1.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
2.
Northwestern Europe
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Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is the loosely defined northwestern region of Europe. The phrase is defined geographically and ethnographically. Geographically, Northwestern Europe usually consists of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, northern France, southern Germany, and Switzerland are also often considered part of the grouping. Austria is also defined as Northwestern Europe, though less frequently. Southern France is not regarded as northwestern, and it is geographically and culturally considered part of the Mediterranean region or Southern Europe. Due to its geographically eastern position and unique status as a Finnic language country, the term is helpful when discussing issues of climate or biology. The region also has a history of Protestantism that differentiates it from its Mediterranean / Southern European / Latin and Eastern European / Slavic neighbors. In military history, especially in Commonwealth countries, the battle honour North-West Europe has been used to refer to the two campaigns in that approximate area during World War II. Two separate battle honours were awarded to regiments who took part in these campaigns, the North-West Europe Campaign of 1940, during the Battle of France, was restricted to Belgium and the French Channel ports. In the First campaign the French Army was responsible for the rest of the Western Front from Luxembourg to Switzerland, as were the American 12th Army and 6th Army Groups during the second campaign. A period of warfare existed from 1 November 1944 to 8 February 1945 during which time the First Canadian Army manned positions in the Nijmegen Salient
3.
Eurasian Plate
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It also includes oceanic crust extending westward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and northward to the Gakkel Ridge. The eastern side is a boundary with the North American Plate to the north and a boundary with the Philippine Sea Plate to the south, and possibly with the Okhotsk Plate and the Amurian Plate. The southerly side is a boundary with the African Plate to the west, the Arabian Plate in the middle, the westerly side is a divergent boundary with the North American Plate forming the northernmost part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is straddled by Iceland. The geodynamics of central Asia is dominated by the interaction between the Eurasian and Indian Plates, in this area, many subplates or crust blocks have been recognized, which form the Central Asian and the East Asian transit zones
4.
Geography
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Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes, Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of the Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. It is often defined in terms of the two branches of geography and physical geography. Geography has been called the world discipline and the bridge between the human and the physical sciences, Geography is a systematic study of the Earth and its features. Traditionally, geography has been associated with cartography and place names, although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns. Names of places. are not geography. know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself and this is a description of the world—that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause, just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in space and have a geography. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main fields, human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the environment and how humans create, view, manage. The latter examines the environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water. The difference between these led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines physical and human geography. Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth science and it aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns. Physical geography can be divided into broad categories, including, Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns. It encompasses the human, political, cultural, social, and it requires an understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human geography, as well as the ways that human societies conceptualize the environment. Integrated geography has emerged as a bridge between the human and the geography, as a result of the increasing specialisation of the two sub-fields. Examples of areas of research in the environmental geography include, emergency management, environmental management, sustainability, geomatics is concerned with the application of computers to the traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography
5.
Plain
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In geography, a plain is a flat, sweeping landmass that generally does not change much in elevation. Plains occur as lowlands along the bottoms of valleys or on the doorsteps of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. In a valley, a plain is enclosed on two sides but in other cases a plain may be delineated by a complete or partial ring of hills, where a geological region contains more than one plain, they may be connected by a pass. Coastal plains would mostly rise from sea level until they run into elevated features such as mountains or plateaus, plains are one of the major landforms on earth, where they are present on all continents, and would cover more than one-third of the world’s land area. Plains may have formed from flowing lava, deposited by water, ice, wind, or formed by erosion by these agents from hills. Plains would generally be under the grassland, steppe, savannah or tundra biomes, in a few instances, deserts and rainforests can also be plains. Structural plains are relatively undisturbed horizontal surfaces of the Earth and they are structurally depressed areas of the world that make up some of the most extensive natural lowlands on the Earths surface. Erosional plains have been leveled by various agents of such as running water, rivers, wind and glacier which wear out the rugged surface. Plain resulting from the action of these agents of denudation are called peneplains while plains formed from wind action are called pediplains, depositional plains formed by the deposition of materials brought by various agents of transportation such as rivers, wind, waves, and glaciers. Their fertility and economic relevance depend greatly on the types of sediments that are laid down, flood plain, adjacent to a stream, river, lake or wetland that experiences occasional or periodic flooding. Scroll plain, a plain through which a river meanders with a low gradient. Lacustrine plain, a plain that originally formed in a lacustrine environment, lava plain, formed by sheets of flowing lava. Glacial plains, formed by the movement of glaciers under the force of gravity, Sandur, sandar consist mainly of stratified gravel and sand. Till plain, a plain of glacial till that forms when a sheet of ice becomes detached from the body of a glacier. Till plains are composed of unsorted material of all sizes, abyssal plain, a flat or very gently sloping area of the deep ocean basin. Planitia, the Latin word for plain, is used in the naming of plains on extraterrestrial objects, such as Hellas Planitia on Mars or Sedna Planitia on Venus
6.
Carrauntoohil
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Carrauntoohil is the highest peak on the island of Ireland. Located in County Kerry, it is 1,038 metres high and is the peak of the Macgillycuddys Reeks range. The ridge northward leads to Irelands second-highest peak, Beenkeragh, while the ridge leads to the third-highest peak. Carrauntoohil overlooks three bowl-shaped valleys, each with its own lakes, to the east is Hags Glen or Coomcallee, to the west is Coomloughra and to the south is Curragh More. A wooden cross was erected on the summit, a privately owned commonage in the 1950s by the local community, in 2014, it was cut down by vandals in an anti-Catholic attack, but was re-erected shortly after. The mountains name has a number of spellings and theories of origin, Carrauntoohil is the most common spelling of the name, and is the one used by Ordnance Survey Ireland. Other spellings include Carrantoohil, Carrantouhil, Carrauntouhil and Carrantuohill and these are anglicizations of an Irish placename, but its origins and meaning are not clear. Unlike some lesser peaks, such as Mangerton or Croagh Patrick, the official Irish name is Corrán Tuathail. This has been interpreted as inverted sickle or Tuathals sickle, Tuathal being a male firstname, however, one of the earliest mentions of the mountain, by Isaac Weld in 1812, refers to it as Gheraun-Tuel. This suggests that the first element was géarán —which is found in the names of other Kerry mountains—and that the name may have been Géarán Tuathail. The mountain is most often climbed from the north-east, along the Hags Glen, the route has become more dangerous in recent years due to loose stones and crowding. No special equipment is needed to climb the mountain, but caution is advised, alternatively, one can walk the two other 1,000 m peaks in a horseshoe trip, starting from the west. The traverse from highest point to the second highest involves a light scramble
7.
Irish language
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Irish, also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland and it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The fate of the language was influenced by the power of the English state in Ireland. Elizabethan officials viewed the use of Irish unfavourably, as being a threat to all things English in Ireland and its decline began under English rule in the 17th century. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a decrease in the number of speakers. Irish-speaking areas were hit especially hard, by the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been in the minority, efforts have been made by the state, individuals and organisations to preserve, promote and revive the language, but with mixed results. Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people. In the 2011 Census, these numbers had increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, there are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland. It has been estimated that the active Irish-language scene probably comprises 5 to 10 per cent of Irelands population, there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. In Gaeltacht areas, however, there has been a decline of the use of Irish. Údarás na Gaeltachta predicted that, by 2025, Irish will no longer be the language in any of the designated Gaeltacht areas. Survey data suggest that most Irish people think highly of Irish as a marker of identity. It has also argued that newer urban groups of Irish speakers are a disruptive force in this respect. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil the name of the language is Gaeilge, before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge, originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish, the modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge, whereas Goidelic languages, used to refer to the language family including Irish, comes from Old Irish
8.
Coast
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A coastline or a seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean, or a line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the Coastline paradox, the term coastal zone is a region where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a location or region, for example, New Zealands West Coast. Edinburgh for example is a city on the coast of Scotland, a pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore, on the hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans. Similarly, the related term refers to the land alongside or sloping down to a river or to a body of water smaller than a lake. Bank is also used in parts of the world to refer to an artificial ridge of earth intended to retain the water of a river or pond. According to the UN atlas, 44% of people live within 150 kilometres of the sea, tides often determine the range over which sediment is deposited or eroded. Areas with high tidal ranges allow waves to reach farther up the shore, the tidal range is influenced by the size and shape of the coastline. Tides do not typically cause erosion by themselves, however, tidal bores can erode as the waves surge up river estuaries from the ocean. Waves erode coastline as they break on shore releasing their energy, the larger the wave the more energy it releases and the more sediment it moves. Coastlines with longer shores have more room for the waves to disperse their energy, while coasts with cliffs and short shore faces give little room for the wave energy to be dispersed. In these areas the wave energy breaking against the cliffs is higher, sediment deposited by waves comes from eroded cliff faces and is moved along the coastline by the waves. This forms an abrasion or cliffed coast, sediment deposited by rivers is the dominant influence on the amount of sediment located on a coastline. Today riverine deposition at the coast is often blocked by dams and other human regulatory devices, like the ocean which shapes them, coasts are a dynamic environment with constant change. The coast and its adjacent areas on and off shore are an important part of a local ecosystem, Salt marshes and beaches also support a diversity of plants, animals and insects crucial to the food chain. The high level of biodiversity creates a level of biological activity. More and more of the people live in coastal regions
9.
Peninsula
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A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on the majority of its border, while being connected to a mainland from which it extends out. Examples include the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan, the surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily named as a single body of water. Peninsulas are not always named as such, one can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, a point is generally considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape. A river which courses through a very tight meander is also said to form a peninsula within the loop of water. In English, the plural of peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulas can be found on coastlines and in smaller bodies of water throughout the world, ranging in scale from square meters to millions of square kilometers. Theres the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, and in Southern Europe theres the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian Peninsula, south America has the Brunswick Peninsula, and Antarctica has the Antarctic Peninsula. In Africa, theres the Horn of Africa, and in Australia, asia has the 3 largest peninsulas in the world, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Peninsula, and the Indochinese Peninsula
10.
Headlands and bays
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Headlands and bays are two related coastal features. Headlands and bays are found on the same coastline. A bay is a body of water, either seawater or fresh water, headlands are characterized by high, breaking waves, rocky shores, intense erosion, and steep sea cliffs. Bays generally have less activity, and often less wind activity than the areas of water outside the bay. Headlands and bays form on discordant coastlines, where the land consists of bands of rock of alternating resistance run perpendicular to the coast. Refraction of waves occurs on headlands concentrating wave energy on them, so many other landforms, such as caves, natural arches, and stacks, form on headlands. Wave energy is directed at angles to the wave crest. Orthogonals converge on headlands and diverge in bays, which concentrates wave energy on the headlands, in the formation of sea cliffs, wave erosion undercuts the slopes at the shoreline, which retreat landward. This increases the stress in the cliff-forming material and accelerates mass movement. The debris from these landslides collects at the base of the cliff and is removed by the waves, usually during storms. This debris provides sediment, which is transported through longshore current for the nearby bay, joints in the headlands are eroded back to form caves, which erode further to form arches. These gaps eventually collapse and leave tall stacks at the ends of the headlands, eventually these too are eroded by the waves. Wave refraction disperses wave energy through the bay, and along with the effect of the headlands this protects bays from storms. This effect means that the waves reaching the shore in a bay are weaker than the waves reaching the headland, through the deposition of sediment within the bay and the erosion of the headlands, coastlines eventually straighten out. But then the process starts all over again. Beaches are dynamic geologic features that can fluctuate between advancement and retreat of sediment, the natural agents of fluctuation include waves, tides, currents, and winds. Man-made elements such as the interruption of sediment supply, such as a dam, a headland bay beach can be classified as being in three different states of sedimentation. Static equilibrium refers to a beach that is stable and does not experience littoral drift or sediment deposition or erosion, waves generally diffract around the headland and near the beach when the beach is in a state of static equilibrium
11.
River Shannon
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The River Shannon is the longest river in Ireland at 360.5 km. It drains the Shannon River Basin which has an area of 16,865 km2, the Shannon divides the west of Ireland from the east and south. County Clare, being west of the Shannon but part of the province of Munster, is the major exception. The river represents a physical barrier between east and west, with fewer than thirty crossing-points between Limerick city in the south and the village of Dowra in the north. The river is named after Sionna, a Celtic goddess, the Shannon has been an important waterway since antiquity, having first been mapped by the Graeco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy. The river flows southwards from the Shannon Pot in County Cavan before turning west. Limerick city stands at the point where the water meets the sea water of the estuary. The Shannon is tidal east of Limerick as far as the base of the Ardnacrusha dam. By tradition the Shannon is said to rise in the Shannon Pot, surveys have defined a 12.8 km2 immediate pot catchment area covering the slopes of Cuilcagh. This area includes Garvah Lough, Cavan,2.2 km to the northeast, further sinks that source the pot include Pollboy and, through Shannon Cave, Pollahune in Cavan and Polltullyard and Tullynakeeragh in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The highest point in the catchment is a spring at Tiltinbane on the end of the Cuilcagh mountain ridge. From the Shannon Pot, the river subsumes a number of tributaries before replenishing Lough Allen at its head. The river runs through or between 11 of Irelands counties, subsuming the tributary rivers Boyle, Inny, Suck, Mulkear and Brosna, among others, many different values have been given for the length of the Shannon. A traditional value is 390 km, an official Irish source gives a total length of 360.5 km. Most Irish guides now give 344 km, some academic sources give 280 km, although most will refuse to give a number. The reason is there is no particular end to a river that empties into an estuary. The 344 km length relates to the distance between Shannon Pot and a line between Kerry Head and Loop Head, the furthest reaches of the land, the 280 km distance finishes where the Shannon estuary joins the estuary of the River Fergus, close to Shannon Airport. Longer distances emerged before the use of surveying instruments
12.
Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
13.
County Cavan
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County Cavan is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of the Border Region and it is named after the town of Cavan and is based on the historic Gaelic territory of East Breffny. Cavan County Council is the authority for the county, which has a population of 76,092 according to the 2016 census. Cavan borders six counties, Leitrim to the west, Fermanagh and Monaghan to the north, Meath to the south-east, Longford to the south-west, Cavan shares a 70 km border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. Cavan is the 19th largest of the 32 counties in area and it is also the sixth largest of Ulsters nine counties in size and the seventh largest by population. There are eight historic baronies in the county, while baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for many administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, the county is characterised by drumlin countryside dotted with many lakes and hills. The north-western area of the county is sparsely populated and mountainous, the Breifne mountains contain the highest point, Cuilcagh, at 665 metres. Cavan is the source of many rivers, Shannon Pot on the slopes of Cuilcagh is the source of the River Shannon, the longest river in Ireland at 386 km. The River Erne is a river which rises from Beaghy Lough. The Glyde and the Owenroe also source in Cavan, Cavan is known as The Lakeland County and is reputed to contain 365 lakes. At 18.8 km2, Lough Sheelin is the countys largest lake, it is situated in the south of the county, a large complex of lakes form in the north and west of Cavan into designated Specially Protected Areas, an example is Lough Oughter. Other important wildlife protected lakes such as Lough Gowna and Lough Ramor are in the south, Cavan has a mainly hilly landscape and contains just under 7,000 hectares of forested area,3. 6% of Cavans total land area. The county contains forests such as Bellamont Forest near Cootehill, Killykeen Forest Park at Lough Oughter, Dún na Rí Forest Park, met Éireann records the climate data for Cavan from their station at Ballyhaise. Under Köppen climate classification, Cavan experiences a temperate oceanic climate with cold winters, mild humid summers. The average maximum January temperature is 8.2 °C, while the average maximum July temperature is 19.8 °C. On average, the sunniest months are May and June, while the wettest month is October with 104.4 mm of rain, in 2010, record low temperatures for November, December and January were recorded in Cavan. In late December, the temperature at the fell to −15.4 °C
14.
Ulster
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Ulster is a province in the north of the island of Ireland. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a rí ruirech, the definition of the province was fluid from early to medieval times. It took a shape in the reign of King James I of England when all the counties of Ireland were eventually shired. This process of evolving conquest had been under way since the Norman invasion of Ireland, particularly as advanced by the Cambro-Norman magnates Hugh de Lacy, Ulster was a central topic role in the parliamentary debates that eventually resulted in the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Under the terms of the Act, Ireland was divided into two territories, Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, with the passing through the province. While these six counties and two boroughs were all in the province of Ulster, three other counties of the province – Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan – were assigned to the Irish Free State. Ulster has no function for local government purposes in either country. However, for the purposes of ISO-3166-2, Ulster is used to refer to the three counties of Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan only, which are given country sub-division code IE-U. It has also suggested to have derived from Uladh plus the Norse suffix ster. The Irish name, Cúige Uladh, means the province of the Ulaid, the Ulaidh were a group of tribes who dwelt in the region. Ulaidh has historically been anglicised as Ulagh or Ullagh and Latinised as Ulidia or Ultonia, the latter two have yielded the terms Ulidian and Ultonian. Words that have used in English are Ullish and Ulsterman/Ulsterwoman. Northern Ireland is often referred to as Ulster, despite including only six of Ulsters nine counties and this usage is most common amongst people in Northern Ireland who are unionist, although it is also used by the media throughout the United Kingdom. Most Irish nationalists object to the use of Ulster in this context, Ulster has a population of just over 2 million people and an area of 21,552 square kilometres. About 62% of the area of Ulster is in the UK while the remaining 38% is in the Republic of Ireland. Ulsters biggest city, Belfast, has an population of over half a million inhabitants, making it the second-largest city on the island of Ireland. Three Ulster counties – Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan – form part of the Republic of Ireland, about half of Ulsters population lives in counties Antrim and Down. 8% to 42. 7%. While the traditional counties continue to demarcate areas of government in the Republic of Ireland
15.
Limerick
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Limerick is a city in county Limerick, Ireland. It is located in the Mid-West Region and is part of the province of Munster. Limerick City and County Council is the authority for the city. The city lies on the River Shannon, with the core of the city located on Kings Island, which is bounded by the Shannon. Limerick is also located at the head of the Shannon Estuary where the river widens before it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 94,192, Limerick is the third most populous area in the state. There are 102,161 people living in the Limerick City Metropolitan District, on 1 June 2014 following the merger of Limerick City and County Council a new Metropolitan District of Limerick was formed within the united council which extended the city area. The Metropolitan District includes the city area and extends outwards towards Patrickswell in the west. The City Metropolitan Area however excludes city suburbs located within County Clare, when included this increases the overall city and metropolitan area by a further 5,000 with a combined total population of 107,161. Limerick is one of the constituent cities of the Cork–Limerick–Galway corridor which has a population of 1 million people and it is located at a strategic position on the River Shannon with four main crossing points near the city centre. To the south of the city is the Golden Vale, an area of rich pastureland, historically, much of the citys industry was based on this rich agricultural hinterland and it is particularly noted for Limerick Ham. Luimneach originally referred to the area along the banks of the Shannon Estuary known as Loch Luimnigh. The earliest settlement in the city, Inis Sibhtonn, was the name for Kings Island during the pre-Viking and Viking eras. This island was also called Inis an Ghaill Duibh, The Dark- Foreigners Island, the name is recorded in Viking sources as Hlymrekr. Antiquitys map-maker, Ptolemy, produced in 150 the earliest map of Ireland, history also records an important battle involving Cormac mac Airt in 221 and a visit by St. Patrick in 434 to baptise an Eóganachta king, Carthann the Fair. Saint Munchin, the first bishop of Limerick died in 652, in 812 the Vikings sailed up the Shannon and pillaged the city, burned the monastery of Mungret but were forced to flee when the Irish attacked and killed many of their number. The Normans redesigned the city in the 12th century and added much of the most notable architecture, such as King Johns Castle, one of the kingdoms most notable kings was Brian Boru, ancestor of the OBrien Clan of Dalcassians. The word Thomond is synonymous with the region and is retained in place such as Thomondgate
16.
Lough Neagh
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Lough Neagh is a large freshwater lake in Northern Ireland. It is the largest lake by area in the British Isles and it supplies 40% of Northern Irelands water. Its main inflows are the Upper River Bann and River Blackwater and its name comes from Irish, Loch nEachach, meaning Eachaidhs lake. The lough is owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury, located 20 miles west of Belfast, it is about 20 miles long and 9 miles wide. It is very shallow around the margins and the depth in the main body of the lake is about 30 feet. As one of its sources is the Upper Bann, the Lough can itself be considered as part of the Bann, five of the six counties of Northern Ireland have shores on the Lough, and its area is split among them. The lough is used by Northern Ireland Water as a source of fresh water, the lough supplies 40% of the regions drinking water. There have long been plans to increase the amount of water drawn from the lough, through a new treatment works at Hog Park Point. In 2012, it was reported that the Earl is considering transferring ownership of the Lough to the Northern Ireland Assembly, traditional working boats on Lough Neagh include wide-beamed 4. 9-to-6. 4-metre clinker-built, sprit-rigged working boats and smaller flat-bottomed cots and flats. Barges, here called lighters, were used until the 1940s to transport coal over the lough, until the 17th century, log boats were the main means of transport. Few traditional boats are now, but a community-based group on the southern shore of the lough is rebuilding a series of working boats. The Lower Bann was also navigable to Coleraine and the Antrim coast, of these waterways, only the Lower Bann remains open today, although a restoration plan for the Ulster Canal is currently in progress. Lough Neagh Rescue provides a search and rescue service 24 hours a day and has 3 stations and these are at Antrim Ardboe and Kinnego Marinas. Kinnego being is headquarters and founding station It is a service funded by the district councils bordering the Lough. Its members are trained and are a declared facility for the Maritime. Lough Neagh attracts bird watchers from many due to the number and variety of birds which winter and summer in the boglands. These European eels make their way from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, some 4,000 miles along the Gulf Stream to the mouth of the River Bann and they remain there for some 10 to 15 years, maturing, before returning to the Sargasso to spawn. Today Lough Neagh eel fisheries export their eels to restaurants all over the world, nobel laureate Seamus Heaney produced a collection of poems A Lough Neagh Sequence celebrating the eel-fishermens traditional techniques and the natural history of their catch
17.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
18.
Northern Ireland
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Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population. Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the British parliament, Northern Ireland has historically been the most industrialised region of Ireland. After declining as a result of the political and social turmoil of the Troubles, its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17. 2% in 1986, dropping to 6. 1% for June–August 2014,58. 2% of those unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Prominent artists and sports persons from Northern Ireland include Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, Joey Dunlop, Wayne McCullough, some people from Northern Ireland prefer to identify as Irish while others prefer to identify as British. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, in many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, a notable exception being association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. The region that is now Northern Ireland was the bedrock of the Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century, the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king Henry VIII in 1542, but Irish resistance made English control fragmentary. Victories by English forces in war and further Protestant victories in the Williamite War in Ireland toward the close of the 17th century solidified Anglican rule in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the victories of the Siege of Derry and their intention was to materially disadvantage the Catholic community and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian community. In the context of open institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in communities in the region and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. Following this, in an attempt to quell sectarianism and force the removal of discriminatory laws, the new state, formed in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was governed from a single government and parliament based in London. Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the British North American colonies and it is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the US. By the close of the century, autonomy for Ireland within the United Kingdom, in 1912, after decades of obstruction from the House of Lords, Home Rule became a near-certainty. A clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a controversial budget produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. The House of Lords veto had been the unionists main guarantee that Home Rule would not be enacted, in 1914, they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation opposed to the implementation of Home Rule
19.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
20.
Enclave and exclave
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An enclave is a territory, or a part of a territory, that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state. Territorial waters have the same attributes as land, and enclaves may therefore exist within territorial waters. An exclave is a portion of a state or territory geographically separated from the part by surrounding alien territory. Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is partly surrounded by another state. Vatican City and San Marino, enclaved by Italy, and Lesotho, unlike an enclave, an exclave can be surrounded by several states. The Azeri exclave of Naxçıvan is an example of an exclave. Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, Enclaves and semi-enclaves can exist as independent states, while exclaves always constitute just a part of a sovereign state. A pene-enclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be approached conveniently — in particular by wheeled traffic — only through the territory of another country, pene-enclaves are also called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. Many pene-exclaves partially border their own territorial waters, a pene-enclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A commonly cited example is the Kleinwalsertal, a part of Vorarlberg, Austria. The word enclave is French and first appeared in the century as a derivative of the verb enclaver. In law, this created a servitude of passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land, the first diplomatic document to contain the word enclave was the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1526. Later, the term began to be used also to refer to parcels of countries, counties, fiefs, communes, towns, parishes. This French word eventually entered the English and other languages to denote the same concept although local terms have continued to be used, in India, the word pocket is often used as a synonym for enclave. In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called detachments or detached parts, in English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars. The word exclave, modeled on enclave, is a extension of the concept of enclave. Enclaves exist for a variety of historical, political and geographical reasons, in particular, this state of affairs persisted into the 19th century in the Holy Roman Empire, and these domains exhibited many of the characteristics of sovereign states. Prior to 1866 Prussia alone consisted of more than 270 discontiguous pieces of territory, thus, over time enclaves have tended to be eliminated. This exchange thus effectively de-enclaved another two dozen second-order enclaves and one third-order enclave, eliminating 197 of the Indo-Bangladesh enclaves in all, the residents in these enclaves had complained of being effectively stateless
21.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
22.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
23.
Irish Sea
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The Irish Sea, separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St Georges Channel, anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man. The sea is occasionally, but rarely, referred to as the Manx Sea, the sea is of significant economic importance to regional trade, shipping and transport, fishing, and power generation in the form of wind power and nuclear power plants. Annual traffic between Great Britain and Ireland amounts to over 12 million passengers and 17 million tonnes of traded goods, the Irish Sea has undergone a series of dramatic changes over the last 20,000 years as the last glacial period ended and was replaced by warmer conditions. At the height of the glaciation the central part of the sea was probably a long freshwater lake. As the ice retreated 10,000 years ago the lake reconnected to the sea, becoming brackish, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Irish Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of the Scottish Seas, a line joining St. Davids Head to Carnsore Point. It is connected to the North Atlantic at both its northern and southern ends, to the north, the connection is through the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland and the Malin Sea. The southern end is linked to the Atlantic through the St Georges Channel between south eastern Ireland and Pembrokeshire in Wales, and the Celtic Sea. The Irish Sea is composed of a channel about 300 km long and 30–50 km wide on its western side. The western channels depth ranges from 80 metres up to 275 m in the Beauforts Dyke in the North Channel, the main embayments – Cardigan Bay in the south and the waters to the east of the Isle of Man – are less than 50 m deep. The Sea has a water volume of 2,430 km3, 80% of which is to the west of the Isle of Man. The largest sandbanks are the Bahama and King William Banks to the east and north of the Isle of Man, the Irish Sea, at its greatest width, is 200 km and narrows to 75 km. Unlike Great Britain, Ireland has no tunnel or bridge connection to continental Europe, thus the vast majority of heavy goods trade is done by sea. The Port of Liverpool handles 32 million tonnes of cargo and 734 thousand passengers a year, Holyhead port handles most of the passenger traffic from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ports, as well as 3.3 million tonnes of freight. Ports in the Republic handle 3,600,000 travellers crossing the sea each year and this has been steadily dropping for a number of years, probably as a result of low cost airlines. There is also a connection between Liverpool and Belfast via the Isle of Man or direct from Birkenhead, the worlds largest car ferry, Ulysses, is operated by Irish Ferries on the Dublin Port–Holyhead route, Stena Line also operates between Britain and Ireland. The Port of Barrow-in-Furness, despite being one of Britains largest shipbuilding centres, a ferry crossing used to run between Swansea and Cork, but given the geographical limits defined above, this route crosses the Celtic Sea rather than the Irish Sea
24.
Mainland Europe
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Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe, or, by Europeans, simply the Continent, is the continuous continent of Europe, excluding surrounding islands. This historical core of Carolingian Europe was consciously invoked in the 1950s as the historical basis for the prospective European integration. In both Great Britain and Ireland, the Continent is widely and generally used to refer to the mainland of Europe, an apocryphal British newspaper headline supposedly once read, Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off. It has also claimed that this was a regular weather forecast in Britain in the 1930s. In addition, the word Europe itself is regularly used to mean Europe excluding the islands of Great Britain, Iceland. The term mainland Europe is also sometimes used, derivatively, the adjective continental refers to the social practices or fashion of continental Europe. Examples include breakfast, topless sunbathing and, historically, long-range driving often known as Grand Touring. Differences include electrical plugs, time zones for the most part, the use of traffic, and for the United Kingdom, currency. Britain is physically connected to continental Europe through the undersea Channel Tunnel and this route is popular with refugees and migrants seeking to enter the UK. Especially in Germanic studies, continental refers to the European continent excluding the Scandinavian peninsula, Britain, Ireland, and Iceland. The reason for this is that although the Scandinavian peninsula is attached to continental Europe, kontinenten is a vernacular Swedish expression that refers to the area excluding Sweden, Norway, and Finland but including Denmark and the rest of continental Europe. In Norway, similarly, one speaks about Kontinentet as an entity, usually referring to Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Benelux countries. Today, the Scandinavian peninsula is accessible by train and road with several bridge/tunnel structures connecting the Danish peninsula of Jutland to Scania in Sweden. The Continent may sometimes refer to the part of Italy, the continental part of Spain, the continental part of France. The term is used from the perspective of the residents of each country to describe the continental portion of their country or the continent as a whole. Continental philosophy Geopolitical divisions of Europe Geographical midpoint of Europe Mainland Western Europe Hajnal line
25.
Celtic Sea
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The southern and western boundaries are delimited by the continental shelf, which drops away sharply. The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago of islands in the sea. The Celtic Sea takes its name from the Celtic heritage of the lands to the north. The name was first proposed by E. W. L, Holt at a 1921 meeting in Dublin of fisheries experts from England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and France. The northern portion of this sea had previously considered as part of Saint Georges Channel. The need for a name came to be felt because of the common marine biology, geology and hydrology. It was adopted in France before being common in the English-speaking countries, in 1957 Édouard Le Danois wrote and it was adopted by marine biologists and oceanographers, and later by petroleum exploration firms. There are no features to divide the Celtic Sea from the open Atlantic Ocean to the south. For these limits, Holt suggested the 200 fathom marine contour, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Celtic Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of the Irish Sea, the South coast of Ireland, a line from the position 51°0′N 11°30′W South to 49°N, thence to latitude 46°30N on the Western limit of the Bay of Biscay, thence along that line to Penmarch Point. The Western limit of the English Channel and the Western limit of the Bristol Channel, the seabed under the Celtic Sea is called the Celtic Shelf, part of the continental shelf of Europe. The northeast portion has a depth of between 90m and 100m, increasing towards Saint Georges Channel, in the opposite direction, sand ridges pointing southwest have a similar height, separated by troughs approximately 50m deeper. These ridges were formed by tidal effects when the sea level was lower, South of 50° the topography is more irregular. Oil and gas exploration in the Celtic Sea has had limited commercial success, the Kinsale Head gas field supplied much of the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s. The Celtic Sea has a rich fishery with total annual catches of 1.8 million tonnes as of 2007, four cetacean species occur frequently in the area, minke whale, bottlenose dolphin, short-beaked common dolphin and harbor porpoise. Formerly it held an abundance of marine mammals, Irish Conservation Box Coccoliths in the Celtic Sea, a bloom of phytoplankton in the Celtic Sea, visible from outer space in an MISR image,4 June 2001
26.
British Isles
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The British Isles are a group of islands off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. Situated in the North Atlantic, the islands have an area of approximately 315,159 km2. Two sovereign states are located on the islands, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland, Ireland and North Wales and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, the topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,344 metres, and Lough Neagh, the climate is temperate marine, with mild winters and warm summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C above the average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was dominated by temperate rainforest. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, Ireland, which became an island by 12,000 BC, was not inhabited until after 8000 BC. Great Britain became an island by 5600 BC, Hiberni, Pictish and Britons tribes, all speaking Insular Celtic, inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brittonic-controlled Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD43, the first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century and eventually dominated the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by permanent settlements. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence, the term British Isles is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not recognise or use the term, as a result, Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description, and Atlantic Archipelago has had limited use among a minority in academia, while British Isles is still commonly employed. Within them, they are sometimes referred to as these islands. The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost, however, later writings, e. g. Avienuss Ora maritima, in the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus has Prettanikē nēsos, the British Island, and Prettanoi, the Britons. Strabo used Βρεττανική, and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabitants of the islands were called the Πρεττανοί, the shift from the P of Pretannia to the B of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar
27.
British Isles naming dispute
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In standard English usage, the toponym the British Isles refers to a European archipelago consisting of Great Britain, Ireland and adjacent islands. However, the word British is also an adjective and demonym referring to the United Kingdom, in documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as these islands. To some, the dispute is partly semantic and the term is a geographic one while, to others. The term became more resisted after the breakup of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the names of the archipelagos two sovereign states were themselves the subject of a long dispute between the Irish and British governments. In Britain it is understood as being a politically neutral geographical term. In 2003, Irish newspapers reported a British Government internal briefing that advised against the use of British Isles, as a purely geographical term in technical contexts, there is less evidence of alternative terms being chosen. Recent histories of Great Britain and Ireland have discussed the acceptability of the term British Isles in Ireland, recognition of issues with the term was also discussed by the columnist Marcel Berlins, writing in The Guardian in 2006. Even when used geographically, its scope is widely misunderstood. He also acknowledges that some view the term as representing Britains imperial past, another historian of British and Irish history has described the term as politically loaded. The perspective within the Republic of Ireland is often different from the view in Britain. From the Irish perspective, the term British had never applied to Ireland until at least the late 16th century, from that perspective, the term British Isles is not a neutral geographical term but an unavoidably political one. It is without any official status, the Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term. In October 2006, Irish educational publisher Folens announced that it was removing the term from its popular school atlas effective in January 2007, the decision was made after the issue was raised by a geography teacher. Folens stated that no parent had complained directly to them over the use of British Isles and that they had a policy of acting proactively, upon the appearance of a potential problem. This attracted press attention in the UK and Ireland, during which a spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London said, The British Isles has a ring to it. Different views on terminology are probably most clearly seen in Northern Ireland, another survey highlighted the British and Irish identity of the Protestant community, showing that 51% of Protestants felt not at all Irish and 41% only weakly Irish. In contrast, Nationalists considered their community to be that of the Irish nation—a distinct cultural and political community extending across the whole of Ireland, identities were diverse and multi-layered, and Irishness was a highly contested identity, Nationalists expressed difficulty in understanding Unionist descriptions of Britishness. The overall opinion of the Northern Irish people about the term has never been formally gauged, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, told the meeting, This represents the Irish government coming back into a relationship with the rest of the British Isles
28.
Geology of Ireland
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This article is about the geology of the island of Ireland. The geology of Ireland consists of the study of the formations in Ireland. The island contains rocks from every age from Proterozoic to Holocene, the geologic detail follows the major events in Irelands past based on the geologic time scale. The oldest known Irish rock is about 1.7 billion years old and is found on Inishtrahull Island off the north coast of Ulster, outcrops at Annagh Head on the Mullet Peninsula are almost as old. However, because of the effects of later upheavals, it is almost impossible to sequence these early rock layers correctly, from the evidence of the Oldhamia fossils found at Bray Head in Leinster, both parts of Ireland were below sea level at this time. Over the next 50 million years, these two parts drifted towards each other, eventually uniting about 440 million years ago, fossils discovered near Clogherhead, County Louth, show the coming together of shoreline fauna from both sides of the original dividing ocean. The mountains of northwest Ireland were formed during the collision, as was the granite that is found in locations in Donegal, the Irish landmass was now above sea level and lying near the equator, and fossil traces of land-based life forms survive from this period. Old Red Sandstone also formed at this time, between 400 million and 300 million years ago, Northwest Europe – including Ireland – sank beneath a warm, calcium-rich sea. Great coral reefs formed in these waters, eventually creating the limestone that makes up about 65 per cent of the rock mantle of the island. As the waters receded, tropical forests and swamps flourished, the resulting vegetable debris eventually formed coal, most of which was later eroded. This period, known as the Carboniferous period, ended with further tectonic movement which saw Ireland drift further northward, the resulting pressure created those Irish mountain and hill ranges that run in a northeast to southwest direction. By 250 million years ago, Ireland was at the latitude of present-day Egypt and had a desert climate and it was at this time that most of the coal and sandstone were eroded. The thinner layers of limestone in the south of the country were also affected by this erosion. Shortly after this period, organic debris in the seas around Ireland began to form the natural gas, then, about 150 million years ago, Ireland was again submerged, this time in a chalky sea that resulted in the formation of chalk over large parts of the surface. Traces of this survive under the lava that is found in parts of the north. About 66 million years ago, the activity that formed this lava began. The Mourne Mountains and other mountains in the part of the island formed as a result of this activity. Climatic conditions at time were warm and vegetation thrived
29.
Slieve League
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Slieve League, sometimes Slieve Leag or Slieve Liag, is a mountain on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, Ireland. At 601 metres, it has some of the highest sea cliffs on the island of Ireland, although less famous than the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, Slieve Leagues cliffs reach almost three times higher. The traverse of this ridge, the One Mans Path, is one of the most remarkable walks to be found in Ireland - not actually dangerous, Slieve League is often photographed from a viewpoint known as Bunglass. It can be reached by means of a road that departs from Teelin. The final few kilometers of route is built along a precipice. Croaghaun, sea cliffs on the island Achill Island
30.
Banagh
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Banagh is a historic barony in County Donegal in Ireland. Patrick Weston Joyce said the name Banagh came from Enna Bogaine, son of Conall Gulban and it was created along with Boylagh when the former barony of Boylagh and Banagh was split in 1791 by an Act of the Parliament of Ireland. Banagh is bordered by the baronies of Boylagh to the north, Raphoe South to the northeast, Donegal Bay is to the south, and the open Atlantic Ocean to the west. Other features in the barony include Lough Eske, Slieve League, nearly the whole of the interior is a series of granitic uplands, alternating with wild moors or dismal bogs. This barony contains part of the parishes of Inniskeel and Lower Killybegs, and the whole of the parishes of Glencolumbkill, Inver, Kilcarr, Killaghtee, Upper Killybegs, department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs
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Rock (geology)
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Rock or stone is a natural substance, a solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. For example, granite, a rock, is a combination of the minerals quartz, feldspar. The Earths outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock, rock has been used by mankind throughout history. The minerals and metals found in rocks have been essential to human civilization, three major groups of rocks are defined, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is a component of geology. At a granular level, rocks are composed of grains of minerals, the aggregate minerals forming the rock are held together by chemical bonds. The types and abundance of minerals in a rock are determined by the manner in which the rock was formed, many rocks contain silica, a compound of silicon and oxygen that forms 74. 3% of the Earths crust. This material forms crystals with other compounds in the rock, the proportion of silica in rocks and minerals is a major factor in determining their name and properties. Rocks are geologically classified according to such as mineral and chemical composition, permeability, the texture of the constituent particles. These physical properties are the end result of the processes that formed the rocks, over the course of time, rocks can transform from one type into another, as described by the geological model called the rock cycle. These events produce three general classes of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic, the three classes of rocks are subdivided into many groups. However, there are no hard and fast boundaries between allied rocks, hence the definitions adopted in establishing rock nomenclature merely correspond to more or less arbitrary selected points in a continuously graduated series. Igneous rock forms through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava and this magma can be derived from partial melts of pre-existing rocks in either a planets mantle or crust. Typically, the melting of rocks is caused by one or more of three processes, an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition, igneous rocks are divided into two main categories, plutonic rock and volcanic. Plutonic or intrusive rocks result when magma cools and crystallizes slowly within the Earths crust, a common example of this type is granite. Volcanic or extrusive rocks result from magma reaching the surface either as lava or fragmental ejecta, the chemical abundance and the rate of cooling of magma typically forms a sequence known as Bowens reaction series. Most major igneous rocks are found along this scale, about 64. 7% of the Earths crust by volume consists of igneous rocks, making it the most plentiful category. Of these, 66% are basalts and gabbros, 16% are granite, only 0. 6% are syenites and 0. 3% peridotites and dunites
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Inishtrahull Island
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Inishtrahull is the most northerly island of Ireland. It has an area of 0.34 square kilometres and lies about 10 kilometres north-east of Malin Head, the most northerly landfall of Ireland, the Tor Beg rock, is another one kilometer to the north. Inishtrahull is home to Irelands northernmost lighthouse, the island had a resident community until 1929 and the lighthouse was manned until 1987. Today it is uninhabited and has designated a protected area due to its wildlife. The island is formed of a granitic gneiss, a type of metamorphic rock and it is dated at 1.7 billion years old, making it Paleoproterozoic in age, and is the oldest known rock on the Irish Islands. The Inishtrahull Gneiss is considered to part of the Rhinns complex that is also exposed on the islands of Islay and Colonsay. The Rhinns complex is correlated with the Ketilidian metamorphic belt of southern Greenland, the island is now uninhabited but had a resident community until 1929 and lighthousekeepers until 1987. The evacuation of the community from Inistrahull took place en-bloc in 1929, the matter was raised in a Dáil debate on illegal fishing in November,1929 by the TD for the area, Deputy Carney. The Deputy stated that Inishtrahull was one of the few places in the country where the population had increased by almost 100% from 1881 to 1901. Deputy Carney said that ordinarily they were able to make a reasonable living, the Minister said that he “would like to feel that everything was being done to keep them from being a permanent charge on home assistance”. The Minister later sent a Principal Officer from his Department to report on their circumstances and he also said that his Officer’s report indicated that the resettled Islanders were not in “poor circumstances”. Inishtrahull is home to the most northern Irish lighthouse run by the Commissioners of Irish Lights, the lighthouse was first put into operation in 1813 largely because ships of the Royal Navy had begun to use Lough Foyle. Today its light flashes every 30 seconds, the ruins of the old lighthouse as well as a new lighthouse can be found on the island. Automation of the lighthouse was completed in March 1987 and the last three Lighthousekeepers left the station on 30 April 1987, over the centuries, Ireland has been the source of millions of emigrants bound for the “New World” across the Atlantic. For many of those emigrants, especially those who departed from Derry, Inistrahull, as one emigrant recalled, Inishtrahull is well known for its wildlife and is designated a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The islands geographical location and lighthouse attract many birds, as well as a population of grey seals. The island and its adjacent 90 metre depth tidal sound attract basking sharks, many scuba-divers use the Islands Port Mór as a lunch spot while out surveying the hundreds of wrecks off its shores. Access to the island is limited by the tides and currents around Malin Head
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Inishowen
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Inishowen is a peninsula in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland. It is the largest peninsula on the island of Ireland, Inishowen is a picturesque location with a rich history. The peninsula includes Irelands most northerly point, Malin Head, along with Lagg sand dunes and it is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the east by Lough Foyle, and to the west by Lough Swilly. It is joined at the south to the rest of the island and is mostly in County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, the peninsula is separated from the rest of Northern Ireland by the River Foyle. After the last ice age the peninsula was an island, other major hills are located in the Malin Head peninsula, as well as the Urris Hills in west Inishowen. Inishowen has several harbours, some of which are used for fishing purposes, including Greencastle, Bunagee. A seasonal ferry service crosses the Foyle, connecting Greencastle with Magilligan in County Londonderry, while another crosses the Swilly, the village of Fahan has a privately built marina. Inch, located in Lough Swilly, is no longer an island, as it has a causeway connecting it to the mainland at Tooban. Lough Swilly is a fjord-like lough, and was of importance for many years to the British Empire as a deep-water harbour. It is also famous as the point of the Flight of the Earls. The outline of this land is plainly visible due to its flatness proving a marked contrast to the mountainous area surrounding it. Predating the formation of County Donegal by centuries, the area was named Inis Eoghain after Eógan mac Néill, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, whose name was also used for Tyrone. Later, after the decline of the Meic Lochlainn, the chieftainship of Inis Eoghain was usurped by the Ó Dochartaigh clan, Inishowen has many historical monuments, dating back to early settlements, and including the ruins of several castles, and the fort at Grianán Aileach. The ancient Grianán Ailigh fort at Burt was the one seat of the High Kings of Ireland. It was restored in the century, although some damage in recent years has resulted in the partial collapse of the south side wall. Among the main ruins of Inishowen are Carrickabraghey on the Isle of Doagh. In 1196, John de Courcy, an Anglo-Norman knight who had invaded Ulster in 1177, defeated the King of the Cenél Conaill, two years later he returned to devastate Inishowen. However, in subsequent campaigns de Courcy was defeated by the ONeill clan led by their chief Áed Méith, in 1608 Sir Cahir ODoherty, the last Gaelic Lord of Inishowen and a former ally of the Crown, launched ODohertys Rebellion by burning Derry
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Mullet Peninsula
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The Mullet Peninsula —also known as the Mullet and sometimes as the Erris Peninsula—is a peninsula in the barony of Erris in County Mayo, Ireland. It consists of a large promontory connected to the mainland at Belmullet, there are several villages on the Mullet peninsula including Aughleam, Elly, Corclough and Binghamstown. It is about 33 km long and 12 km wide at its widest parts and its northernmost point is Erris Head. The peninsulas doglegged shape forms two bays, Blacksod Bay and Broadhaven Bay, the Mullet Peninsula is part of the Mayo Gaeltacht, meaning that Irish is the most common language. The area has several Irish-language summer schools, the origin of the names Mullet and an Mhuirthead is not clear. They may have come from Irish Muileat or an Mhuileat, which has been translated as isthmus. Bernard OHara in Mayo, Aspects of its Heritage suggests that A change from L to R, which is common in Irish may have resulted in a change to an Mhuireat. It has also suggested that the name may be from English. Despite its apparent sandy barrenness, the Mullet Peninsula has much to offer in way of interesting historical artefacts, the parish of Kilcommon which lies to the northeast of the Mullet has more visible prehistoric monuments such as in-situ megalithic tombs. Several islands lie off the coast of the Mullet peninsula including the Inishkea Islands, Inishglora, there are lighthouses on other small islands off the coast at Blackrock and Eagle Island. The Saint Deirbhle heritage centre based at Aughleam near the end of the peninsula has a collection of books. The saints old church and St. Deirbhiles Well, where it is alleged that a cure for eye problems can be acquired, is a couple of miles from the Centre. Glosh tower on Termon Hill is one of the 82 Napoleonic signal towers built 1801-1806 by the English holds a view of the area. Sculptures may be found on Glosh Beach, in the northwest of the Mullet peninsula a site for testing full-scale ocean wave power devices has been selected between Frenchport Pier, Annagh Head and Cross. This site will be the first time full-scale devices have been tested off the west coast of Ireland, prototypes have been tank tested in Cork and scaled models have undergone testing near Spiddal in Galway Bay in recent years. The wave energy potential in the Atlantic Ocean between North Mayo and West Donegal is one of the best in the world for the development of exciting new renewable energy technology. Several device types will be tested off the Mullet Peninsula, bus Éireann route 446 links the peninsula with Belmullet, Bangor Erris, Bellacorick, Crossmolina and Ballina. There is one service a day in each direction, including Sundays, on Friday evenings an extra journey operates from Ballina
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Drumlin
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Drumlins are typically 1 to 2 km long, less than 50 m high and between 300 to 600 metres wide. Drumlins generally have a length, width ratio of between 1,2 and 1,3.5, with more elongate forms corresponding to faster ice motion, drumlins and drumlin clusters are glacial landforms composed primarily of glacial till. They form near the margin of glacial systems, and within zones of fast flow deep within ice sheets, drumlins are often in drumlin fields of similarly shaped, sized and oriented hills. Many Pleistocene drumlin fields are observed to occur in a fan-like distribution, the Múlajökull drumlins of Hofsjökull are also arrayed in a splayed fan distribution around an arc of 180°. Catastrophic sub-glacial flooding has also proposed as a theory of drumlin formation. These formed through a progression of subglacial depositional and erosional processes, recently formed drumlins often incorporate a thin A soil horizon and a thin Bw horizon. The C horizon, which shows evidence of being affected by soil forming processes, is close to the surface. Below the C horizon the drumlin consists of beds of till deposited by lodgment. On drumlins with longer exposure soil development is more advanced, for example with the formation of clay-enriched Bt horizons, clew Bay in Ireland is a good example of a drowned drumlin landscape where the drumlins appear as islands in the sea, forming a basket of eggs topography. Drumlins are typically aligned parallel to one another, usually clustered together in reaching the hundreds or even thousands. These clusters can sometimes lead to the emergence and growth of complex water systems. Drumlins are common in Upstate New York, the lower Connecticut River valley, eastern Massachusetts, the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, drumlins, which are usually found in swarms or large groups, occur in every Canadian province and territory. The majority of those observed in North America were formed during the Wisconsin glaciation, the islands of Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area are drumlins that became islands when sea levels rose as the glaciers melted. Drumlins are found at Tiksi, Sakha Republic, Russia, extensive drumlin fields are found in Patagonia, for example near Punta Arenas Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Airport and on Navarino and Gable Island in the Beagle Channel. In 2007, drumlins were observed to be forming beneath the ice of a West Antarctic ice stream, upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Prentice Hall. New York, NY, W. H. Freeman and Company, tarbuck, Edward J. Frederick K. Lutgens. Earth, An Introduction to Physical Geography, upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Prentice Hall. Don Mills, Ontario, Oxford University Press, diagrams of an idealized drumlin Drumlin field, northwestern Manitoba, image from Geological Survey of Canada Canadian Landscapes Photo Collection Word of the day defines drumlin
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Volcanism
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It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of the body, to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface. Magma from the mantle or lower crust rises through its crust towards the surface, if magma reaches the surface, its behavior depends on the viscosity of the molten constituent rock. Viscous magma produces volcanoes characterised by explosive eruptions, while non-viscous magma produce volcanoes characterised by effusive eruptions pouring large amounts of lava onto the surface, in some cases, rising magma can cool and solidify without reaching the surface. Instead, the cooled and solidified igneous mass crystallises within the crust to form an igneous intrusion, as magma cools the chemicals in the crystals formed are effectively removed from the main mix of the magma, so the chemical content of the remaining magma evolves as it solidifies slowly. Fresh unevolved magma injections can remobilise more evolved magmas, allowing eruptions from more viscous magmas, movement of molten rock in the mantle, caused by thermal convection currents, coupled with gravitational effects of changes on the earths surface drive plate tectonic motion and ultimately volcanism. Volcanoes are places where magma reaches the earths surface, the type of volcano depends on the location of the eruption and the consistency of the magma. These are formed where magma pushes between existing rock, intrusions can be in the form of batholiths, dikes, sills, earthquakes are generally associated with plate tectonic activity, but some earthquakes are generated as a result of volcanic activity. These are formed where water interacts with volcanism and these include geysers, fumaroles, hotsprings and mudpots, they are often used as a source of geothermal energy. The amount of gas and ash emitted by volcanic eruptions has a significant effect on the Earths climate, large eruptions correlate well with some significant climate change events. When the magma cools it solidifies and forms rocks, the type of rock formed depends on the composition of the magma. Magma that reaches the surface to become lava cools rapidly resulting in rocks with small crystals such as basalt, some of this magma may cool extremely rapidly and will form volcanic glass such as obsidian. Magma that remains trapped below ground in thin intrusions cools slower than magma exposed to the surface, magma that remains trapped in large quantities below ground cools most slowly resulting in rocks with larger crystals - such as granite and gabbro. Existing rocks that come into contact with magma may be melted and assimilated into the magma, other rocks adjacent to the magma may be altered by contact metamorphism or metasomatism as they are affected by the heat and escaping or externally circulating hydrothermal fluids. Volcanism is not confined only to Earth, but is thought to be found on any body having a solid crust, evidence of volcanism should still be found on any body that has had volcanism at some point in its history. It can be surmised that volcanism exists on planets and moons of this type in other systems as well. In 2014, scientists found 70 lava flows which formed on the Moon in the last 100 million years, bimodal volcanism Continental drift Hotspot Volcanic arc Glossary of Volcanic Terms. G. J. Hudak, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh,2001, crumpler, L. S. and Lucas, S. G. Volcanoes of New Mexico, An Abbreviated Guide For Non-Specialists. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, archived from the original on 2007-03-21
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Last glacial period
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The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period, which occurred from c. 110,000 – c. 11,700 years ago. This most recent glacial period is part of a pattern of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation. From this point of view, scientists consider this ice age to be merely the latest glaciation event in a larger ice age. During this last glacial period, there were changes between glacier advance and retreat. The Last Glacial Maximum, the extent of glaciation within the last glacial period, was approximately 22,000 years ago. Approximately 13,000 years ago, the Late Glacial Maximum began, around 11,700 years ago marked the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch, which includes the Holocene glacial retreat. From the point of view of archaeology, it falls in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. When the glaciation event started, Homo sapiens were confined to Africa and used tools comparable to those used by Neanderthals in western and central Eurasia, near the end of the event, Homo sapiens spread into Eurasia and Australia. The retreat of the glaciers allowed groups of Asians to migrate to the Americas, glacials, on the other hand, refer to colder phases within an ice age that separate interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period is not the end of the last ice age, the end of the last glacial period was about 11,700 years ago, while the end of the last ice age has not yet come. Over the past few years the glacial-interglacial cycle has been paced by periodic variations in the Earths orbit via Milankovitch cycles which are thus the cause of ice ages. The glaciations that occurred during this period covered many areas, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. The geochronological Late Pleistocene comprises the late glacial and the immediately preceding penultimate interglacial preiond, the last glaciation centered on the huge ice sheets of North America and Eurasia. Considerable areas in the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes were ice-covered, Canada was nearly completely covered by ice, as well as the northern part of the United States, both blanketed by the huge Laurentide ice sheet. Alaska remained mostly ice free due to climate conditions. Local glaciations existed in the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleran ice sheet and as ice fields, the maximum extent of western Siberian glaciation was reached by approximately 16, 000–15,000 BCE and thus later than in Europe. Northeastern Siberia was not covered by an ice sheet. Instead, large, but restricted, icefield complexes covered mountain ranges within northeast Siberia, according to the sediment composition retrieved from deep-sea cores there must even have been times of seasonally open waters
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Bog
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A bog is a wetland that accumulates peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses, and in a majority of cases, sphagnum moss. It is one of the four types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, quagmire, and muskeg and they are frequently covered in ericaceous shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink, Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. In some cases, the water is derived entirely from precipitation, water flowing out of bogs has a characteristic brown colour, which comes from dissolved peat tannins. In general, the low fertility and cool climate results in relatively slow plant growth, large areas of landscape can be covered many metres deep in peat. Bogs have distinctive assemblages of animal, fungal and plant species, Bogs are widely distributed in cold, temperate climes, mostly in boreal ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. The worlds largest wetland is the bogs of the Western Siberian Lowlands in Russia. Large peat bogs also occur in North America, particularly the Hudson Bay Lowland and they are less common in the Southern Hemisphere, with the largest being the Magellanic moorland, comprising some 44,000 square kilometres. Sphagnum bogs were widespread in northern Europe but have often been cleared and drained for agriculture, a 2014 expedition leaving from Itanga village, Republic of the Congo discovered a peat bog as big as England which stretches into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. There are many highly specialised animals, fungi and plants associated with bog habitat, most are capable of tolerating the combination of low nutrient levels and waterlogging. Sphagnum moss is generally abundant, along with ericaceous shrubs, the shrubs are often evergreen, which is understood to assist in conservation of nutrients. In drier locations, evergreen trees can occur, in case the bog blends into the surrounding expanses of boreal evergreen forest. Sedges are one of the more common herbaceous species, carnivorous plants such as sundews and pitcher plants have adapted to the low-nutrient conditions by using invertebrates as a nutrient source. Orchids have adapted to these conditions through the use of fungi to extract nutrients. Some shrubs such as Myrica gale have root nodules in which nitrogen fixation occurs, Bogs are recognized as a significant/specific habitat type by a number of governmental and conservation agencies. They can provide habitat for mammals, such as caribou, moose, the United Kingdom in its Biodiversity Action Plan establishes bog habitats as a priority for conservation. Russia has a reserve system in the West Siberian Lowland
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Granite
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Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be white, pink, or gray in color. The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the structure of such a holocrystalline rock. By definition, granite is a rock with at least 20% quartz. The term granitic means granite-like and is applied to granite and a group of igneous rocks with similar textures and slight variations in composition. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a texture is known as a granite porphyry. Granitoid is a general, descriptive field term for lighter-colored, coarse-grained igneous rocks, petrographic examination is required for identification of specific types of granitoids. The extrusive igneous rock equivalent of granite is rhyolite, Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use throughout human history, and more recently as a construction stone. The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity near STP is 3–6 •1019 Pa·s. The melting temperature of dry granite at ambient pressure is 1215–1260 °C, it is reduced in the presence of water. Granite has poor primary permeability, but strong secondary permeability, true granite according to modern petrologic convention contains both plagioclase and alkali feldspars. When a granitoid is devoid or nearly devoid of plagioclase, the rock is referred to as alkali feldspar granite, when a granitoid contains less than 10% orthoclase, it is called tonalite, pyroxene and amphibole are common in tonalite. A granite containing both muscovite and biotite micas is called a binary or two-mica granite, two-mica granites are typically high in potassium and low in plagioclase, and are usually S-type granites or A-type granites. A worldwide average of the composition of granite, by weight percent, based on 2485 analyses. Much of it was intruded during the Precambrian age, it is the most abundant basement rock that underlies the relatively thin veneer of the continents. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs, granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite often occurs as small, less than 100 km² stock masses
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Sandstone
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Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earths crust, like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, quartz-bearing sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure, usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, clays, grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages, first, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Typically, sedimentation occurs by the settling out from suspension. The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried. Colours will usually be tan or yellow, a predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe. The regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a building material or as a facing stone. These physical properties allow the grains to survive multiple recycling events. Quartz grains evolve from rock, which are felsic in origin. Feldspathic framework grains are commonly the second most abundant mineral in sandstones, Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, alkali feldspars and plagioclase feldspars. The different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope, below is a description of the different types of feldspar. Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8. Plagioclase feldspar is a group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8. Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone, commonly these minerals make up just a small percentage of the grains in a sandstone
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Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
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Karst
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Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves and it has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes, the English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century. The German word came into use before the 19th century, according to the prevalent interpretation, the term is derived from the German name for the Karst region, a limestone plateau above the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic. Scholars disagree, however, on whether the German word was borrowed from Slovene, the Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century. The Slovene words arose through metathesis from the reconstructed form *korsъ, ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin, believed to derive from some Romanized Illyrian base. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- rock, the name may also be connected to the oronym Karsádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius. The development of karst occurs whenever acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock near its cracks, as the bedrock continues to degrade, its cracks tend to get bigger. As time goes on, these fractures will become wider, if this underground drainage system does form, it will speed up the development of karst formations there because more water will be able to flow through the region, giving it more erosive power. The carbonic acid that causes karstic features is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up carbon dioxide, once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that can provide much more CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution, which dissolves calcium carbonate. The oxidation of sulfides leading to the formation of acid can also be one of the corrosion factors in karst formation. As oxygen -rich surface waters seep into deep anoxic karst systems, they bring oxygen, sulfuric acid then reacts with calcium carbonate, causing increased erosion within the limestone formation. This chain of reactions is, This reaction chain forms gypsum, the karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes, runnels, limestone pavement, medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes, vertical shafts, foibe, disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys, mature karst landscapes, where more bedrock has been removed than remains, may result in karst towers, or haystack/eggbox landscapes. Beneath the surface, complex underground systems and extensive caves. Some of the most dramatic of these formations can be seen in Thailands Phangnga Bay, calcium carbonate dissolved into water may precipitate out where the water discharges some of its dissolved carbon dioxide. Rivers which emerge from springs may produce tufa terraces, consisting of layers of calcite deposited over extended periods of time, in caves, a variety of features collectively called speleothems are formed by deposition of calcium carbonate and other dissolved minerals
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Basalt
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Basalt is a common extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface of a planet or moon. Flood basalt describes the formation in a series of basalt flows. By definition, basalt is an igneous rock with generally 45-55% silica and less than 10% feldspathoid by volume. Basalt commonly features a very fine-grained or glassy matrix interspersed with visible mineral grains, the average density is 3.0 gm/cm3. Basalt is defined by its content and texture, and physical descriptions without mineralogical context may be unreliable in some circumstances. Basalt is usually grey to black in colour, but rapidly weathers to brown or rust-red due to oxidation of its mafic minerals into hematite, although usually characterized as dark, basaltic rocks exhibit a wide range of shading due to regional geochemical processes. Due to weathering or high concentrations of plagioclase, some basalts can be quite light-coloured and these phenocrysts usually are of olivine or a calcium-rich plagioclase, which have the highest melting temperatures of the typical minerals that can crystallize from the melt. Basalt with a texture is called vesicular basalt, when the bulk of the rock is mostly solid. Gabbro is often marketed commercially as black granite and these ultramafic volcanic rocks, with silica contents below 45% are usually classified as komatiites. Agricola applied basalt to the black rock of the Schloßberg at Stolpen. Tholeiitic basalt is relatively rich in silica and poor in sodium, included in this category are most basalts of the ocean floor, most large oceanic islands, and continental flood basalts such as the Columbia River Plateau. Basalt rocks are in some cases classified after their content in High-Ti and Low-Ti varieties. High-Ti and Low-Ti basalts have been distinguished in the Paraná and Etendeka traps and it has greater than 17% alumina and is intermediate in composition between tholeiite and alkali basalt, the relatively alumina-rich composition is based on rocks without phenocrysts of plagioclase. Alkali basalt is relatively poor in silica and rich in sodium and it is silica-undersaturated and may contain feldspathoids, alkali feldspar and phlogopite. Boninite is a form of basalt that is erupted generally in back-arc basins. Ocean island basalt Lunar basalt On Earth, most basalt magmas have formed by melting of the mantle. Basalt commonly erupts on Io, the third largest moon of Jupiter, and has formed on the Moon, Mars, Venus. The crustal portions of oceanic tectonic plates are composed predominantly of basalt, produced from upwelling mantle below, the mineralogy of basalt is characterized by a preponderance of calcic plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene
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Cenozoic
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The Cenozoic Era is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras, following the Mesozoic Era and covering the period from 66 million years ago to the present day. The Cenozoic is also known as the Age of Mammals, because of the mammals that dominated, such as Entelodont, Paraceratherium. The extinction of many large groups such as non-avian dinosaurs, Plesiosauria and Pterosauria allowed the mammals and birds to greatly diversify. Early in the Cenozoic, following the K-Pg event, the planet was dominated by relatively small fauna, including mammals, birds, reptiles. From a geological perspective, it did not take long for mammals, some flightless birds grew larger than humans. These species are referred to as terror birds, and were formidable predators. Mammals came to occupy almost every available niche, and some also grew very large, the Earths climate had begun a drying and cooling trend, culminating in the glaciations of the Pleistocene Epoch, and partially offset by the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The continents also began looking roughly familiar at this time and moved into their current positions. The Cenozoic is divided into three periods, the Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary, and seven epochs, the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene. The common use of epochs during the Cenozoic helps paleontologists better organize, there is also more detailed knowledge of this era than any other because of the relatively young, well-preserved rocks associated with it. The Paleogene spans from the extinction of dinosaurs,66 million years ago. It features three epochs, the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene, the Paleocene ranged from 66 million to 56 million years ago. The Paleocene is a point between the devastation that is the K-T extinction, to the rich jungles environment that is the Early Eocene. The Early Paleocene saw the recovery of the earth, the continents began to take their modern shape, but all the continents and subcontinent India were separated from each other. Afro-Eurasia was separated by the Tethys Sea, and the Americas were separated by the strait of Panama and this epoch featured a general warming trend, with jungles eventually reaching the poles. The oceans were dominated by sharks as the large reptiles that had once ruled became extinct, archaic mammals filled the world such as creodonts and early primates that evolved during the Mesozoic, and as a result, there was nothing over 10 kilograms. The Eocene Epoch ranged from 56 million years to 33.9 million years ago, in the Early-Eocene, life was small and lived in cramped jungles, much like the Paleocene. There was nothing over the weight of 10 kilograms, among them were early primates, whales and horses along with many other early forms of mammals
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Erosion
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In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that remove soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earths crust, then transport it away to another location. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, the rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Feedbacks are also possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material that is carried by, for example. Processes of erosion that produce sediment or solutes from a place contrast with those of deposition, while erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10-40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. At well-known agriculture sites such as the Appalachian Mountains, intensive farming practices have caused erosion up to 100x the speed of the rate of erosion in the region. Excessive erosion causes both on-site and off-site problems, on-site impacts include decreases in agricultural productivity and ecological collapse, both because of loss of the nutrient-rich upper soil layers. In some cases, the end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads. Intensive agriculture, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion, however, there are many prevention and remediation practices that can curtail or limit erosion of vulnerable soils. Rainfall, and the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four types of soil erosion, splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion. Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the erosion process. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a crater in the soil. The distance these soil particles travel can be as much as 0.6 m vertically and 1.5 m horizontally on level ground. If the soil is saturated, or if the rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil. If the runoff has sufficient flow energy, it will transport loosened soil particles down the slope, sheet erosion is the transport of loosened soil particles by overland flow. Rill erosion refers to the development of small, ephemeral concentrated flow paths which function as both sediment source and sediment delivery systems for erosion on hillslopes, generally, where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are typically of the order of a few centimetres or less and this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics very different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when water accumulates and rapidly flows in narrow channels during or immediately after heavy rains or melting snow
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Weathering
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Weathering is the breaking down of rocks, soil, and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with the Earths atmosphere, waters, and biological organisms. Two important classifications of weathering processes exist – physical and chemical weathering, mechanical or physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks and soils through direct contact with atmospheric conditions, such as heat, water, ice and pressure. While physical weathering is accentuated in very cold or very dry environments, chemical reactions are most intense where the climate is wet, however, both types of weathering occur together, and each tends to accelerate the other. For example, physical abrasion decreases the size of particles and therefore increases their surface area, the various agents act in concert to convert primary minerals to secondary minerals and release plant nutrient elements in soluble forms. The materials left over after the rock breaks down combined with organic material creates soil, in addition, many of Earths landforms and landscapes are the result of weathering processes combined with erosion and re-deposition. Physical weathering, also recognized as mechanical weathering, is the class of processes that causes the disintegration of rocks without chemical change, the primary process in physical weathering is abrasion. However, chemical and physical weathering often go hand in hand, physical weathering can occur due to temperature, pressure, frost etc. For example, cracks exploited by physical weathering will increase the area exposed to chemical action. Abrasion by water, ice, and wind loaded with sediment can have tremendous cutting power, as is amply demonstrated by the gorges, ravines. In glacial areas, huge moving ice masses embedded with soil and rock fragments grind down rocks in their path, plant roots sometimes enter cracks in rocks and pry them apart, resulting in some disintegration, Burrowing animals may help disintegrate rock through their physical action. However, such influences are usually of importance in producing parent material when compared to the drastic physical effects of water, ice, wind. Physical weathering is called mechanical weathering or disaggregation. Thermal stress weathering results from the expansion and contraction of rock, for example, heating of rocks by sunlight or fires can cause expansion of their constituent minerals. As some minerals expand more than others, temperature changes set up differential stresses that cause the rock to crack apart. Because the outer surface of a rock is often warmer or colder than the more protected inner portions and this process may be sharply accelerated if ice forms in the surface cracks. When water freezes, it expands with a force of about 1465 Mg/m^2, disintegrating huge rock masses, thermal stress weathering comprises two main types, thermal shock and thermal fatigue. Thermal stress weathering is an important mechanism in deserts, where there is a diurnal temperature range, hot in the day. The repeated heating and cooling exerts stress on the layers of rocks
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Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
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Neogene
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The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
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Quaternary
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Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ±0.005 million years ago to the present, the Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The informal term Late Quaternary refers to the past 0. 5–1.0 million years, the Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred. The term Quaternary was proposed by Giovanni Arduino in 1759 for alluvial deposits in the Po River valley in northern Italy and it was introduced by Jules Desnoyers in 1829 for sediments of Frances Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present, the Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial time-period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago, Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. From the 1970s, the International Commission on Stratigraphy tried to make a single geologic time scale based on GSSPs, the Quaternary subdivisions were defined based on biostratigraphy instead of paleoclimate. This led to the problem that the base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya. The ICS then proposed to use of the name Quaternary altogether. The Anthropocene has been proposed as an epoch as a mark of the anthropogenic impact on the global environment starting with the Industrial Revolution. The Anthropocene is not officially designated by the ICS, however, the 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Over this short period, there has been relatively little change in the distribution of the continents due to plate tectonics. The Quaternary geological record is preserved in detail than that for earlier periods. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude, there was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, others, including horses, camels and American cheetahs became extinct in North America. Glaciation took place repeatedly during the Quaternary Ice Age – a term coined by Schimper in 1839 that began with the start of the Quaternary about 2.58 Mya and continues to the present-day. In 1821, a Swiss engineer, Ignaz Venetz, presented an article in which he suggested the presence of traces of the passage of a glacier at a distance from the Alps. This idea was initially disputed by another Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, a year later, Agassiz raised the hypothesis of a great glacial period that would have had long-reaching general effects
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Quaternary glaciation
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During this period, ice sheets expanded, notably from out of Antarctica and Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets occurred elsewhere. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities, the ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, affect a major feedback on climate cooling. The Quaternary glaciation was the first ice age to be demonstrated in geology and this was done over the 1700s and 1800s CE. Over the last century, extensive field observations have provided evidence that continental glaciers covered large parts of Europe, North America, even before the theory of worldwide glaciation was generally accepted, many observers recognized that more than a single advance and retreat of the ice had occurred. Since then other, earlier ice ages have been identified, the Quaternary glaciation is the last of five known glaciations during Earths history. The other four are the Huronian glaciation, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan glaciation, over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period, starting 2.58 Ma, is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet—the Antarctic ice sheet—has existed continuously, there is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes—referred to as glacial ice sheets at least 4 km thick at their maximum also existed in Europe, North America. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials, currently, Earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the land surface, still exist in Greenland, Antarctica. During the glacial periods, the present hydrologic system was completely interrupted throughout large areas of the world and was modified in others. Due to the volume of ice on land, sea level was approximately 120 meters lower than present, extensive evidence now shows that a number of periods of growth and retreat of continental glaciers occurred during the ice age, called glacials and interglacials. The interglacial periods of climate are represented by buried soil profiles, peat beds. No completely satisfactory theory has been proposed to account for Earths history of glaciation, the cause of glaciation may be related to several simultaneous factors, such as astronomical cycles, atmospheric composition, plate tectonics, and ocean currents. The role of Earths orbital changes in controlling climate was first advanced by James Croll in the late 19th century, later, Milutin Milanković, a Serbian geophysicist, elaborated on the theory and calculated these irregularities in Earths orbit could cause the climatic cycles known as Milankovitch cycles. They are the result of the behavior of several types of cyclical changes in Earths orbital properties. Changes in the eccentricity of Earth occur on a cycle of about 100,000 years
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