabic, Bahrayn is the form of bahr, so al-Bahrayn means the two seas, although which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute. The term appears five times in the Quran, but does not refer to the modern island—originally known to the Arabs as Awal— but rather to all of Eastern Arabia. Today, Bahrains two seas are generally taken to be the bay east and west of the island. In addition to wells, there are areas of the sea north of Bahrain where fresh water bubbles up in the middle of the water as noted by visitors since antiquity. An alternate theory with regard to Bahrains toponymy is offered by the al-Ahsa region, another supposition by al-Jawahari suggests that the more formal name Bahri would have been misunderstood and so was opted against. Until the late Middle Ages, Bahrain referred to the region of Eastern Arabia that included Southern Iraq, Kuwait, Al-Hasa, Qatif, the region stretched from Basra in Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz in Oman. This was Iqlīm al-Bahrayns Bahrayn Province, the exact date at which the term Bahrain began to refer solely to the Awal archipelago is unknown. The entire coastal strip of Eastern Arabia was known as Bahrain for a millennium, the island and kingdom were also commonly spelled Bahrein into the 1950s. Bahrain was home to the Dilmun civilization, an important Bronze Age trade centre linking Mesopotamia, Bahrain was later ruled by the Assyrians and Babylonians. From the 6th to 3rd century BC, Bahrain was part of the Persian Empire ruled by the Achaemenian dynasty, by about 250 BC, Parthia brought the Persian Gulf under its control and extended its influence as far as Oman
2.
Bahrain Island
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Most of the island of Bahrain is in a relatively shallow inlet of the Persian Gulf known as the Gulf of Bahrain. The seabed adjacent to Bahrain is rocky and, mainly off the part of the island. Most of the island is low-lying and barren desert, outcroppings of limestone form low rolling hills, stubby cliffs, and shallow ravines. The limestone is covered by various densities of saline sand, capable of supporting only the hardiest desert vegetation such as thorn trees. A5 km wide strip of land exists along the northern coast on which date, almond, fig. The interior contains an escarpment that rises to 134 m, the highest point on the island, to form the Mountain of Smoke, most of the countrys oil wells are situated in the vicinity of the mountain. The climatic conditions of the area is arid, the average annual temperature in the area is 28 °C. The warmest month is August, when the temperature is 38 °C. The average annual rainfall is 144 millimeters, the rainiest month is November, with an average of 38 mm of precipitation, and the driest is October, with 1 mm of precipitation. Manama, the capital of the kingdom of Bahrain, is located on the tip of the Island of Bahrain. The main port, Mina Salman, is located on the island. As are the petroleum refining facilities and commercial centers. The island is split between 3 Governorates Causeways and bridges connect Bahrain to adjacent islands and the mainland of Saudi Arabia, the oldest causeway, originally constructed in 1929, links Bahrain to Al Muharraq, the third largest island. At its western shore, a causeway to the island of Umm an Nasan, Umm an Nasan is the private property of the king and the site of his personal game preserve
3.
Persian Gulf
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The Persian Gulf is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Hormuz, the Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline. The Persian Gulf was a battlefield of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War and it is the namesake of the 1991 Gulf War, the largely air- and land-based conflict that followed Iraqs invasion of Kuwait. The gulf has many fishing grounds, extensive coral reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, the body of water is historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf. Some Arab governments refer to it as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf, the name Gulf of Iran is used by the International Hydrographic Organization. The Persian Gulf is geologically young, having been formed around 15,000 years ago. Its length is 989 kilometres, with Iran covering most of the northern coast, the Persian Gulf is about 56 km wide at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The waters are very shallow, with a maximum depth of 90 metres. Various small islands lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states of the region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Persian Gulfs southern limit as The Northwestern limit of Gulf of Oman and this limit is defined as A line joining Ràs Limah on the coast of Arabia and Ràs al Kuh on the coast of Iran. The Persian Gulf and its areas are the worlds largest single source of crude oil. Safaniya Oil Field, the worlds largest offshore oilfield, is located in the Persian Gulf, large gas finds have also been made, with Qatar and Iran sharing a giant field across the territorial median line. Using this gas, Qatar has built up a substantial liquefied natural gas, the oil-rich countries that have a coastline on the Persian Gulf are referred to as the Persian Gulf States. In 550 BC, the Achaemenid Empire established the first ancient empire in Persis, consequently, in the Greek sources, the body of water that bordered this province came to be known as the Persian Gulf. In the travel account of Pythagoras, several chapters are related to description of his travels accompanied by the Achaemenid king Darius the Great, to Susa and Persepolis, and the area is described. This water channel separates the Iran Plateau from the Arabia Plate, has enjoyed an Iranian Identity since at least 2200 years ago. Before being given its present name, the Persian Gulf was called many different names, the classical Greek writers, like Herodotus, called it the Red Sea. In Babylonian texts, it was known as the sea above Akkad, the name of the gulf, historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf after the land of Persia, has been disputed by some Arab countries since the 1960s
4.
Gulf of Bahrain
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The Gulf of Bahrain is an inlet of the Persian Gulf on the east coast of Saudi Arabia, separated from the main body of water by the peninsula of Qatar. It surrounds the islands of Bahrain, the King Fahd Causeway crosses the western section of the Gulf of Bahrain, connection Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. The Gulf of Bahrain is a bay lying on the west side of the Persian Gulf. Midway between the tip of Qatar and the coast of Saudi Arabia lies Bahrain, a group of six islands. The Gulf of Bahrain thus has two openings to the Persian Gulf, the westernmost of which is spanned by a causeway leading to Saudi Arabia, the elongated southern portion of the Gulf of Bahrain forms the Gulf of Salwah. To the southeast of Bahrain Island, and close to the coast of Qatar, lie the Hawar Islands, the King Fahd Causeway that connects Saudi Arabia to the island of Bahrain was inaugurated on 26 November 1986. It consists of five bridges linked by otherwise solid embankments and the design was chosen to try to minimise the environmental impact, another causeway is planned to link Bahrain to Qatar. This one will be solid for about half its length and the half will be bridge. The presence of the causeway is likely to have an effect on the circulation of water in the Gulf. The Hawar Islands, just off the coast of Qatar, were listed as a Ramsar site in 1997 and they are home to many bird species including Socotra cormorants. On the main island there are herds of Arabian oryx. The Gulf of Bahrain is shallow and the waters have a thermal capacity. They are subject to fluctuations in temperature, with a range of 14 to 35 °C around the coasts. The water is rather more saline than other parts of the Persian Gulf. Around Bahrain there are meadows, coral reefs, mudflats. These areas are important for the biodiversity of the area, providing habitats for invertebrates, juvenile fish, turtles, Bahrain has been expanding its land area by dredging the seabed and depositing material around its coast. In 1963, the area of Bahrain was 668 square kilometres, extensive coral reefs in the adjoining seas have been destroyed and the increased sediment in the sea has had a deleterious effect on others. The Fasht Adham reef between Bahrain and Qatar was damaged by heat stress in 1996 and 1998 but has since been almost completely destroyed
5.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
6.
Arabian Peninsula
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The Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia and it is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km2. The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, it was divided into four regions, Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia, Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman. Eastern Arabia consists of the coastal strip of the Persian Gulf. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabian Peninsula into Jordan and southern Syria. The peninsulas constituent countries are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula. Six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council, however, this is a disputed term. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the live in Saudi Arabia. The peninsula contains the worlds largest reserves of oil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate - as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. The population tends to be young and heavily skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry, the four smallest states, which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the worlds most extreme population growth, roughly tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936. Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula and its two main subclades, show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East
7.
Manama
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Manama is the capital and largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 157,000 people. Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is home to a diverse population. Manama became the capital, and was the gateway to the main Bahrain Island. Manama was designated as the capital of Arab culture for the year 2012 by the Arab League, the name is derived from the Arabic word المنامة meaning the place of rest or the place of dreams. There is evidence of settlement on the northern coastline of Bahrain dating back to the Bronze Age. The Dilmun civilisation inhabited the area in 3000 BC, serving as a key regional trading hub between Mesopotamia, Magan and the Indus Valley civilisation. Approximately 100,000 Dilmun burial mounds were found across the north and central regions of the country, despite the discovery of the mounds, there is no significant evidence to suggest heavy urbanisation took place during the Dilmun era. It is believed that the majority of the lived in rural areas. Evidence of an ancient large rural population was confirmed by one of Alexander the Greats ship captains, a vast system of aqueducts in northern Bahrain helped facilitate ancient horticulture and agriculture. The commercial network of Dilmun lasted for almost 2,000 years and this was followed by Babylonian and Achaemenid rule, which later gave way to Greek influence during the time of Alexander the Greats conquests. In the first century AD, the Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote of Tylos, the Hellenic name of Bahrain in the classical era, the island came under the control of the Parthian and Sassanid empires respectively, by which time Nestorian Christianity started to spread in Bahrain. By 410-420 AD, a Nestorian bishopric and monastery was established in Al Dair, following the conversion of Bahrain to Islam in 628 AD, work on one of the earliest mosques in the region, the Khamis Mosque, began as early as the seventh century AD. During this time, Bahrain was engaged in long distance marine trading, in 1330, under the Jarwanid dynasty, the island became a tributary of the Kingdom of Hormuz. The town of Manama was mentioned by name for the first time in a dating to 1345 AD. Bahrain, particularly Manama and the settlement of Bilad Al Qadeem, became a centre of Shia scholarship and training for the ulema. The ulema would help fund pearling expeditions and finance grain production in the areas surrounding the city. In 1521, Bahrain fell to the expanding Portuguese Empire in the Persian Gulf, the Portuguese consolidated their hold on the island by constructing the Bahrain Fort, on the outskirts of Manama. After numerous revolts and an expanding Safavid empire in Persia, the Portuguese were expelled from Bahrain, the Safavids, sidelining Manama, designated the nearby town of Bilad Al Qadeem as the provincial capital
8.
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
9.
Qatar
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Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a sovereign country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait in the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar, Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be regarded as a constitutional or a monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was approved in a referendum. In early 2017, Qatars total population was 2.3 million,313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.6 million expatriates, Qatar is a high income economy and is a developed country, backed by the worlds third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world, Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, the map also referenced a town named Cadara to the east of the peninsula. The term Catara was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which Katara emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling, eventually, the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the countrys name. In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is, Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula, Mesopotamian artefacts originating from the Ubaid period have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Al Daasa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain, among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. It has been suggested that Qatar is the earliest known site of shellfish dye production, in 224 AD, the Sasanian Empire gained control over the territories surrounding the Persian Gulf
10.
District of Columbia
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
11.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
12.
Petroleum
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Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
13.
Sea lane
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A sea lane, sea road or shipping lane is a regularly used route for vessels on oceans and large lakes. In the Age of Sail they were not only determined by the distribution of land masses but also the prevailing winds, Sea lanes are very important for trade by sea. Lieutenant M. F. Maury of the US Navy first published a section titled Steam Lanes Across the Atlantic in his 1855 Sailing Directions proposing sea lanes along the 42 degree latitude, shipping lanes came to be by analysing the prevailing winds. The trade winds allowed ships to sail towards the west quickly, as such, the sea lanes are mostly chosen to take full advantage of these winds. Currents are also followed as well, which also gives an advantage to the vessel. Some routes, such as that from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro, main sea lanes may also attract pirates. Pax Britannica was the period from 1815–1914 during which the British Royal Navy controlled most of the key trade routes, and also suppressed piracy. During World War I, as German U-boats began hitting American and British shipping, although most ships no longer use sails, the wind still creates waves, and this can cause heeling. As such following the direction of the trade winds and westerlies is still very useful. However, any vessel that is not engaged in trading, or is smaller than a length, is best to avoid the lanes. Smaller ships can easily take courses that are nearer to the shore. Unlike with road traffic, there is no exact road a ship must follow, so this can easily be done. Shipping lanes are the busiest parts of the sea, thus being a place for stranded boaters whose boats are sinking or people on a liferaft to boat to. Although the shipping lanes are useful, they do pose threats to some people, small boats also do best to avoid the lanes, in risk of conflicts with bigger ships. As the shipping lanes are very large, sections of the lane exist which can be shallow or have some kind of obstruction, passing ships run the risk of being attacked and held for ransom. Age of sail Sea lines of communication Roadstead
14.
Hawar Islands
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The Hawar Islands is an archipelago of desert islands owned by Bahrain, situated off the west coast of Qatar in the Gulf of Bahrain of the Persian Gulf. The islands used to be one of the settlements of the Bahraini branch of the Dawasir who settled there in the early 19th century, the islands were first surveyed in 1820, when they were called the Warden’s Islands, and two villages were recorded. They are now uninhabited, other than a garrison and a hotel on the main island, access to all. Local fishermen are allowed to fish in adjacent waters and there is recreational fishing and tourism on. Fresh water has always been scarce, historically it was obtained by surface collection and even today, with the desalinisation plant, additional supplies have to be brought in. Despite their proximity to Qatar, most of the islands belong to Bahrain, the islands were formerly coincident with municipality or Minţaqat Juzur Ḩawār and are now administered as part of the Southern Governorate of Bahrain. The land area of the islands is approximately 52 km2, the WHS application named 8 major islands, which conforms to the description of the islands when first surveyed as consisting of 8 or 9 islands. It has often described as an archipelago of 16 islands. Janan island, to the south of Hawar island, is not legally considered to be a part of the group and is owned by Qatar, the islands are home to many bird species, notably Socotra cormorants. There are small herds of Arabian oryx and sand gazelle on Hawar island, the islands were listed as a Ramsar site in 1997. The islands were formerly coincident with municipality or Minţaqat Juzur Ḩawār and are now administered as part of the Southern Governorate of Bahrain, in 2014, a Best Western hotel with 140 rooms replaced a much smaller Hawar Islands Resort. However, the closed in mid-2016. By far the largest island is Hawar, which accounts for more than 41 km2 of the 54.5 km2 land area, following in size are Suwād al Janūbīyah, Suwād ash Shamālīyah, Rubud Al Sharqiyah, Rubud Al Gharbiyah, and Muhazwarah. Janan island, an island south of Hawar island, was also considered in the 2001 ICJ judgment. Based on an agreement when both Qatar and Bahrain were under British protection, it was judged to be separate from the Hawar islands
15.
Date palm
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Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, the species is widely cultivated and is naturalized in many tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Date trees typically reach about 21–23 metres in height, growing singly or forming a clump with stems from a single root system. The leaves are 4–6 metres long, with spines on the petiole, the leaflets are 30 cm long and 2 cm wide. The full span of the ranges from 6–10 m. The species name dactylifera date-bearing comes from the Greek words daktylos, which date, and fero. Dates have been a food of the Middle East and the Indus Valley for thousands of years. There is archaeological evidence of cultivation in eastern Arabia between 5530 and 5320 calBC. They are believed to have originated around what is now Iraq, the Ancient Egyptians used the fruits to make date wine, and ate them at harvest. There is also evidence of date cultivation in Mehrgarh around 7000 BCE. Evidence of cultivation is found throughout later civilizations in the Indus Valley. In later times, traders spread dates around South West Asia, northern Africa, dates were introduced into Mexico and California by the Spaniards in 1765, around Mission San Ignacio. A date palm cultivar, known as Judean date palm is renowned for its long-lived orthodox seed and this particular seed is presently reputed to be the oldest viable seed, but the upper survival time limit of properly stored seeds remains unknown. Fossil records show that the palm has existed for at least 50 million years. The fruit is known as a date, the fruits English name, as well as the Latin species name dactylifera, both come from the Greek word for finger, dáktulos, because of the fruits elongated shape. Dates are oval-cylindrical, 3–7 cm long, and 2–3 cm diameter, dates contain a single stone about 2–2.5 cm long and 6–8 mm thick. Three main cultivar groups of date exist, soft, semi-dry, the type of fruit depends on the glucose, fructose, and sucrose content. The date palm is dioecious, having male and female plants
16.
Almond
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The almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree, within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the shell surrounding the seed. The fruit of the almond is a drupe, consisting of a hull and a hard shell with the seed. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed, almonds are sold shelled or unshelled. Blanched almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to soften the seedcoat, the almond is a deciduous tree, growing 4–10 m in height, with a trunk of up to 30 cm in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, the leaves are 3–5 inches long, with a serrated margin and a 2.5 cm petiole. The flowers are white to pink, 3–5 cm diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs. Almond grows best in Mediterranean climates with warm, dry summers and mild, the optimal temperature for their growth is between 15 and 30 °C and the tree buds have a chilling requirement of 300 to 600 hours below 7.2 °C to break dormancy. Almonds begin bearing an economic crop in the year after planting. Trees reach full bearing five to six years after planting, the fruit matures in the autumn, 7–8 months after flowering. The almond fruit measures 3. 5–6 cm long, in botanical terms, it is not a nut but a drupe. The outer covering or exocarp, fleshy in other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry, is instead a thick, leathery, grey-green coat, inside the hull is a reticulated, hard, woody shell called the endocarp. Inside the shell is the seed, commonly called a nut. Generally, one seed is present, but occasionally two occur, the almond is native to the Mediterranean climate region of the Middle East, eastward as far as the Yamuna River in India. The wild form of domesticated almond grows in parts of the Levant, the fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed. Selection of the type from the many bitter types in the wild marked the beginning of almond domestication. It is unclear as to which wild ancestor of the created the domesticated species. Zohary and Hopf believe that almonds were one of the earliest domesticated fruit trees due to the ability of the grower to raise attractive almonds from seed
17.
Ficus
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Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig is a species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region. The fruit of most other species are edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Fig species are characterized by their unique inflorescence and distinctive pollination syndrome, the specific identification of many of the species can be difficult, but figs as a group are relatively easy to recognize. Many have aerial roots and a shape or habit. The fig fruit is an inflorescence, sometimes referred to as a syconium. Finally, there are three traits that together are unique to figs. There are no unambiguous older fossils of Ficus, however, current molecular clock estimates indicate that Ficus is a relatively ancient genus being at least 60 million years old, and possibly as old as 80 million years. The main radiation of extant species, however, may have taken more recently. Moreover, figs with different plant habits have undergone radiation in different biogeographic regions. In the tropics, it is common to find that Ficus is the most species-rich plant genus in a particular forest. In Asia as many as 70 or more species can co-exist, Ficus species richness declines with an increase in latitude in both hemispheres. Figs are keystone species in many rainforest ecosystems and their fruit are a key resource for some frugivores including fruit bats, capuchin monkeys, langurs and mangabeys. They are even more important for some birds, asian barbets, pigeons, hornbills, fig-parrots and bulbuls are examples of taxa that may almost entirely subsist on figs when these are in plenty. The citrus long-horned beetle, for example, has larvae that feed on wood, including that of fig trees, similarly, the sweet potato whitefly is frequently found as a pest on figs grown as potted plants and is spread through the export of these plants to other localities
18.
Pomegranate
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The pomegranate, botanical name Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree in the family Lythraceae that grows between 5 and 8 m tall. The fruit is typically in season in the Northern Hemisphere from September to February, as intact arils or juice, pomegranates are used in baking, cooking, juice blends, meal garnishes, smoothies, and alcoholic beverages, such as cocktails and wine. The pomegranate originated in the region of modern-day Iran, and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region and it was introduced into Spanish America in the late 16th century and California, by Spanish settlers, in 1769. It is also cultivated in parts of Arizona and California, in recent years, it has become more common in the commercial markets of Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The name pomegranate derives from medieval Latin pōmum apple and grānātum seeded, possibly stemming from the old French word for the fruit, pomme-grenade, the pomegranate was known in early English as apple of Grenada—a term which today survives only in heraldic blazons. This is a folk etymology, confusing the Latin granatus with the name of the Spanish city of Granada, garnet derives from Old French grenat by metathesis, from Medieval Latin granatum as used in a different meaning of a dark red color. This derivation may have originated from pomum granatum, describing the color of pomegranate pulp, or from granum, referring to red dye, the French term for pomegranate, grenade, has given its name to the military grenade. A shrub or small tree growing 6 to 10 m high, P. granatum leaves are opposite or subopposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, 3–7 cm long and 2 cm broad. The flowers are red and 3 cm in diameter, with three to seven petals. Some fruitless varieties are grown for the flowers alone, the edible fruit is a berry, intermediate in size between a lemon and a grapefruit, 5–12 cm in diameter with a rounded shape and thick, reddish skin. The number of seeds in a pomegranate can vary from 200 to about 1400, each seed has a surrounding water-laden pulp — the edible sarcotesta that forms from the seed coat — ranging in color from white to deep red or purple. The seeds are exarillate, i. e. unlike some species in the order, Myrtales. The sarcotesta of pomegranate seeds consists of cells derived from the integument. The seeds are embedded in a white, spongy, astringent membrane, P. granatum is grown for its fruit crop, and as ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and gardens. Mature specimens can develop sculptural twisted-bark multiple trunks and an overall form. Pomegranates are drought-tolerant, and can be grown in dry areas with either a Mediterranean winter rainfall climate or in summer rainfall climates, in wetter areas, they can be prone to root decay from fungal diseases. They can be tolerant of moderate frost, down to about −12 °C, Pomegranate grows easily from seed, but is commonly propagated from 25 to 50 cm hardwood cuttings to avoid the genetic variation of seedlings. Air layering is also an option for propagation, but grafting fails, P. granatum var. nana is a dwarf variety of P. granatum popularly planted as an ornamental plant in gardens and larger containers, and used as a bonsai specimen tree
19.
Escarpment
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An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as an effect of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations. Usually escarpment is used interchangeably with scarp, but some sources differentiate the two terms, where escarpment refers to the margin between two landforms, while scarp is synonymous with a cliff or steep slope. The surface of the slope is called a scarp face. This is a ridge which has a gentle slope on one side. Scarps are generally formed by one of two processes, either by differential erosion of rocks, or by vertical movement of the Earths crust along a geologic fault. Most commonly, an escarpment is a transition from one series of rocks to another series of a different age. Escarpments are also formed by faults. When a fault displaces the ground surface so that one side is higher than the other and this can occur in dip-slip faults, or when a strike-slip fault brings a piece of high ground adjacent to an area of lower ground. More loosely, the term describes the zone between coastal lowlands and continental plateaus which have a marked, abrupt change in elevation caused by coastal erosion at the base of the plateau. Earth is not the planet where escarpments occur. They are believed to occur on other planets when the crust contracts, on other Solar System bodies such as Mercury, Mars, and the Moon, the Latin term rupes is used for an escarpment. When sedimentary beds are tilted and exposed to the surface, erosion, escarpments erode gradually and over geological time. The mélange tendencies of escarpments results in varying contacts between a multitude of rock types and these varying levels of erosion can lead to strange features forming in the exposed rock. Kinver Edge The Lincoln Edge Stanage Edge Wenlock Edge France La Côte dOr is famous for its wines and has given its name to a département, le Pays de Bray, a clay vale enclosed by chalk escarpments
20.
Oil well
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An oil well is a boring in the Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil, a well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well. The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 CE and these wells had depths of up to about 240 metres and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt, by the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as Burning water in Japan in the 7th century, arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century, some sources claim that from the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan, to produce naphtha for the petroleum industry. These places were described by Marco Polo in the 13th century, when Marco Polo in 1264 visited Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, he saw oil being collected from seeps. He wrote that on the confines toward Geirgine there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, in 1846, Baku the first ever well was drilled with percussion tools to a depth of 21 meters for oil exploration. In 1848, the first modern oil well was drilled on the Aspheron Peninsula north-east of Baku, the earliest oil wells in modern times were drilled percussively, by repeatedly raising and dropping a cable tool into the earth. In the 20th century, cable tools were replaced with rotary drilling. The record-depth Kola Borehole used non-rotary mud motor drilling to achieve a depth of over 12,000 metres, until the 1970s, most oil wells were vertical, although lithological and mechanical imperfections cause most wells to deviate at least slightly from true vertical. However, modern directional drilling technologies allow for strongly deviated wells which can, given sufficient depth and with the proper tools, before a well is drilled, a geologic target is identified by a geologist or geophysicist to meet the objectives of the well. For a production well, the target is picked to optimize production from the well, for an exploration or appraisal well, the target is chosen to confirm the existence of a viable hydrocarbon reservoir or to ascertain its extent. The target will be matched with a location, and a trajectory between the two will be designed. When the well path is identified, a team of geoscientists and these properties include pore pressure, fracture gradient, wellbore stability, porosity, permeability, lithology, faults, and clay content. The well is created by drilling a hole 12 cm to 1 meter in diameter into the earth with a rig that rotates a drill string with a bit attached. After the hole is drilled, sections of pipe, slightly smaller in diameter than the borehole, are placed in the hole
21.
Tethys Ocean
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It is also referred to as the Tethys Sea or Neotethys. About 250 million years ago, during the Triassic, a new ocean began forming in the end of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. A rift formed along the continental shelf of Southern Pangaea. Over the next 60 million years, that piece of shelf, known as Cimmeria, traveled north, the Tethys Ocean formed between Cimmeria and Gondwana, directly over where the Paleo-Tethys used to be. During the Jurassic Period, Cimmeria finally collided with Laurasia, there it stalled, the ocean floor behind it buckling under, forming the Tethyan Trench. Water levels rose, and the western Tethys shallowly covered significant portions of Europe, thus, ocean currents at that time—around the Early Cretaceous—ran very differently from the way they do today. Between the Jurassic and the Late Cretaceous, Gondwana began breaking up, pushing Africa and India north across the Tethys and opening up the Indian Ocean. As these land masses crowded in on the Tethys ocean from all sides, to as recently as the Late Miocene, the ocean continued to shrink, becoming the Tethys Seaway or second Tethys Sea. Also, throughout the Cenozoic, global sea levels fell hundreds of meters, today, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Indian Ocean cover the area once occupied by the Tethys Ocean, and Turkey, Iraq, and Tibet sit on Cimmeria. What was once the arm of the Tethys Sea was the ancestor of the present-day Mediterranean Sea. Other remnants are the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas, most of the floor of the Tethys Ocean disappeared under Cimmeria and Laurasia. Similar geologic evidence can be seen in the Alpine orogeny of Europe, greece and the Levant also retain many units of limestone and other sedimentary rocks deposited by various stands of the Tethys Ocean. Paleontologists also find the Tethys Ocean particularly important because much of the worlds sea shelves were found around its margins for such a length of time. Marine, marsh-dwelling, and estuarian fossils from these shelves are of considerable paleontological interest, the Solnhofen limestone in Bavaria, originally a coastal lagoon mud of the Tethys Ocean, yielded the famous Archaeopteryx fossil. However, Eduard Suess is generally seen as the first person to provide evidence for the existence of this ancient and extinct sea. In 1893, using records from the Alps and Africa. He named it the Tethys Sea after the Greek sea goddess Tethys, Suess first proposed his concept of Tethys in his four-volume work Das Antlitz der Erde. This concept evolved during the 20th century and after WW2 Tethys was described as an ocean with a wide eastern end
22.
Coquina
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The term coquina comes from the Spanish word for cockle and shellfish. For a sediment to be considered to be a coquina, the particles composing it should average 2 mm or greater in size, coquina can vary in hardness from poorly to moderately cemented. Incompletely consolidated and poorly cemented coquinas are considered grainstones in the Dunham classification system for carbonate sedimentary rocks, a well-cemented coquina is classified as a biosparite according to the Folk classification of sedimentary rocks. Coquinas accumulate in high-energy marine and lacustrine environments where currents and waves result in the vigorous winnowing, abrasion, fracturing, and sorting of the shells, as a result, they typically exhibit well-developed bedding or cross-bedding, close packing, and good orientation of the shell fragments. The high-energy marine or lacustrine environments associated with coquinas include beaches, shallow submarine raised banks, swift tidal channels, coquina is mainly composed of the mineral calcite, often including some phosphate, in the form of seashells or coral. Occasionally quarried or mined and used as a stone in Florida for over 400 years, coquina forms the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos. The stone makes a good material for forts, particularly those built during the period of heavy cannon use. Because of coquinas softness, cannonballs would sink into, rather than shatter or puncture, the first Saint Augustine Lighthouse was also built of coquina. Sedgely Abbey, an 18th-century plantation house on the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina was built of locally quarried coquina, sprunt compared Sedgeley Abbey in dimensions and appearance to the two-story, cellered, Governor Dudley mansion that still stands in Wilmington. Like many southern plantations, Sedgeley Abbey fell into disrepair after the Civil War, the vacant house was demolished in the 1870s and the coquina rubble was burned and used for fertilizer. A cellar eight feet deep carved into solid coquina was located during archaeological investigations on the site of the plantation in 1978. In the past coquina was used for the construction of buildings in Denham, Western Australia, when first quarried, coquina is extremely soft. This softness makes it easy to remove from the quarry. However, the stone is also at first much too soft to be used for building. In order to be used as a material, the stone is left out to dry for approximately one to three years, which causes the stone to harden into a usable, but still comparatively soft. Coquina has also used as a source of paving material. It is usually poorly cemented and easily breaks into component shell or coral fragments, large pieces of coquina of unusual shape are sometimes used as landscape decoration. Because coquina often includes a component of phosphate, it is mined for use as fertilizer
23.
Pleistocene
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The Pleistocene is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the worlds most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, the Pleistocene is the first epoch of the Quaternary Period or sixth epoch of the Cenozoic Era. In the ICS timescale, the Pleistocene is divided into four stages or ages, all of these stages were defined in southern Europe. In addition to this subdivision, various regional subdivisions are often used. Charles Lyell introduced the term pleistocene in 1839 to describe strata in Sicily that had at least 70% of their molluscan fauna still living today and this distinguished it from the older Pliocene Epoch, which Lyell had originally thought to be the youngest fossil rock layer. The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million to 11,700 years before present and it covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC, the IUGS has yet to approve a type section, Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point, for the upper Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. The proposed section is the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core 75°06 N 42°18 W, the lower boundary of the Pleistocene Series is formally defined magnetostratigraphically as the base of the Matuyama chronozone, isotopic stage 103. Above this point there are notable extinctions of the calcareous nanofossils, Discoaster pentaradiatus, the Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma. Pleistocene climate was marked by repeated glacial cycles in which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places and it is estimated that, at maximum glacial extent, 30% of the Earths surface was covered by ice. In addition, a zone of permafrost stretched southward from the edge of the sheet, a few hundred kilometres in North America. The mean annual temperature at the edge of the ice was −6 °C, during interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global, antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap, there were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one, the Cordilleran ice sheet covered the North American northwest, the east was covered by the Laurentide
24.
Miocene
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The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago. The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell and its name comes from the Greek words μείων and καινός and means less recent because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene Epoch and is followed by the Pliocene Epoch, the earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, with the climate slowly cooling towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event, the apes arose and diversified during the Miocene, becoming widespread in the Old World. By the end of this epoch, the ancestors of humans had split away from the ancestors of the chimpanzees to follow their own evolutionary path, as in the Oligocene before it, grasslands continued to expand and forests to dwindle in extent. In the Miocene seas, kelp forests made their first appearance, the plants and animals of the Miocene were fairly modern. The Miocene faunal stages from youngest to oldest are typically named according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, Two subdivisions each form the lower, middle, continents continued to drift toward their present positions. Mountain building took place in western North America, Europe, both continental and marine Miocene deposits are common worldwide with marine outcrops common near modern shorelines. Well studied continental exposures occur in the North American Great Plains, India continued to collide with Asia, creating dramatic new mountain ranges. The Tethys Seaway continued to shrink and then disappeared as Africa collided with Eurasia in the Turkish–Arabian region between 19 and 12 Ma. The subsequent uplift of mountains in the western Mediterranean region and a fall in sea levels combined to cause a temporary drying up of the Mediterranean Sea near the end of the Miocene. The global trend was towards increasing aridity caused primarily by global cooling reducing the ability of the atmosphere to absorb moisture, climates remained moderately warm, although the slow global cooling that eventually led to the Pleistocene glaciations continued. Although a long-term cooling trend was well underway, there is evidence of a period during the Miocene when the global climate rivalled that of the Oligocene. The Miocene warming began 21 million years ago and continued until 14 million years ago, by 8 million years ago, temperatures dropped sharply once again, and the Antarctic ice sheet was already approaching its present-day size and thickness. Greenland may have begun to have large glaciers as early as 7 to 8 million years ago, life during the Miocene Epoch was mostly supported by the two newly formed biomes, kelp forests and grasslands. This allows for more grazers, such as horses, rhinoceroses, ninety five percent of modern plants existed by the end of this epoch. The higher organic content and water retention of the deeper and richer grassland soils, with long term burial of carbon in sediments, produced a carbon and this, combined with higher surface albedo and lower evapotranspiration of grassland, contributed to a cooler, drier climate. The expansion of grasslands and radiations among terrestrial herbivores correlates to fluctuations in CO2
25.
Eocene
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The Eocene Epoch, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. As with other periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified. The name Eocene comes from the Ancient Greek ἠώς and καινός, the Eocene epoch is conventionally divided into early, middle, and late subdivisions. The corresponding rocks are referred to as lower, middle, the Ypresian stage constitutes the lower, the Priabonian stage the upper, and the Lutetian and Bartonian stages are united as the middle Eocene. The Eocene Epoch contained a variety of different climate conditions that includes the warmest climate in the Cenozoic Era. During this period of time, little to no ice was present on Earth with a difference in temperature from the equator to the poles. Following the maximum was a descent into an icehouse climate from the Eocene Optimum to the Eocene-Oligocene transition at 34 million years ago. During this decrease ice began to reappear at the poles, greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide and methane, played a significant role during the Eocene in controlling the surface temperature. For the early Eocene there is discussion on how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere. This is due to numerous proxies representing different atmospheric carbon dioxide content, for contrast, today the carbon dioxide levels are at 400 ppm or 0. 04%. At about the beginning of the Eocene Epoch the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere more or less doubled. During the early Eocene, methane was another gas that had a drastic effect on the climate. In comparison to carbon dioxide, methane has much effect on temperature as methane is ~34 times more effective per molecule than carbon dioxide on a 100-year scale. Most of the methane released to the atmosphere during this period of time would have been from wetlands, swamps, the atmospheric methane concentration today is 0. 000179% or 1.79 ppmv. Due to the climate and sea level rise associated with the early Eocene, more wetlands, more forests. Comparing the early Eocene production of methane to current levels of atmospheric methane, biogenic production of methane produces carbon dioxide and water vapor along with the methane, as well as yielding infrared radiation
26.
Bird migration
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Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans and it occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funnelled on to specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction especially of stopover and wintering sites, as well as structures such as power lines and wind farms. The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year, shorter migrations are common, including altitudinal migrations on mountains such as the Andes and Himalayas. The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length, migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the sun and stars, the earths magnetic field, and probably also mental maps. Records of bird migration were made as much as 3,000 years ago by the Ancient Greek writers Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Aristotle. The Bible also notes migrations, as in the Book of Job, the author of Jeremiah wrote, Even the stork in the heavens knows its seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift and the crane keep the time of their arrival. Aristotle noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, repeats Aristotles observations. Aristotle however suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated and this belief persisted as late as 1878, when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. It was not until the end of the century that migration as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes was accepted. Bewick then describes an experiment which succeeded in keeping alive in Britain for several years. He concludes, These experiments have since been confirmed by. Migration is the seasonal movement, often north and south. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat, sometimes, journeys are not termed true migration because they are irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality, non-migratory birds are said to be resident or sedentary. Approximately 1800 of the worlds 10,000 bird species are long-distance migrants, many bird populations migrate long distances along a flyway. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer, of course, in the southern hemisphere the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far south to support long-distance migration. The primary motivation for migration appears to be food, for example, also, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young
27.
Arid climate
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An area that features this climate usually experiences from 25 to 200 mm per year of precipitation and in some years may experience no precipitation at all. Averages may be even less such as in Arica, Chile, there are usually two or three variations of a desert climate, a hot desert climate, a cold desert climate and, sometimes, a mild desert climate. To determine whether a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold is determined. If the areas precipitation is less than half the threshold. Hot desert climates are found under the subtropical ridge where there is largely unbroken sunshine for the whole year due to the stable descending air. These areas are located between 30 degrees south and 30 degrees north latitude, under the subtropical latitudes called the horse latitudes, hot desert climates are generally hot, sunny and dry year-round. Hot desert climates also reach similar latitudes in the Middle East, North Africa, hot desert climates usually feature hot, sometimes exceptionally hot, periods of the year. In many locations featuring a hot climate, maximum temperatures of over 40 °C are not uncommon in summer. The world absolute heat records, over 50 °C, are generally in the hot deserts, some desert locations consistently experience very high temperatures all year long, even during wintertime. These locations feature some of the highest annual average temperatures recorded on Earth and this last feature is seen in some parts of deserts of Africa and Arabia. During colder periods of the year, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing or below due to the radiation loss under the clear skies. However, very rarely do temperatures drop far below freezing, only one region in Europe has a hot desert climate, Province of Almeria, Province of Alicante and Province of Murcia in South Eastern Spain. Cold desert climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though summers typically are not quite as hot as summers in hot desert climates, unlike hot desert climates, cold desert climates tend to feature cold winters with rare snow. Cold desert climates are found at higher altitudes than hot desert climates. A cold desert climate is found in temperate zones, usually in the rain shadow of high mountains. A classic example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina bounded by the Andes to its west, in the case of Central Asia, mountains restrict precipitation from the monsoon. The Gobi desert in Mongolia is an example of this. Though hot in summer, it shares the cold winters of the rest of Central Asia
28.
Shamal (wind)
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A shamal is a northwesterly wind blowing over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states, often strong during the day, but decreasing at night. This weather effect occurs anywhere from once to several times a year, mostly in summer, the resulting wind typically creates large sandstorms that impact Iraq, most sand having been picked up from Jordan and Syria. Shamals result from strong northwest winds that are funneled into the Persian Gulf by the mountains of Turkey and Iraq to the northeast and the high plains of Saudi Arabia to the southwest. The winds most commonly are strongest in the Spring to Summer and hence the Shamal events are as well, during that time of year the polar jet stream to the north moves southward to become close to the subtropical jet to the south. The proximity of the two jet streams promotes the formation of strong but often dry cold fronts which create the Shamal, the strong winds of the Shamal form in front of and behind the front. Iraq typically experiences strong wind-driven dust 20 to 50 days per year, according to folklore, the first major shamal occurring around May 25 is known as the Al-Haffar, or driller, since it drills huge depressions in desert sand dunes. The second, arriving in early June, coincides with the star, Thorayya. During this event, which is more violent than the others, near the end of June, the last shamal arrives, known as the Al-Dabaran, or the follower. It is violent and continues for several days, local residents keep doors and windows firmly shut as this shamal includes an all-penetrating fine dust which gets into everything. When a passing storm with a cold front passes over the mountains of Turkey. Temperatures at lower elevations still hover above 105 °Fahrenheit during these events, in Iran, where winter storms can bring heavy snow to the terrain, a layer of dust can settle onto the snowpack. This leads to strong northerly wind over the Persian Gulf for periods up to five days and they are associated with cold temperatures. The places around the Middle East most likely to see the winter variety lie near Lavan Island, Halul Island and they persist from 24 to 36 hours during the winter and occur as frequently as two to three times per month between December and February. A persistent three- to five-day event occurs once or twice a winter. Shamals normally last three to five days, the storm also overwhelmed Baghdads Yarmuk Hospital, which treated more than a thousand people with respiratory distress. From February 1 through February 4,2008, there was a massive dust storm associated with a Shamal wind advected over the Arabian Sea. It was estimated that the edge of the dust storm moved at around 20 km/h. Dust from this storm received press from the media as it swept across the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament
29.
Wadi
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Wadi is the Arabic and Hebrew term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain, the term wādī is very widely found in Arabic toponyms. Seasonal streams, frequent in south-east Spain, are called ramblas instead, in the Maghreb, the term wadi is applied to all rivers including regular ones. Wadis are located on the sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts, commonly they begin on the distal portions of fans. In basin and range topography, wadis trend along basin axes at the terminus of fans, permanent channels do not exist, due to lack of continual water flow. Wadi show braided stream patterns because of the deficiency of water, Water percolates down into the stream bed causing abrupt loss in energy and resulting vast deposition. Wadis may develop dams of sediment which results in change of stream patterns in the flash flood. Wind also plays its role in deposition, when wadi sediments are underwater or moist, wind sediments are deposited over them. Thus wadi sediments contain both wind and water sediments, wadi sediments may contain whole range from gravel to mud. There is also range of sedimentary structures. Thus, wadi sediments are most diagnostic of all other desert environments, flash floods represents severe energy conditions and results in wide range of sedimentary structures, including ripples and commonly plane beds. Gravels common display imbrications, Mud drapes show desiccation cracks, wind activity also generates its own sedimentary structures, large scales cross-stratification and wedge shape cross-sets are present. Typical wadi sequence consists of alternating units of wind and water sediments, Water laid sediments show complete fining upward sequence. Wind deposits are stratified and covered with mud-cracked deposits. Some horizontal Loess may also present, modern English usage differentiates a wadi from another canyon or wash by the action and prevalence of water. Wadis, as courses, are formed by water, but are distinguished from river valleys or gullies in that surface water is intermittent or ephemeral. Wadis are generally dry year round, except after a rain, the desert environment is characterized by sudden but infrequent heavy rainfall, often resulting in flash floods. Crossing wadis at certain times of the year can be dangerous as a result, Wadis tend to be associated with centers of human population because sub-surface water is sometimes available in them
30.
Rain
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Rain is liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity. Rain is a component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems, as well as water for power plants. The major cause of production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convective clouds such as cumulonimbus which can organize into narrow rainbands. On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by downslope flow which causes heating and drying of the air mass, the movement of the monsoon trough, or intertropical convergence zone, brings rainy seasons to savannah climes. The urban heat island effect leads to increased rainfall, both in amounts and intensity, downwind of cities, global warming is also causing changes in the precipitation pattern globally, including wetter conditions across eastern North America and drier conditions in the tropics. The globally averaged annual precipitation over land is 715 mm, climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Rainfall is measured using rain gauges, rainfall amounts can be estimated by weather radar. Rain is also known or suspected on other planets, where it may be composed of methane, neon, sulfuric acid, or even iron rather than water. Air contains water vapor, and the amount of water in a mass of dry air. The amount of moisture in air is commonly reported as relative humidity. How much water vapor a parcel of air can contain before it becomes saturated, warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air before becoming saturated. Therefore, one way to saturate a parcel of air is to cool it, the dew point is the temperature to which a parcel must be cooled in order to become saturated. There are four mechanisms for cooling the air to its dew point, adiabatic cooling, conductive cooling, radiational cooling. Adiabatic cooling occurs when air rises and expands, the air can rise due to convection, large-scale atmospheric motions, or a physical barrier such as a mountain. Conductive cooling occurs when the air comes into contact with a surface, usually by being blown from one surface to another. Radiational cooling occurs due to the emission of infrared radiation, either by the air or by the surface underneath, evaporative cooling occurs when moisture is added to the air through evaporation, which forces the air temperature to cool to its wet-bulb temperature, or until it reaches saturation
31.
Irrigation
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Irrigation is the method in which a controlled amount of water is supplied to plants at regular intervals for agriculture. It is used to assist in the growing of crops, maintenance of landscapes. Additionally, irrigation also has a few uses in crop production. In contrast, agriculture that only on direct rainfall is referred to as rain-fed or dry land farming. Irrigation systems are used for dust suppression, disposal of sewage. Irrigation is often studied together with drainage, which is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given area, Irrigation has been a central feature of agriculture for over 5,000 years and is the product of many cultures. Historically, it was the basis for economies and societies across the globe, archaeological investigation has found evidence of irrigation where the natural rainfall was insufficient to support crops for rainfed agriculture. Ancient Egyptians practiced Basin irrigation using the flooding of the Nile to inundate land plots which had surrounded by dykes. The flood water was held until the sediment had settled before the surplus was returned to the watercourse. The Ancient Nubians developed a form of irrigation by using a device called a sakia. Irrigation began in Nubia some time between the third and second millennium BCE and it largely depended upon the flood waters that would flow through the Nile River and other rivers in what is now the Sudan. In sub-Saharan Africa irrigation reached the Niger River region cultures and civilizations by the first or second millennium BCE and was based on wet season flooding, terrace irrigation is evidenced in pre-Columbian America, early Syria, India, and China. These canals are the earliest record of irrigation in the New World, traces of a canal possibly dating from the 5th millennium BCE were found under the 4th millennium canal. Large scale agriculture was practiced and a network of canals was used for the purpose of irrigation. Ancient Persia as far back as the 6th millennium BCE, where barley was grown in areas where the rainfall was insufficient to support such a crop. The Qanats, developed in ancient Persia in about 800 BCE, are among the oldest known irrigation methods still in use today and they are now found in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The system comprises a network of wells and gently sloping tunnels driven into the sides of cliffs. The noria, a wheel with clay pots around the rim powered by the flow of the stream, was first brought into use at about this time
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Spring (hydrology)
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A spring is any natural situation where water flows from an aquifer to the Earths surface. It is a component of the hydrosphere, a spring may be the result of karst topography where surface water has infiltrated the Earths surface, becoming part of the area groundwater. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissure—openings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves, the water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring. The forcing of the spring to the surface can be the result of an aquifer in which the recharge area of the spring water table rests at a higher elevation than that of the outlet. Spring water forced to the surface by elevated sources are artesian wells and this is possible even if the outlet is in the form of a 300-foot-deep cave. In this case the cave is used like a hose by the higher elevated area of groundwater to exit through the lower elevation opening. Non-artesian springs may simply flow from a higher elevation through the earth to a lower elevation, still other springs are the result of pressure from an underground source in the earth, in the form of volcanic activity. The result can be water at elevated temperature such as a hot spring, the action of the groundwater continually dissolves permeable bedrock such as limestone and dolomite, creating vast cave systems. The term seep refers to springs with small flow rates in which the water has filtered through permeable earth. Fracture springs, discharge from faults, joints, or fissures in the earth, tubular springs, in which the water flows from underground caverns. Spring discharge, or resurgence, is determined by the springs recharge basin, factors that affect the recharge include the size of the area in which groundwater is captured, the amount of precipitation, the size of capture points, and the size of the spring outlet. Water may leak into the system from many sources including permeable earth, sinkholes. In some cases entire creeks seemingly disappear as the water sinks into the ground via the stream bed, grand Gulf State Park in Missouri is an example of an entire creek vanishing into the groundwater system. The water emerges 9 miles away, forming some of the discharge of Mammoth Spring in Arkansas, human activity may also affect a springs discharge--withdrawal of groundwater reduces the water pressure in an aquifer, decreasing the volume of flow. Springs are often classified by the volume of the water they discharge, the largest springs are called first-magnitude, defined as springs that discharge water at a rate of at least 2800 liters or 100 cubic feet of water per second. The scale for spring flow is as follows, Minerals become dissolved in the water as it moves through the underground rocks and this may give the water flavor and even carbon dioxide bubbles, depending on the nature of the geology through which it passes. This is why spring water is bottled and sold as mineral water. Springs that contain significant amounts of minerals are sometimes called mineral springs, Springs that contain large amounts of dissolved sodium salts, mostly sodium carbonate, are called soda springs
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Fresh water
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Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water although it does include mineral-rich waters such as chalybeate springs, the term sweet water has been used to describe fresh water in contrast to salt water. The term fresh water does not have the meaning as potable water. Much of the fresh water and ground water is unsuitable for drinking without some form of purification because of the presence of chemical or biological contaminants. It may also be in contact with the underlying underground water. The majority of water on Earth is in ice caps. The source of almost all water is precipitation from the atmosphere, in the form of mist, rain. Fresh water falling as mist, rain or snow contains materials dissolved from the atmosphere and material from the sea, in some cases this acid rain results in pollution of lakes and rivers. In coastal areas fresh water may contain significant concentrations of salts derived from the sea if windy conditions have lifted drops of seawater into the rain-bearing clouds. This can give rise to elevated concentrations of sodium, chloride, magnesium, significant quantities of iron may be transported in this way including the well-documented transfer of iron-rich rainfall falling in Brazil derived from sand-storms in the Sahara in north Africa. Water is an issue for the survival of all living organisms. Some can use water but many organisms including the great majority of higher plants. Out of all the water on Earth, saline water in oceans, seas and saline groundwater make up about 97% of it. Freshwater lakes contain about 87% of this surface water, including 29% in the African Great Lakes, 20% in Lake Baikal in Russia, 21% in the North American Great Lakes. Swamps have most of the balance only a small amount in rivers. In areas with no water on the ground surface, fresh water derived from precipitation may, because of its lower density. Most of the fresh water is frozen in ice sheets. Many areas suffer from lack of distribution of water, such as deserts
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Drinking water
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Drinking water, also known as potable water or improved drinking water, is water that is safe to drink or to use for food preparation, without risk of health problems. Globally, in 2015, 91% of people had access to suitable for drinking. Nearly 4.2 billion had access to tap water while another 2.4 billion had access to wells or public taps,1.8 billion people still use an unsafe drinking water source which may be contaminated by feces. This can result in infectious diarrhea such as cholera and typhoid among others, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, age, health issues. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 liters a day may be required. Water makes up about 60% of weight in men and 55% of weight in women, infants are about 70% to 80% water while the elderly are around 45%. Typically in developed countries, tap water meets drinking water quality standards, other typical uses include washing, toilets, and irrigation. Greywater may also be used for toilets or irrigation and its use for irrigation however may be associated with risks. Water may also be due to levels of toxins or suspended solids. Reduction of waterborne diseases and development of water resources is a major public health goal in developing countries. Bottled water is sold for consumption in most parts of the world. The word potable came into English from the Late Latin potabilis, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, age, health, and environmental conditions. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 litres per day may be required. Some health authorities have suggested that at least eight glasses of eight fl oz each are required by an adult per day, the British Dietetic Association recommends 1.8 litres. However, various reviews of the evidence performed in 2002 and 2008 could not find any scientific evidence recommending eight glasses of water per day. An individuals thirst provides a guide for how much water they require rather than a specific
35.
Desalination
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Desalination is a process that extracts minerals from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a substance, as in soil desalination. Saltwater is desalinated to produce water suitable for consumption or irrigation. One by-product of desalination is salt, Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on cost-effective provision of water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources, due to its energy consumption, desalinating sea water is generally more costly than fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation. However, these alternatives are not always available and depletion of reserves is a problem worldwide. Currently, approximately 1% of the population is dependent on desalinated water to meet daily needs. Desalination is particularly relevant in dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams for water and this number increased from 78.4 million cubic meters in 2013, a 10. 71% increase in 2 years. Kuwait produces a higher proportion of its water than any other country, the traditional process used in these operations is vacuum distillation—essentially boiling it to leave impurities behind. In desalination, atmospheric pressure is reduced, thus lowering the temperature needed. Liquids boil when the pressure equals the ambient pressure and vapor pressure increases with temperature. Thus, because of the temperature, low-temperature waste heat from electrical power generation or industrial processes can be employed. Water is evaporated and separated from sea water through multi-stage flash distillation, each subsequent flash process utilizes energy released from the condensation of the water vapor from the previous step. Multiple effect distillation works through a series of steps called “effects”, incoming water is sprayed onto vertically or, more commonly, horizontally oriented pipes which are then heated to generate steam. The steam is used to heat the next batch of incoming sea water. To increase efficiency, the used to heat the sea water can be taken from nearby power plants. Although this method is the most thermodynamically efficient, a few limitations exist such as a max temperature, vapor compression distillation involves using either a mechanical compressor or a jet stream to compress the vapor present above the liquid
36.
Seawater
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Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the oceans has a salinity of about 3. 5% This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately 35 grams of dissolved salts. Average density at the surface is 1.025 kg/l, seawater is denser than both fresh water and pure water because the dissolved salts increase the mass by a larger proportion than the volume. The freezing point of seawater decreases as salt concentration increases, at typical salinity, it freezes at about −2 °C. The coldest seawater ever recorded was in 2010, in a stream under an Antarctic glacier, seawater pH is typically limited to a range between 7.5 and 8.4. However, there is no universally accepted reference pH-scale for seawater, although the vast majority of seawater has a salinity of between 31 g/kg and 38 g/kg, seawater is not uniformly saline throughout the world. Where mixing occurs with fresh water runoff from river mouths, near melting glaciers or vast amounts precipitation, the most saline open sea is the Red Sea, where high rates of evaporation, low precipitation and low river run-off, and confined circulation result in unusually salty water. The salinity in isolated bodies of water can be considerably greater still, historically, several salinity scales were used to approximate the absolute salinity of seawater. A popular scale was the Practical Salinity Scale where salinity was measured in practical salinity units, the current standard for salinity is the Reference Salinity scale with the salinity expressed in units of g/kg. The density of surface seawater ranges from about 1020 to 1029 kg/m3, depending on the temperature, at a temperature of 25 °C, salinity of 35 g/kg and 1 atm pressure, the density of seawater is 1023.6 kg/m3. Deep in the ocean, under pressure, seawater can reach a density of 1050 kg/m3 or higher. The density of seawater also changes with salinity, brines generated by seawater desalination plants can have salinities up to 120 g/kg. The density of typical seawater brine of 120 g/kg salinity at 25 °C, seawater pH is limited to the range 7.5 to 8.4. The speed of sound in seawater is about 1,500 m/s, and varies with temperature, salinity. The thermal conductivity of seawater is 0.6 W/mK at 25 °C, the thermal conductivity decreases with increasing salinity and increases with increasing temperature. Seawater contains more dissolved ions than all types of freshwater, however, the ratios of solutes differ dramatically. Bicarbonate ions also constitute 48% of river water solutes but only 0. 14% of all seawater ions, differences like these are due to the varying residence times of seawater solutes, sodium and chlorine have very long residence times, while calcium tends to precipitate much more quickly. The most abundant dissolved ions in seawater are sodium, chloride, magnesium, sulfate and its osmolarity is about 1000 mOsm/l
37.
Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
38.
Sunshine duration
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It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is usually expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day, the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration, an important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites, especially of health resorts. This also takes account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is often used to promote tourist destinations, if the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth. However, there are physical and astronomical effects that change that picture, namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible even when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime,4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575. Because of elliptic nature of the Earths orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical, the Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, bright sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just visible hours. Visible sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder, newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In 2003, the duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². The sky is clear in these regions, and fair weather is virtually perpetual, the descending branch of the Hadley cell and the long-term lack of atmospheric disturbances helps to explain the seemingly endless supply of sunny, cloud-free days in the deserts. Low clouding conditions are associated with rainfall shortage, as seen in these dry regions. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3, 600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually. The largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa, the sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with almost 23 hours of bright sun daily
39.
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
40.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
41.
Nautical mile
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A nautical mile is a unit of measurement defined as exactly 1852 meters. Historically, it was defined as one minute of latitude, which is equivalent to one sixtieth of a degree of latitude. Today it is an SI derived unit, being rounded to a number of meters. The derived unit of speed is the knot, defined as one mile per hour. The geographical mile is the length of one minute of longitude along the Equator, there is no internationally agreed symbol. M is used as the abbreviation for the mile by the International Hydrographic Organization and by the International Bureau of Weights. NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization, nm is used by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the word mile is from the Latin word for a thousand paces, mīlia. In 1617 the Dutch scientist Snell assessed the circumference of the Earth at 24,630 Roman miles, around that time British mathematician Edmund Gunter improved navigational tools including a new quadrant to determine latitude at sea. He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance, as one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle. These sexagesimal units originated in Babylonian astronomy, Gunter used Snells circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.3 metres. Other countries measure the minute of arc at 45 degrees latitude, in 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters. Imperial units and United States customary units used a definition of the nautical mile based on the Clarke Spheroid, the United States nautical mile was defined as 6,080.20 feet based in the Mendenhall Order foot of 1893. It was abandoned in favour of the nautical mile in 1954.181 meters. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the unit are now converted to 1,853 meters. Conversion of units Orders of magnitude
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Natural gas
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It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of bonds in the gas. Natural gas is a fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking. It is also used as fuel for vehicles and as a feedstock in the manufacture of plastics. Natural gas is found in underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds. Petroleum is another resource and fossil fuel found in proximity to. Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms, biogenic and thermogenic, biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments. Deeper in the earth, at temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material. In petroleum production gas is burnt as flare gas. The World Bank estimates that over 150 cubic kilometers of gas are flared or vented annually. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, Natural gas is often informally referred to simply as gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as oil or coal. However, it is not to be confused with gasoline, especially in North America, Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 BCE. They discovered a way to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to salt water to extract the salt. The worlds first industrial extraction of gas started at Fredonia, New York. By 2009,66000 km³ had been used out of the total 850000 km³ of estimated remaining reserves of natural gas. An annual increase in usage of 2–3% could result in currently recoverable reserves lasting significantly less, unwanted natural gas was a disposal problem in the active oil fields. If there was not a market for natural gas near the wellhead it was expensive to pipe to the end user. In the 19th century and early 20th century, unwanted gas was burned off at oil fields
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This article incorporates 
"Bahrein", Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 (9th ed.), 1878, p. 240
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