1.
Lebanon
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Lebanon, officially known as the Lebanese Republic, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, Lebanons location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland facilitated its rich history and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity. At just 10,452 km2, it is the smallest recognized country on the entire mainland Asian continent, the earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than seven thousand years, predating recorded history. Lebanon was the home of the Canaanites/Phoenicians and their kingdoms, a culture that flourished for over a thousand years. In 64 BC, the region came under the rule of the Roman Empire, in the Mount Lebanon range a monastic tradition known as the Maronite Church was established. As the Arab Muslims conquered the region, the Maronites held onto their religion, however, a new religious group, the Druze, established themselves in Mount Lebanon as well, generating a religious divide that has lasted for centuries. During the Crusades, the Maronites re-established contact with the Roman Catholic Church, the ties they established with the Latins have influenced the region into the modern era. The region eventually was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918, following the collapse of the empire after World War I, the five provinces that constitute modern Lebanon came under the French Mandate of Lebanon. The French expanded the borders of the Mount Lebanon Governorate, which was populated by Maronites and Druze. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, establishing confessionalism, a unique, foreign troops withdrew completely from Lebanon on 31 December 1946. Lebanon has been a member of the Organisation internationale de la francophonie since 1973, despite its small size, the country has developed a well-known culture and has been highly influential in the Arab world. Before the Lebanese Civil War, the experienced a period of relative calm and renowned prosperity, driven by tourism, agriculture, commerce. At the end of the war, there were efforts to revive the economy. In spite of troubles, Lebanon has the highest Human Development Index and GDP per capita in the Arab world. The name of Mount Lebanon originates from the Phoenician root lbn meaning white, occurrences of the name have been found in different Middle Bronze Age texts from the library of Ebla, and three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The name is recorded in Ancient Egyptian as Rmnn, where R stood for Canaanite L, the name occurs nearly 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, as לְבָנוֹן. The borders of contemporary Lebanon are a product of the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 and its territory was the core of the Bronze Age Phoenician city-states. After the 7th-century Muslim conquest of the Levant, it was part of the Rashidun, Umyayad, Abbasid Seljuk, with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Greater Lebanon fell under French mandate in 1920, and gained independence under president Bechara El Khoury in 1943
2.
Beqaa Valley
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The Beqaa Valley, also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ and Becaa and known in Classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanons most important farming region, industry also flourishes in Beqaa, especially that related to agriculture. The Beqaa is located about 30 km east of Beirut, the valley is situated between Mount Lebanon to the west and Anti-Lebanon mountains to the east. It forms the northeasternmost extension of the Great Rift Valley, which stretches from Syria to the Red Sea, Beqaa Valley is 120 kilometres long and an average 16 kilometres wide on average. It has a Mediterranean climate of wet, often snowy winters and dry, the region receives limited rainfall, particularly in the north, because Mount Lebanon creates a rain shadow that blocks precipitation coming from the sea. The northern section has an annual rainfall of 230 millimetres ). Two rivers originate in the valley, the Orontes, which flows north into Syria and Turkey, and the Litani, which flows south and then west to the Mediterranean Sea. From the 1st century BC, when the region was part of the Roman Empire, today the valley makes up 40 percent of Lebanons arable land. The northern end of the valley, with its scarce rainfall and less fertile soils, is used primarily as grazing land by pastoral nomads, farther south, more fertile soils support crops of wheat, corn, cotton, and vegetables, with vineyards and orchards centered on Zahlé. The valley also produces hashish and cultivates opium poppies, which are exported as part of the drug trade. Since 1957 the Litani hydroelectricity project—a series of canals and a dam located at Lake Qaraoun in the end of the valley—has improved irrigation to farms in Beqaa Valley. Zahlé is the largest city and the capital of the Beqaa Governorate. It lies just north of the main Beirut–Damascus highway, which bisects the valley, the majority of Zahlés residents are Lebanese Christian, including those who are Melkite Greek Catholic, Maronite Catholic, and Greek Orthodox Christians. The town of Anjar, situated in the part of the valley, has a predominately Armenian Lebanese population and is also famous for its 8th-century Arab ruins. The majority of the inhabitants of the districts of Beqaa, Baalbek and Hermel, are Lebanese Shia, with the exception of the town of Deir el Ahmar. The Baalbeck and Hermel districts have a Christian and Sunni minority, the western and southern districts of the valley also have a mixed population of Muslims, Christians and also Druze. The town of Jib Janine with a population of about 9,000, is situated midway in the valley, Jib Janine is the governmental center of the region known as Western Beqaa, with municipal services like the emergency medical services, a fire department, and a courthouse. Other towns in the Western Beqaa district are Machghara, Sabghine, Kamed al Lawz, Qab Elias and these towns are all a mix of different Lebanese religious confessions
3.
Mozambique
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It is separated from Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans, the area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonised by Portugal from 1505. The country was an important place where Somali merchants enslaved the local population, after over four centuries of Portuguese rule, Mozambique gained independence in 1975, becoming the Peoples Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. After only two years of independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992, in 1994, Mozambique held its first multiparty elections and has remained a relatively stable presidential republic. However, since 2013, following more than 20 years of peace, Mozambique is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources, the countrys economy is based largely on agriculture, but industry is growing, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing, and aluminium and petroleum production. The countrys tourism sector is also growing, South Africa is Mozambiques main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment. Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain are also among the countrys most important economic partners, since 2001, Mozambiques annual average GDP growth has been among the worlds highest. However, the ranks among the lowest in GDP per capita, human development, measures of inequality. The only official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, which is mostly as a second language by about half of the population. Common native languages include Makhuwa, Sena, and Swahili, the countrys population of around 24 million is composed overwhelmingly of Bantu people. The largest religion in Mozambique is Christianity, with significant minorities following Islam, the island-town was the capital of the Portuguese colony until 1898, when it was moved south to Lourenço Marques. Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking people migrated from the west and north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and they established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron, from the late first millennium AD, vast Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south into Mozambique as the ancient port town of Chibuene. Connections are evident at sites including Manyikeni for 11–14th century ties with the inland Great Zimbabwe kingdoms, from about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east. The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. Historically within Mozambique there was slavery, Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab Muslim traders and Portuguese and other European traders as well
4.
Rift
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In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the Earths crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben with normal faulting, where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake. The axis of the area may contain volcanic rocks, and active volcanism is a part of many. Major rifts occur along the axis of most mid-ocean ridges. Failed rifts are the result of rifting that failed to continue to the point of break-up. Typically the transition from rifting to spreading develops at a junction where three converging rifts meet over a hotspot. Two of these evolve to the point of spreading, while the third ultimately fails. Most rifts consist of a series of segments that together form the linear zone characteristic of rifts. The individual rift segments have a dominantly half-graben geometry, controlled by a single basin-bounding fault, segment lengths vary between rifts, depending on the elastic thickness of the lithosphere. Areas of thick colder lithosphere, such as the Baikal Rift have segment lengths in excess of 80 km, while in areas of warmer thin lithosphere, segment lengths may be less than 30 km. Along the axis of the rift the position, and in cases the polarity. Segment boundaries often have a complex structure and generally cross the rift axis at a high angle. These segment boundary zones accommodate the differences in fault displacement between the segments and are known as accommodation zones. Accommodation zones may be located where older crustal structures intersect the rift axis, in the Gulf of Suez rift, the Zaafarana accommodation zone is located where a shear zone in the Arabian-Nubian Shield meets the rift. At the onset of rifting, the part of the lithosphere starts to extend on a series of initially unconnected normal faults. In subaerial rifts, drainage at this stage is generally internal, as the rift evolves, some of the individual fault segments grow, eventually becoming linked together to form the larger bounding faults. Subsequent extension becomes concentrated on these faults, the longer faults and wider fault spacing leads to more continuous areas of fault-related subsidence along the rift axis. Significant uplift of the rift shoulders develops at this stage, strongly influencing drainage, during rifting, as the crust is thinned, the Earths surface subsides and the Moho becomes correspondingly raised
5.
Fault (geology)
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In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movement. Large faults within the Earths crust result from the action of tectonic forces. Energy release associated with movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. A fault plane is the plane that represents the surface of a fault. A fault trace or fault line is the intersection of a plane with the ground surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on maps to represent a fault. Since faults do not usually consist of a single, clean fracture, the two sides of a non-vertical fault are known as the hanging wall and footwall. By definition, the wall occurs above the fault plane. This terminology comes from mining, when working a tabular ore body, because of friction and the rigidity of rocks, they cannot glide or flow past each other easily, and occasionally all movement stops. A fault in ductile rocks can also release instantaneously when the rate is too great. The energy released by instantaneous strain-release causes earthquakes, a common phenomenon along transform boundaries, slip is defined as the relative movement of geological features present on either side of a fault plane, and is a displacement vector. A faults sense of slip is defined as the motion of the rock on each side of the fault with respect to the other side. In practice, it is only possible to find the slip direction of faults. Based on direction of slip, faults can be categorized as, strike-slip. Dip-slip, offset is predominantly vertical and/or perpendicular to the fault trace, oblique-slip, combining significant strike and dip slip. The fault surface is usually vertical and the footwall moves either left or right or laterally with very little vertical motion. Strike-slip faults with left-lateral motion are known as sinistral faults. Those with right-lateral motion are known as dextral faults
6.
East African Rift
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The East African Rift is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago, in the past, it was considered to be part of a larger Great Rift Valley that extended north to Asia Minor. As extension continues, lithospheric rupture will occur within 10 million years, the Somalian plate will break off, a series of distinct rift basins, the East African Rift System extends over thousands of kilometers. The EAR consists of two main branches, the Eastern Rift Valley includes the Main Ethiopian Rift, running eastward from the Afar Triple Junction, which continues south as the Kenyan Rift Valley. The Western Rift Valley includes the Albertine Rift, and farther south, to the north of the Afar Triple Junction, the rift follows one of two paths, west to the Red Sea Rift or east to the Aden Ridge in the Gulf of Aden. The EAR runs from the Afar Triple Junction in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia through eastern Africa, the EAR transects through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. The Davie Ridge ranges between 30–120 km wide, with a west facing scarp along the half of its length that rises up to 2300 m above the sea floor. Its movement is concurrent with the EAR, over time, many theories have tried to clarify the evolution of the East African Rift. In 1972 it was proposed that the EAR was not caused by tectonic activity, others proposed an African superplume causing mantle deformation. However, the varying geochemical signatures of a suite of Ethiopian lavas suggest multiple plume sources, at least one of deep mantle origin, additionally, the subject of deep-rooted mantle plumes is still a matter of controversy, and therefore cannot be confirmed. The most recent and accepted view is the theory put forth in 2009, at that time it was suggested that lithospheric thinning generated volcanic activity, further increasing the magmatic processes at play such as intrusions and numerous small plumes. These processes further thin the lithosphere in saturated areas, forcing the thinning lithosphere to behave like a mid-ocean ridge, prior to rifting, enormous continental flood basalts erupted on the surface and uplift of the Ethiopian, Somalian, and East African plateaus occurred. The first stage of rifting of the EAR is characterized by rift localization, periods of extension alternated with times of relative inactivity. There was also the reactivation of a weakness in the crust, a suture zone of multiple cratons, displacement along large boundary faults. The second stage of rifting is characterized by the deactivation of large boundary faults, the development of internal fault segments, today, the narrow rift segments of the East African Rift system form zones of localized strain. These rifts are the result of the actions of numerous faults which are typical of all tectonic rift zones. The African continental crust is generally cool and strong, many cratons are found throughout the EAR, such as the Tanzania and Kaapvaal cratons. The cratons are thick, and have survived for billions of years with little tectonic activity and they are characterized by greenstone belts, tonalites, and other high-grade metamorphic lithologies
7.
Plate tectonics
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The theoretical model builds on the concept of continental drift developed during the first few decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s, the lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet, is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earths lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates, where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary, convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually, tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle, the material lost is balanced by the formation of new crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the surface of the lithosphere remains the same. This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle, earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking or gradual expansion of the globe. Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earths lithosphere has greater strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the result in convection. Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the ridge and drag, with downward suction. Another explanation lies in the different forces generated by forces of the Sun. The relative importance of each of these factors and their relationship to other is unclear. The outer layers of the Earth are divided into the lithosphere and asthenosphere and this is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter, in terms of heat transfer, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction, whereas the asthenosphere also transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year, to about 160 mm/year. The driving mechanism behind this movement is described below, tectonic lithosphere plates consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either or both of two types of crustal material, oceanic crust and continental crust. Average oceanic lithosphere is typically 100 km thick, its thickness is a function of its age, as passes, it conductively cools
8.
Afar Triple Junction
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The Afar Triple Junction is located along a divergent plate boundary dividing the Nubian, Somalian, and Arabian plates. This area is considered an example of continental rifting leading to seafloor spreading and producing an oceanic basin. Here, the Red Sea Rift meets the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift and it extends a total of 6500 km in three arms from the Afar Triangle to Mozambique. The connecting three arms form a triple junction, both of these rifting arms are below sea level and are similar to a mid-ocean ridge. The third rifting arm runs south extending around 4000 km through the countries of Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, and finally Mozambique. This southern rifting arm is known as the East African Rift or the East African Rift System. A rift is the result of pulling apart or extension of both the lithosphere and crust and this is a product of what is referred to as mantle upwelling where hotter asthenosphere rises up into colder lithosphere. This rise is associated with thinning and stretching of the lithosphere, rifting is said to have begun in the Late Cretaceous epoch to Paleogene period. At that time the African plate was experiencing far-field stresses caused by portions of the boundary of the African plate subducting under the Eurasian plate. Today, the Arabian plate is experiencing a crustal down pull, or slab pull, at the same time of the subduction in the north there was mantle upwelling causing the crust to down warp and swell into domes. There are many throughout the East African Rift System. The plume is thought to have begun under Lake Tana in Ethiopia, the Kenyan dome has been studied extensively. Gani 2007 proposes that episodic increase of incision of the Ethiopian Plateau suggests episodic growth rates within the plateau and this is proposed since the incision rates have no correlation to the past climate events. Using Archimedes’ principle of isostatic rebound,2.05 km uplift has occurred within the last 30 Ma, the thinned Ethiopian lithosphere could have resulted in ponding from mantle plume and subsequent uplift. Baker, B. H.1972 also suggests that the uplift of this area is sporadic and divided by long periods of stability and erosion. Some periods of uplift are recorded at the end of the Cretaceous that resulted in 400 m uplift, the Ethiopian dome experienced its largest uplift coinciding with the end of the Neogene uplift associated with the Kenyan dome. It has been argued that the current Ethiopian plateau is a result of the most recent uplift of 500 m estimated to be an Oligocene-early Miocene event, but the most accepted argument of the plateau is the result of the Paleogene flood-basalts. The uplift associated with both domes has resulted in structural features due to the swelling and warped crustal extension
9.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
10.
African Plate
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The African Plate is a major tectonic plate straddling the equator as well as the prime meridian. It includes much of the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges, between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago, the Somali Plate began rifting from the African Plate along the East African Rift. All of these are divergent or spreading boundaries with the exception of the northern boundary, the cratons are, from south to north, the Kalahari craton, Congo craton, Tanzania craton and West African craton. The cratons were widely separated in the past, but came together during the Pan-African orogeny, the cratons are connected by orogenic belts, regions of highly deformed rock where the tectonic plates have engaged. The African Plate is rifting in the interior of the African continent along the East African Rift. This rift zone separates the African Plate to the west from the Somali Plate to the east, the African Plates speed is estimated at around 2.15 cm per year. It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction and this is drawing it closer to the Eurasian Plate, causing subduction where oceanic crust is converging with continental crust. Along its northeast margin, the African Plate is bounded by the Red Sea Rift where the Arabian Plate is moving away from the African Plate. The New England hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean has probably created a line of mid- to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African Plate. USGS - Understanding plate motions Meijer, P. Th, wortel, M. J. R. Cenozoic dynamics of the African plate with emphasis on the Africa-Eurasia collision. Journal of Geophysical Research, Solid Earth
11.
Nubia
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Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, with a history that can be traced from at least 2000 B. C. onward, and was home to one of the African empires. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, the name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century following the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian, Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, until at least 1970, the Birgid language was spoken north of Nyala in Darfur, but is now extinct. Nubia was divided into two regions, Upper and Lower Nubia, so called because of their location in the Nile river valley. Early settlements sprouted in both Upper and Lower Nubia, Egyptians referred to Nubia as Ta-Seti, or The Land of the Bow, since the Nubians were known to be expert archers. Modern scholars typically refer to the people from this area as the “A-Group” culture, fertile farmland just south of the Third Cataract is known as the “pre-Kerma” culture in Upper Nubia, as they are the ancestors. The Neolithic people in the Nile Valley likely came from Sudan, as well as the Sahara, by the 5th millennium BC, the people who inhabited what is now called Nubia participated in the Neolithic revolution. Saharan rock reliefs depict scenes that have been thought to be suggestive of a cult, typical of those seen throughout parts of Eastern Africa. Megaliths discovered at Nabta Playa are early examples of what seems to be one of the worlds first astronomical devices, around 3500 BC, the second Nubian culture, termed the A-Group, arose. It was a contemporary of, and ethnically and culturally similar to. The A-Group people were engaged in trade with the Egyptians and this trade is testified archaeologically by large amounts of Egyptian commodities deposited in the graves of the A-Group people. The imports consisted of gold objects, copper tools, faience amulets and beads, seals, slate palettes, stone vessels, and a variety of pots. Around 3300 BC, there is evidence of a kingdom, as shown by the finds at Qustul. The Nubian culture may have contributed to the unification of the Nile Valley. The earliest known depiction of the crown is on a ceremonial incense burner from Cemetery at Qustul in Lower Nubia. New evidence from Abydos, however, particularly the excavation of Cemetery U, around the turn of the protodynastic period, Naqada, in its bid to conquer and unify the whole Nile Valley, seems to have conquered Ta-Seti and harmonized it with the Egyptian state
12.
Somali Plate
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The Somali Plate, or Somalian Plate, is a minor tectonic plate, which straddles the equator in the eastern hemisphere. The Somali Plate formed between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago by the rifting of the African Plate along the East African Rift. Because the East Africa Rift separates the continent into two plates, the African Plate west of the rift is sometimes referred to as the Nubian Plate, the northern boundary is the Aden Ridge along the coast of Saudi Arabia. The eastern boundary is the Central Indian Ridge, the portion of which is also known as the Carlsberg Ridge. The southern boundary is the Southwest Indian Ridge, dating of volcanism in the Comoro Islands and northern Madagascar volcanoes indicates a rate of motion to the east over a hotspot of approximately 45 mm/yr. Emerick, C. M.1985, Age progressive volcanism in the Comores Archipelago and Northern Madagascar, corvallis, PhD Thesis, Abstract Chorowicz, Jean
13.
Graben
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In geology, a graben is a depressed block of the Earths crust bordered by parallel faults. Graben is German for ditch or trench, the plural form is either graben or grabens. A graben is a valley with an escarpment on each side caused by the displacement of a block of land downward. Graben often occur side-by-side with horsts, horst and graben structures indicate tensional forces and crustal stretching. Graben are produced from parallel normal faults, where the displacement of the wall is downward. The faults typically dip toward the center of the graben from both sides, horsts are parallel blocks that remain between graben, the bounding faults of a horst typically dip away from the center line of the horst. Single or multiple graben can produce a rift valley, in many rifts, the graben are asymmetric, with a major fault along only one of the boundaries, and these are known as half-graben. The polarity of the bounding faults typically alternates along the length of the rift. The asymmetry of a half-graben strongly affects syntectonic deposition, comparatively little sediment enters the half-graben across the main bounding fault because of footwall uplift on the drainage systems. The exception is at any offset in the bounding fault. Most of the sediment will enter the half-graben down the hanging wall side. S. Central Graben, North Sea Viking Graben, North Sea Fossa
14.
Afar Triangle
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The Afar Triangle is a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction, which is part of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia, the Awash River is the main waterflow into the region, but it runs dry during the annual dry season, and ends as a chain of saline lakes. The northern part of the Afar Depression is also known as the Danakil Depression, the lowlands are affected by heat, drought, and minimal air circulation, and contain the hottest places of anywhere on Earth. Many important fossil localities exist in the Afar region, including the Middle Awash region and the sites of Hadar, Dikika and these sites have produced specimens of the earliest hominins and of human tool culture, as well as many fossils of various flora and fauna. Dallol in the Danakil Depression is one of the hottest places year-round anywhere on Earth, there is no rain for most of the year, the yearly rainfall averages range from 100 to 200 millimetres, with even less rain falling closer to the coast. The climate varies from around 25 °C during the short rainy season to 48 °C during the dry season. About 128 kilometres from the Red Sea the Awash ends in a chain of salt lakes, some 1,200 km2 of the Afar Depression is covered by salt deposits, and mining salt is a major source of income for many Afar groups. The Afar Depression biome is characterized as desert scrubland, vegetation is mostly confined to drought-resistant plants such as small trees, shrubs, and grasses. Wildlife includes many such as Grevys zebra, Soemmerings gazelle, beisa and, notably. Birds include the ostrich, the endemic Archers lark, the bird, Arabian and kori bustards, Abyssinian roller. In the southern part of the lies the Mille-Sardo Wildlife Reserve in Ethiopia. The Afar Triangle is a source of the earliest hominins. In 1994, near the Awash River in Ethiopia, Tim D. White found the then-oldest known human ancestor,4.4 million-year-old Ar. ramidus. A fossilized almost complete skeleton of a female hominin which he named Ardi, it took nearly 15 years to excavate, preserve. The Afar Depression is the product of a tectonic triple-rifts junction, where the ridges forming the Red Sea. The conjunction of three plates of Earths crust is near Lake Abbe. The Afar Depression is one of two places on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge can be studied on land, the other being Iceland. Within the Triangle, the Earths crust is slowly rifting apart at a rate of 1–2 centimetres per year each of the three rift zones forming the legs of the triple junction
15.
Sea
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A sea is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land. More broadly, the sea is the system of Earths salty. The sea moderates Earths climate and has important roles in the cycle, carbon cycle. Although the sea has been traveled and explored since prehistory, the scientific study of the sea—oceanography—dates broadly to the British Challenger expedition of the 1870s. Owing to the present state of continental drift, the Northern Hemisphere is now equally divided between land and sea but the South is overwhelmingly oceanic. Salinity in the ocean is generally in a narrow band around 3. 5% by mass, although this can vary in more landlocked waters, near the mouths of large rivers. About 85% of the solids in the sea are sodium chloride. Deep-sea currents are produced by differences in salinity and temperature, surface currents are formed by the friction of waves produced by the wind and by tides, the changes in local sea level produced by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. The direction of all of these is governed by surface and submarine land masses, former changes in sea levels have left continental shelves, shallow areas in the sea close to land. The most diverse areas surround great tropical coral reefs, whaling in the deep sea was once common but whales dwindling numbers prompted international conservation efforts and finally a moratorium on most commercial hunting. Life may have started there and aquatic microbial mats are generally credited with the oxygenation of Earths atmosphere, the sea is an essential aspect of human trade, travel, mineral extraction, and power generation. It is the scene of activities including swimming, diving, surfing. However, population growth, industrialization, and intensive farming have all contributed to marine pollution. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed in increasing amounts, lowering its pH in a known as ocean acidification. The shared nature of the sea has made overfishing an increasing problem, both senses of sea date to Old English, the larger sense has required a definite article since Early Middle English. Seas are generally larger than lakes and contain salt water, while the defining elements of size and being bounded are generally used, there is no formally accepted technical definition of sea among oceanographers. In international law, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that all the ocean is the sea. Earth is the known planet with seas of liquid water on its surface, although Mars possesses ice caps
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Dead Sea Transform
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The Dead Sea Transform fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a series of faults that run from the Maras Triple Junction to the northern end of the Red Sea Rift. The fault system forms the boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. It is a zone of left lateral displacement, signifying the relative motions of the two plates, both plates are moving in a general north-northeast direction, but the Arabian Plate is moving faster, resulting in the observed left lateral motions along the fault of approximately 107 km. The DST fault system is considered to be a transform fault that has accommodated a 105 km northwards displacement of the Arabian Plate. GPS data give similar rates of movement of the Arabian Plate relative to the Africa Plate. It has also proposed that the fault zone is a rift system that is an incipient oceanic spreading center. The Dead Sea Transform began to form during the early to mid-Miocene, a total displacement of 64 km has been estimated for this early phase of motion. In the Pliocene the DST propagated northwards once more through Lebanon into northwestern Syria before reaching the East Anatolian Fault. The southern section of the DST is about 400 km long, extending from the center in the Red Sea at southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to just north of the Hula basin in southernmost Lebanon. The Gulf of Aqaba was created by movement on four left-stepping strike-slip fault segments in a diagonal stepwise sequence known as echelon formation. In the areas where these segments overlap, pull-apart basins have developed, parts of three of these faults ruptured during the 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake. The Wadi Arabah segment of the DST extends for about 160 km from the Gulf of Aqaba to the end of the Dead Sea. Some researchers have further broken down this segment, recognising two separate segments, Avrona and Arava, the Avrona fault extends from the northern part of the Gulf of Aqaba for about 50 km along the Arava Valley. The Arava fault runs from just north of the Avrona fault segment for about 100 km, a slip rate of 4 ±2 mm per year has been estimated from the offset of gullies across the fault. Four major earthquakes are thought to have occurred due to movement on this fault in the last 1,000 years, the Dead Sea is formed in a pull-apart basin due to the left-stepping offset between the Wadi Arabah and Jordan Valley segments. The part of the basin with a fill of more than 2 km is 150 km long. In the north, the fill reaches its maximum thickness of about 10 km. The Jordan valley segment of the DST, the Jordan Rift Valley, a slip rate of between 4.7 and 5.1 mm per year has been estimated over the last 47,500 years
17.
Jordan Rift Valley
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The Jordan Rift Valley, also called the Syro-African Depression, is an elongated depression located in modern-day Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. The Jordan Rift Valley was formed millions of years ago in the Miocene epoch when the Arabian Plate moved northward. One million years later, the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Rift Valley rose so that the sea water stopped flooding the area, the outcropping formations around the basins represent alternating deposition and erosion phases. The lowest point in the Jordan Rift Valley is in the Dead Sea, the shore of the Dead Sea is the lowest land on earth, at 400 meters below sea level. Rising sharply to almost 1,000 meters in the west, and similarly in the east, the valley north of the Dead Sea has long been a site of agriculture because of water available from the Jordan River and numerous springs located on the valleys flanks. The plate boundary which extends through the valley is called the Dead Sea Transform or Dead Sea Rift. The boundary separates the Arabian Plate from the African Plate, connecting the divergent plate boundary in the Red Sea to the East Anatolian Fault in Turkey, the DST fault system is generally considered to be a transform fault that has accommodated a 105-km-northwards displacement of the Arabian Plate. GPS data give similar rates of movement of the Arabian Plate relative to the Africa Plate. It has also proposed that the fault zone is a rift system that is an incipient oceanic spreading center. Geography of Israel Geography of Jordan
18.
Sinai Peninsula
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The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has an area of about 60,000 km2. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypts 27 governorates, the Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. In periods of occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire. Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was the site of fierce fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its setting, rich coral reefs. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in Abrahamic faiths, in addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as Arḍ ul-Fairūz. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Mefkat, or land of turquoise, Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez,125 kilometres wide strip of land, the eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around 200 kilometres wide. The peninsulas eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate, the southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park. Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt, South Sinai and North Sinai, together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres and have a population of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt, Suez is on the end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia in the centre. The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine, Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinais cities and towns reach −16 °C, the mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable and these may be the first historically attested mines. According to the Hebrew Bible, the peninsula was crossed by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and this included numerous halts over a 40-year period of travel sometime towards the end of the Bronze Age
19.
Dead Sea
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The Dead Sea, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 430.5 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is 304 m deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34. 2% salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and this salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide at its widest point and it lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years and it was one of the worlds first health resorts, and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics, the Dead Sea water has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. The Dead Sea is receding at an alarming rate, multiple canals and pipelines were proposed to reduce its recession, which had begun causing many problems. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to neighboring countries, the first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2021. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is Yām ha-Melaḥ, meaning sea of salt, the Bible uses this term alongside two others, the Sea of the Arabah, and the Eastern Sea. The designation Dead Sea never appears in the Bible, in prose sometimes the term Yām ha-Māvet is used, due to the scarcity of aquatic life there. In Arabic the Dead Sea is called al-Bahr al-Mayyit, or less commonly baḥrᵘ lūṭᵃ, another historic name in Arabic was the Sea of Zoʼar, after a nearby town in biblical times. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites, the Dead Sea is an endorheic lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley, a geographic feature formed by the Dead Sea Transform. This left lateral-moving transform fault lies along the plate boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It runs between the East Anatolian Fault zone in Turkey and the end of the Red Sea Rift offshore of the southern tip of Sinai. It is here that the Upper Jordan River/Sea of Galilee/Lower Jordan River water system comes to an end. The Jordan River is the major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, although there are small perennial springs under and around the Dead Sea, forming pools. The Mujib River, biblical Arnon, is one the larger sources of the Dead Sea other than the Jordan. The Wadi Mujib valley,420 m below the sea level in the southern of Jordan valley, is a biosphere reserve, other more substantial sources are Wadi Darajeh /Nahal Dragot, and Nahal Arugot
20.
Jordan Valley (Middle East)
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The Jordan Valley forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. This Rift Valley segment is 120 km long and 15 km wide. In a wider sense, the term may cover the Dead Sea basin and the Wadi Arabah or Arava valley. Over most of its length, the Jordan Valley forms the border between Jordan to the east, and Israel and the West Bank to the west, Israel has allocated 86% of the land to Israeli settlements. According to the used in this article, what is elsewhere sometimes termed the Upper Jordan Valley is not considered part of the Jordan Valley. The Upper Jordan Valley comprises the Jordan River sources and the course of the Jordan River through the Hula Valley, the northern part of the valley, known in Arabic as the Ghor, includes the Jordan River segment south of the Sea of Galilee. Several degrees warmer than adjacent areas, its year-round agricultural climate, fertile soils, south of the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley contains the hot, dry southern part of the valley known as Wadi Araba, the wilderness or Arabah desert of the Bible. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, the valleys Jordanian side was home to about 60,000 people largely engaged in agriculture and pastoralism. By 1971, the Valleys Jordanian population had declined to 5,000 as a result of the 1967 war, investments by the Jordanian government in the region allowed the population to rebound to over 85,000 by 1979. 80% of the farms in the Jordanian part of the valley are family farms no larger than 30 dunams. Some 47,000 Palestinians live in the part of the valley lies in the West Bank in about twenty permanent communities. Thousands of Bedouins also live in temporary communities, since the end of the 1967 war, every Israeli government has considered the western Jordan Valley to be the eastern border of Israel with Jordan. The 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan defines the border between the countries on the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers in the center of those two river courses. In regard to the West Bank, Annex I provides that This line is the boundary between Jordan and the territory which came under Israeli military government control in 1967. Any treatment of this line shall be without prejudice to the status of the territory, in Area C of the West Bank, Israel has been steadily demolishing homes of Palestinians claiming a variety of rationales. In the context of pre-state Zionist and later Israeli settlement, Jordan Valley means the tip of the Sea of Galilee. In the late 1930s, the kibbutzim in the Jordan Valley formed the Council of the Gush, in the 1940s, this economic, cultural, and security cooperation between the kibbutzim continued, and a regional school system was established. In 1949, the Jordan Valley Regional Council was formed, becoming the model for regional councils throughout Israel, by about 3000 BCE, produce from the valley was being exported to neighboring regions
21.
Mount Lebanon
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Mount Lebanon is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above 2,500 m in elevation, the Mount Lebanon range extends along the entire country for about 170 km, parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Their highest peak is Qurnat as Sawda, at 3,088 m, the range receives a substantial amount of precipitation, including snow, which averages around 4 m deep. Lebanon has historically defined by the mountains, which provided protection for the local population. In Lebanon, changes in scenery are related less to geographical distances than to altitudes, the mountains were known for their oak and pine forests. The last remaining old growth groves of the famous Cedar of Lebanon is on the slopes of Mount Lebanon. The Phoenicians used the forests from Mount Lebanon to build their ship fleet, the Phoenicians and successor rulers consistently replanted and restocked the range, even as late as the 16th century, its forested area was considerable. The name Mount Lebanon traces back to the Semitic root lbn, meaning white, Mount Lebanon is mentioned in the Old Testament several times. King Hiram I of Tyre sent engineers with Cedar wood which was abundant in Mount Lebanon, since then the Cedar species known scientifically as Cedrus libani is often associated with Mount Lebanon. Eusebius records that the Emperor Constantine destroyed a temple of Venus on the summit of Mount Lebanon, in the late 8th century a group known as the Mardaites settled in North Lebanon following the order of the Byzantine Emperor, their mission was to raid Islamic territories in Syria. They merged with the population, refusing to leave after the emperor struck a deal with the Muslim Caliph of Damascus, thus. In the 9th century AD, tribes from the Jabal el Summaq area north of Aleppo in Syria began settling the southern half of the mountain range. These tribes were known as the Tanoukhiyoun and in the 11th century they converted to the Druze faith and this entire area became known as the ‘Jabal ad-Duruz’. In the early 17th century, Emir Fakhreddine the 2nd ascended the throne in the Druze part of the known as the Chouf. In an effort to unify Mount Lebanon, Emir Fakhreddine opened the door to Christians and in particular the Maronite settlement of the Chouf, throughout the 18th century and into the 19th century more and more Maronites settled in the Druze regions of the Mount. The Druze won militarily, but not politically, because European powers intervened on behalf of the Maronites, seeing their authority decline in Mount Lebanon, a few Lebanese Druze began migrating to the new Jabal ad-Duruz in southern Syria. In 1861, the Mount Lebanon autonomous district was established within the Ottoman system, the Khazen crest reflects the familys special closeness to Mount Lebanon, with snowy mountains and a cedar tree depicted. Mount Lebanon also lent its name to two political designations, a province in Ottoman Syria that existed since 1516 and the central Governorate of modern Lebanon
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Anti-Lebanon Mountains
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The Anti-Lebanon Mountains are a southwest-northeast-trending mountain range that forms the majority of the border between Syria and Lebanon. The border is defined along the crest of the range. Most of the lies in Syria. Its Western name Anti-Lebanon comes from the Greek and Latin Antilibanus, derived from its position opposite, to the west of the Anti-Lebanon lie valleys that separate it from Mount Lebanon in central Lebanon, Baalbeks Beqaa Valley in the north and the Hasbani River valley in the south. To the east, in Syria, lies the Eastern Plateau, the Anti-Lebanon range is approximately 150 kilometres in length. To the north, it extends to almost the latitude of the Syrian city of Homs. To the south, the range coalesces with the Golan Heights plateau but includes the highest peaks of Mount Hermon, at 2,814 metres and these peaks are snow-covered for much of the year and are located on the Lebanese-Syrian border. There are various endemic flora found and named after the region, including, Euphorbia antilibanotica, Teucrium antilibanoticum, Valerianella antilibanotica, and Iris antilibanotica
23.
Hula Valley
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The Hula Valley is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water. It is a stopover for birds migrating along the Syrian-African Rift Valley between Africa, Europe, and Asia. The marshland around Lake Hula, a ground for mosquitoes carrying malaria, was drained in the 1950s. A small section of the valley was later reflooded in an attempt to revive a nearly extinct ecosystem, an estimated 500 million migrating birds now pass through the Hula Valley every year. Lake Hula was historically referred to by different names, the 14th century BCE Egyptians called the lake Samchuna, while the Hebrew Bible records it as Merom. In the 1st century CE, the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus termed it Semechonitis, John Lightfoot writing it as Samochonitis, currently the lake is called Buheirat el Huleh in Arabic and Agam ha-Hula in Hebrew, stemming from the Aramaic Hulata or Ulata. The Waters of Merom has sometimes used in scientific literature. On both sides of the valley are steep slopes, the Golan Heights to the east and the Upper Galilees Naftali mountains to the west rise to 400 to 900 meters above sea level. Annual rainfall varies greatly between different parts of the valley and ranges from about 400 millimeters in the south of the valley, the wind regime is dominated by regional patterns in the winter with occasional strong north-easterly wind storms known in Arabic as Sharkiyah. Prior to its drainage in the early 1950s, Lake Hula was 5.3 kilometers long and 4.4 kilometers wide and it was about one and a half meters deep in summer and three meters deep in winter. The lake attracted human settlement from prehistoric times. Paleolithic archaeological remains were found near the Bnot Yaakov bridge at the end of the valley. The first permanent settlement, Enan, dates from 9, 000-10,000 years ago and was discovered in the valley, the Hula Valley was a main junction on the important trade route connecting the large commercial centre of Damascus with the eastern Mediterranean coast and Egypt. During the Bronze Age, the cities of Hazor and Laish were built at key locations on this route approximately 4,000 years ago. At some point the area came under Israelite control until it was captured by the Assyrian armies of Tiglath-Pileser III, the Bible records lake Merom as the site of a victory of Joshua over the Canaanites. Throughout the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early Arab periods rural settlement in the Hula Valley was uninterrupted, during the Seleucid Empire, the town Seleucia Samulias was founded on the lake shore. Traditional crops were rice, cotton and sugar cane, sorghum, water buffalo were introduced in the eighth century supplying milk and serving as beasts of burden. In the 19th century, the valley, mainly marshy ground, John MacGregor, a Victorian adventurer, was captured with his boat, the Rob Roy, by dark-skinned Bedouin living in the Hula marshes
24.
Galilee
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Al-Jalīl) is a region in northern Israel. The term Galilee traditionally refers to the part and divided into Upper Galilee. By this definition it overlaps with much of the administrative Northern District of the country, the regions Israelite name is from the Hebrew root galil, an ultimately unique word for district, and usually circle. The Hebrew form used in Isaiah 8,23 is in the state, glil hagoyim, meaning Galilee of the Nations. The region in turn gave rise to the English name for the Sea of Galilee referred to as such in many languages including ancient Arabic and these are the three names used in originally internal Jewish-authored literature rather than the Sea of Galilee. However, Jews did use the Galilee to refer to the whole region, most of Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of between 500 and 700 m. Several high mountains are in the region, including Mount Tabor and Mount Meron, as a result of this climate, flora and wildlife thrive in the region, while many birds annually migrate from colder climates to Africa and back through the Hula–Jordan corridor. According to the Bible, Galilee was named by the Israelites and was the region of Naphthali and Dan. However, Dan was dispersed among the people rather than isolated to the lands of Dan, as the Tribe of Dan was the hereditary local law enforcement. Normally, Galilee is just referred to as Naphthali, hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David, accepted the upland plain among the mountains of Naphtali and renamed it the land of Cabul for a time. After Judea became a Roman province in 6, C. E. Galilee briefly became a part of it, the Galilee region was presumably the home of Jesus during at least 30 years of his life. Much of the first three Gospels of the New Testament give an account of Jesus public ministry in this province, particularly in the towns of Nazareth, Galilee is also cited as the place where Jesus performed many public miracles, including curing a blind man. After the death of Jesus, some accounts suggest his disciples returned to Galilee, many are cited for their large number of students and followers throughout the Jewish people among the common people. According to the Talmud, one of the most important founders of the modern Jewish faith, simeon bar Yochai, one of the most famed of all the Tannaim, hid from the Romans in the Galilee, and dug tunnels there to hide. Many miracles are ascribed to him during his Galilean period after escaping Judea proper, in medieval Hebrew legend, he may have written the Zohar while there. Eastern Galilee retained a Jewish majority until the seventh century, after the Arab caliphate took control of the region in 638, it became part of Jund al-Urdunn. Its major towns were Tiberias, Baysan, Acre, Saffuriya, the Shia Fatimids conquered the region in the 10th century, a breakaway sect, venerating the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, formed the Druze religion, centered in Mount Lebanon and partially Galilee. During the Crusades, Galilee was organized into the Principality of Galilee, the Jewish population of Galilee increased significantly following their expulsion from Spain and welcome from the Ottoman Empire
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Golan Heights
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The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan or the Syrian Golan, is a region in the Levant. As a geopolitical region, the Golan Heights is the area captured from Syria and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War and this region includes the western two-thirds of the geological Golan Heights, as well as the Israeli-occupied part of Mount Hermon. The earliest evidence of habitation dates to the Upper Paleolithic period. According to the Bible, an Amorite Kingdom in Bashan was conquered by Israelites during the reign of King Og, throughout the Old Testament period, the Golan was the focus of a power struggle between the Kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus. The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled there in the 2nd century BCE, organized Jewish settlement in the region came to an end in 636 CE when it was conquered by Arabs under Umar ibn al-Khattāb. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was part of the Vilayet of Damascus until it was transferred to French control in 1918, when the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Arab Republic. Internationally recognized as Syrian territory, the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel since 1967 and it was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, establishing the Purple Line. On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement, although this was rejected after the Khartoum Resolution of 1 September 1967. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Syria tried but failed to recapture the Golan and this part was incorporated into a demilitarised zone that runs along the ceasefire line and extends eastward. This strip is under the control of UNDOF. Israel states it has a right to retain the Golan, citing the text of UN Resolution 242, however, the international community reject Israeli claims to title to the territory and regards it as sovereign Syrian territory. Historically, Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, later, in 2010, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Syria to abandon its dreams of recovering the Golan Heights. Approximately 10% of Syrian Golan Druze have accepted Israeli citizenship, according to the CIA World Factbook, as of 2010, there are 41 Israeli settlements and civilian land use sites in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Arabic names are Jawlān and Djolan, in the Bible, Golan is mentioned as a city of refuge located in Bashan, Deuteronomy 4,43, Joshua 20,8,1 Chronicles 6,71. Nineteenth-century authors interpreted the word Golan as meaning something surrounded, hence a district, the Greek name for the region is Gaulanitis. In the Mishna the name is Gablān similar to Aramaic language names for the region, Gawlāna, Guwlana, Arab cartographers of the Byzantine period referred to the area as jabal, though the region is a plateau. The Muslims took over in 7th century CE, the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia refers to the region as Gaulonitis. The name Golan Heights was not used before the 19th century, the Golan Heights borders Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan
26.
Jordan River
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The Jordan River is a 251-kilometre -long river in the Middle East that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and on to the Dead Sea. Israel and the West Bank border the river to the west, while the Golan Heights, both Jordan and the West Bank take their names from the river. The Jordan River has a course and a lower one. In this sense, the Jordan Valley may be separated into upper, central, over its upper course, the river drops rapidly in a 75-kilometre run to the once large and swampy Lake Hula, which is slightly above sea level. Exiting the now much diminished lake, it goes through an even steeper drop over the 25 kilometres down to the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan deposits much of the silt it is carrying within the lake, which it leaves again near its southern tip. At that point the river is situated about 210 metres below sea level, two major tributaries enter from the east during this last section, the Yarmouk River and Zarqa River. Its section north of the Sea of Galilee is within the boundaries of Israel, south of the lake, it forms the border between the Kingdom of Jordan, and Israel. The streams coming together to create the River Jordan in its basin are, west to east, Iyyon. Hasbani, a stream flows from Mount Lebanon. Dan, a stream whose source is also at the base of Mount Hermon, Banias, a stream arising from a spring at Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon. The full text of W. F. Lynchs 1849 book Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan, in 1964, Israel began operating a pumping station that diverts water from the Sea of Galilee to the National Water Carrier. Also in 1964, Jordan constructed a channel that diverted water from the Yarmouk River, another tributary of the Jordan River to the East Ghor Canal. Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouks waters, environmentalists blame Israel, Jordan and Syria for extensive damage to the Jordan River ecosystem. In modern times, the waters are 70% to 90% used for human purposes, because of this and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, as well as industrial extraction of salts through evaporation ponds, the sea is shrinking. All the shallow waters of the end of the sea have been drained in modern times and are now salt flats. A small section of the northernmost portion of the Lower Jordan, 3-kilometre below the Sea of Galilee, has been kept pristine for baptism and local tourism. Most polluted is the 100-kilometre downstream stretch—a meandering stream from above the confluence with the Yarmouk to the Dead Sea, environmentalists say the practice of letting sewage and brackish water flow into the river has almost destroyed its ecosystem. Rescuing the Jordan could take decades, according to environmentalists, the same environmentalist organization had said in a report that the Jordan River could dry up by 2011 unless the decay is stopped
27.
Sea of Galilee
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The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias, is a large freshwater lake in Israel. It is approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long and its area is 166.7 km2 at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately 43 m. At levels between 215 metres and 209 metres below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, the lake is fed partly by underground springs although its main source is the Jordan River which flows through it from north to south. The Sea of Galilee is situated in northeast Israel, between the Golan Heights and the Galilee region, in the Jordan Rift Valley, the caused by the separation of the African and Arabian Plates. Consequently, the area is subject to earthquakes, and in the past and this is evident by the abundant basalt and other igneous rocks that define the geology of the Galilee. The lake has been called by different names throughout its history, with changing fate of the towns, the lakes name also changed. This name was found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. Kinneret was listed among the cities in Joshua 19,35. A persistent, though likely erroneous popular etymology of the name presumes that the name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor, the scholarly consensus though is that the origin of the name lies with the important Bronze and Iron Age city of Kinneret, excavated at Tell el-Oreimeh. However, there is no evidence that the city of Kinneret itself was not named after the body of water rather than vice versa, or for the origin of the towns name. Sea of Ginosar The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus mention the sea by the name Sea of Ginosar after the fertile plain of Ginosar that lies on its western side. Ginosar is yet another name derived from Kinneret, Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and was adopted into Arabic as Buhairet Tabariyya, Lake Tiberias. This is the name employed by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari, in 1989 remains of a hunter-gatherer site were found under the water at the southern end. Remains of mud huts were found which are the oldest known buildings in the world, the Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris, which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Hippos. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, Josephus also reported a thriving fishing industry at this time, with 230 boats regularly working in the lake. Archaeologists discovered one such boat, nicknamed the Jesus Boat, in 1986, much of the ministry of Jesus occurred on the shores of Lake Galilee. In those days, there was a ribbon development of settlements and villages around the lake and plenty of trade
28.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
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Jordan
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Jordan, officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab kingdom in Western Asia, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east and south, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, Israel, Palestine and the Dead Sea to the west, Jordan is strategically located at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe. The capital, Amman, is Jordans most populous city as well as the countrys economic, what is now Jordan has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period. Three stable kingdoms emerged there at the end of the Bronze Age, Ammon, Moab, later rulers include the Nabataean Kingdom, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. After the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 during World War I, the Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921 by the then Emir Abdullah I and became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan became an independent state known as The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Jordan captured the West Bank, which it later lost in 1967, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan is a founding member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and is one of two Arab states to have signed a peace treaty with Israel. The country is a monarchy, but the king holds wide executive and legislative powers. Jordan is a relatively-small, semi-arid, almost-landlocked country with a population numbering at 9.5 million, Sunni Islam, practiced by around 92% of the population, is the dominant religion in Jordan. It coexists with an indigenous Christian minority, Jordan is considered to be among the safest of Arab countries in the Middle East, and has avoided long-term terrorism and instability. The kingdom is also a refuge to thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing the Islamic State, while Jordan continues to accept refugees, the recent large influx from Syria placed substantial strain on national resources and infrastructure. Jordan is classified as a country of high human development with a middle income economy. The Jordanian economy, one of the smallest economies in the region, is attractive to foreign investors based upon a skilled workforce, the country is a major tourist destination, and also attracts medical tourism due to its well developed health sector. Nonetheless, a lack of resources, large flow of refugees. Jordan is named after the Jordan River, where Jesus is said to have been baptized, the origin of the rivers name is debated, but the most common explanation is that it derives from the word yarad, found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and other Semitic languages. Others regard the name as having an Indo-Aryan origin, combining the words yor and don, another theory is that it is from the Arabic root word wrd, as in people coming to a major source of water. The name Jordan appears in an ancient Egyptian papyrus called Papyrus Anastasi I, the lands of modern-day Jordan were historically called Transjordan, meaning beyond the Jordan River. The name was Arabized into Al-Urdunn during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, during crusader rule, it was called Oultrejordain
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Arabah
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The Arabah, known in Hebrew as Arava or Aravah, is a geographic name for the area south of the Dead Sea basin which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east. This included the Jordan River Valley between Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea, the Dead Sea itself, and what is called today the Arava Valley. The modern use of the term is restricted to this section alone. The southern stretch of the Arabah is 166 km in length from the Gulf of Aqaba to the shore of the Dead Sea. Topographically, the region is divided into three sections, from this crest, the land slopes gently northward over the next 74 km to a point 15 km south of the Dead Sea. In the last section, the Arabah drops steeply to the Dead Sea, the Arabah is scenic with colorful cliffs and sharp-topped mountains. The southern Arabah is hot and dry and virtually without rain, there are numerous species of flora and fauna in the Aravah Valley. Notably the Caracal, Caracal caracal, is found on savannas of the valley, in Biblical times, the Arava was a center of copper production, King Solomon is believed to have had mines here based on copper mines dating to his reign. The Arabah was home to the Edomites, east of the Arabah was the domain of the Nabateans, the builders of the city of Petra. Kibbutz Yotvata founded in 1957, was named for an ancient town in the mentioned in the Bible. Kibbutz Lotan has a bird-watching center, the oldest moshav in the central Arava area is Ein Yahav. The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty was signed in the Arava on October 26,1994, the governments of Jordan and Israel are promoting development of the region. There is a plan to bring sea water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea through a canal and this project was once an issue of dispute between Jordan and Israel, but it was recently agreed that the project shall be constructed on and by the Jordanian side. In 2004, the Jordanian administrative district of Wadi Araba had a population of 6,775, the main economic activities for these Arabah residents revolve around herding sheep, agriculture, handicrafts, and the Jordanian Army. Timna Valley Park is notable for its rock carvings, some of the oldest copper mines in the world. On the Jordanian side is the famous Wadi Rum, which is famous among rock climbers, hikers, campers, Feynan Ecolodge was opened in Wadi Feynan by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in 2005. Below is a list of Jordanian population clusters in Wadi Araba, The total population of the Jordanian portion of the region is 103,000, below is a list of Israeli localities in the Arava, from north to south. The population of the Israeli portion is 52,000, of which 47,500 live in Eilat, and just over 5,000 live in 20 small towns north of Eilat, the Israeli residents of the region are almost entirely Jews
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Gulf of Aqaba
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The Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. Its coastline is divided between four countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, the gulf is east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. With the Gulf of Suez to the west, it extends from the portion of the Red Sea. It reaches a depth of 1,850 m in its central area. The gulf measures 24 kilometres at its widest point and stretches some 160 kilometres north from the Straits of Tiran to where Israel meets Egypt, like the coastal waters of the Red Sea, the gulf is one of the worlds premier sites for diving. At this northern end of the gulf are three important cities, Taba in Egypt, Eilat in Israel, and Aqaba in Jordan and they are strategically important commercial ports and popular resorts for tourists seeking to enjoy the warm climate. Further south, Haql is the largest Saudi Arabian city on the gulf, on Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab are the major centers. The largest population center is Aqaba, with a population of 108,000, followed by Eilat with a population of 48,000. The gulf is one of two created by the Sinai Peninsulas bifurcation of the northern Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez lying to the west of the peninsula. Geologically, the forms the southern end of the Dead Sea Transform. It contains three small pull-apart basins, the Elat Deep, Aragonese Deep and Dakar Deep, formed between four left lateral strike-slip fault segments, movement on one of these faults caused the 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake. Trade across the Red Sea between Thebes port of Elim and Elat at the head of the gulf is documented as early as the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, egyptian settlements near Timna at the head of the gulf date to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. At the northern edge, the ancient city of Ayla was a hub for the Nabateans. The Romans built the Via Traiana Nova, which joined the Kings Highway at Aqaba and connected Africa to Asia, Aqaba was a major Ottoman port, connected to Damascus and Medina by the Hejaz railway. During World War I, the Battle of Aqaba was the key battle that ended a 500-year Ottoman rule over Greater Syria, the gulf is one of the most popular diving destinations in the world. About 250,000 dives are performed annually in Eilats 11 km coastline, the Landscape of Wadi Rum to the east of the northern edge of the gulf is a popular destination. Other destinations are the ruins of the civilization of Ayla in the city of Aqaba. Whales, orcas, dolphins, dugongs, and whale sharks live in the gulf as well
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Red Sea
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The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait, to the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion, the sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has an area of roughly 438,000 km2, is about 2250 km long and. It has a depth of 2211 m in the central median trench. However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life, the sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the worlds northernmost tropical sea, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limits of the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, a line joining Husn Murad and Ras Siyyan. Red Sea is a translation of the Greek Erythra Thalassa, Latin Mare Rubrum, Arabic, البحر الأحمر. Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar, Somali Badda Cas and Tigrinya Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī, the name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the waters surface. A theory favored by modern scholars is that the name red is referring to the direction south. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions, herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably. Historically, it was known to western geographers as Mare Mecca. Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. C, in that version, the Yam Suph is translated as Erythra Thalassa. The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms — the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek Erythra thalassa in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the part of the Indian Ocean. The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, one such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC. Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea, historically, scholars argued whether these trips were possible
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Aden Ridge
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The Aden Ridge is a part of an active oblique rift system located in the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula to the north. The Gulf of Aden is divided east to west into three regions by large-scale discontinuities, the Socotra, Alula Fartak, and Shukra-El Shiek transform faults. Located in the region, bounded by the Alula Fartak fault. The Aden Ridge connects to the Sheba Ridge in the eastern region, due to oblique nature of the Aden Ridge, it is highly segmented. Along the ridge there are seven transform faults that offset it to the north, extension eventually gave way to seafloor spreading, first initiated near the Owen transform fault ~18 Ma ago. Seafloor spreading then propagated as far west as the Shukra-El Shiek fault at a rate of ~14 cm/yr ~6 Ma ago rifting propagated west of the Shukra-El Shiek fault until terminating at the Afar plume. The Afar plume is believed to have contributed to the initiation of the Aden ridge, currently, the Aden Ridge is undergoing extension at a rate of ~15 mm/yr. Compared to its ridges, the Aden ridge is much more segmented. The Aden Ridge is broken up by seven transform faults with ridge segments of 10 –40 km, in contrast, the Sheba Ridge is broken by only three transform faults and the Tadjoura Ridge continues essentially uninterrupted to the Afar Plume. Sauter et al. proposed that variations in the spacing of spreading cells along ridges is a result of spreading rate, one likely cause for the segmentation of the Aden ridge is its distance from the Afar plume. The western most region of the Gulf, where the Tadjoura Ridge is located, has an anomalously high temperature due to its proximity to the Afar plume. The result of this is higher degrees of melting and magmatism below the ridge, the difference in segmentation between the Aden and Sheba ridges can be explained by varying degrees of obliquity. The ocean-continent transition of the Sheba ridge formed parallel to the syn-rift structure, the former scenario is more accommodating to oblique spreading and does not require as many transform faults for stability
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Volcano
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A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Earths volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of plate hypothesis volcanism, Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called hotspots, for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs with magma from the boundary,3,000 km deep in the Earth. Volcanoes are usually not created where two plates slide past one another. Erupting volcanoes can pose hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption. Historically, so-called volcanic winters have caused catastrophic famines, the word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology, at the mid-oceanic ridges, two tectonic plates diverge from one another as new oceanic crust is formed by the cooling and solidifying of hot molten rock. Most divergent plate boundaries are at the bottom of the oceans, therefore, most volcanic activity is submarine, black smokers are evidence of this kind of volcanic activity. Where the mid-oceanic ridge is above sea-level, volcanic islands are formed, for example, subduction zones are places where two plates, usually an oceanic plate and a continental plate, collide. In this case, the plate subducts, or submerges under the continental plate forming a deep ocean trench just offshore. In a process called flux melting, water released from the subducting plate lowers the temperature of the overlying mantle wedge. This magma tends to be very viscous due to its high content, so it often does not reach the surface. When it does reach the surface, a volcano is formed, typical examples of this kind of volcano are Mount Etna and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Because tectonic plates move across them, each volcano becomes dormant and is eventually re-formed as the plate advances over the postulated plume and this theory is currently under criticism, however. The most common perception of a volcano is of a mountain, spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit, however. The features of volcanoes are more complicated and their structure. Some volcanoes have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater while others have features such as massive plateaus
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Triple junction
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A triple junction is the point where the boundaries of three tectonic plates meet. Of the many types of triple junction only a few are stable through time. The first scientific paper detailing the triple junction concept was published in 1969 by W. Jason Morgan, Dan McKenzie, the term had traditionally been used for the intersection of three divergent boundaries or spreading ridges. These three divergent boundaries ideally meet at near 120° angles, in plate tectonics theory during the breakup of a continent, three divergent boundaries form, radiating out from a central point. One of these divergent plate boundaries fails and the two continue spreading to form an ocean. The NE-trending Benue Trough is the arm of this junction. In the years since, the term triple-junction has come to refer to any point where three tectonic plates meet, the junction of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the East African Rift centered in the Afar Triangle is the only Ridge-Ridge-Ridge triple junction above sea level. The Rodrigues Triple Point is a R-R-R triple junction in the southern Indian Ocean, where the African, the Indo-Australian, the Galapagos Triple Junction is an R-R-R triple junction where the Nazca, the Cocos, and the Pacific Plates meet. The East Pacific Rise extends north and south from this junction and this example is made more complex by the Galapagos Microplate which is a small separate plate on the rise just to the southeast of the triple junction. Chiapas coast off Tapachula where Guatemala, North America and Pacific join and this is pushed eastward by the Cocos plate. On the west coast of North America is another triple junction offshore of Cape Mendocino. To the south, the San Andreas Fault, a fault and transform plate boundary, separates the Pacific Plate. To the north lies the Cascadia subduction zone, where a section of the Juan de Fuca Plate called the Gorda Plate is being subducted under the North American Plate, another transform fault, the Mendocino Fault, runs along the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the Gorda Plate. Where the three intersect is the active, F-F-T Mendocino Triple Junction. The Amurian Plate, the Okhotsk Plate, and the Philippine Sea Plate meet in Japan near Mt. Fuji. The Azores Triple Junction is a triple junction where the boundaries of three tectonic plates intersect, the North American Plate, the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate. The Boso Triple Junction offshore Japan is a T-T-T triple junction between the Okhotsk Plate, Pacific Plate and Philippine Sea Plate, the North Sea is located at the extinct triple junction of three former continental plates of the Palaeozoic era, Avalonia, Laurentia and Baltica. The properties of triple junctions are most easily understood from the purely kinematic point of view where the plates are rigid, no knowledge of the Earths interior or the geological details of the crust are then needed
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Arabian Plate
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The Arabian Plate is a minor tectonic plate in the northern and eastern hemispheres. It is one of three continental plates that have been moving northward in recent geological history and colliding with the Eurasian Plate, the Arabian Plate consists mostly of the Arabian peninsula, it extends eastward at the Sinai and the Red Sea and northward to the Levant. The Arabian Plate was part of the African plate during much of the Phanerozoic Eon, the opening of the Red Sea rift led to extensive volcanic activity. There are large volcanic fields called the Older Harrats, such as Harrat Khaybar and Harrat Rahat, some activity still continues especially around Medina, and there are regular eruptions within the Red Sea. The collision between the Arabian Plate and Eurasia is pushing up the Zagros Mountains of Iran, because the Arabian Plate and Eurasian Plate collide, many cities are in danger such as those in southeastern Turkey. These dangers include earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, countries within the plate include Lebanon, Syria, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Regions include parts of the Southern Denkalya Subregion, the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Awdal and the Khuzestan Province
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United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
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Albertine Rift
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The Albertine Rift is the western branch of the East African Rift, covering parts of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. It extends from the end of Lake Albert to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. The geographical term includes the valley and the surrounding mountains, the Albertine Rift and the mountains are the result of tectonic movements that are gradually splitting the Somali Plate away from the rest of the African continent. The mountains surrounding the rift are composed of uplifted Pre-Cambrian basement rocks, the northern part of the rift is crossed by two large mountain ranges, the Rwenzori Mountains between Lake Albert and Lake Rutanzige and the Virunga Mountains between Lake Rutanziga and Lake Kivu. The Virungas form a barrier between the Nile Basin to the north and east and the Congo Basin to the west, Lake Rutenzige is fed by several large rivers, the Rutshuru River being one, and drains to the north through the Semliki River into Lake Albert. The Victoria Nile flows from Lake Victoria into the end of Lake Albert and exits as the White Nile from a point slightly to the west. South of the Virungu, Lake Kivu drains to the south into Lake Tanganyika through the Ruzizi River, Lake Tanganyika then drains into the Congo River via the Lukuga River. Before that Lake Tanganyika, or separate sub-basins in what is now the lake, the Lukuga has formed relatively recently, providing a route through which aquatic species of the Congo Basin could colonize Lake Tanganyika, which formerly had distinct fauna. From north to south the mountains include the Lendu Plateau, Rwenzori Mountains, Virunga Mountains, the Ruwenzori mountains have been identified with Ptolemys Mountains of the Moon. The range covers an area 120 kilometres long and 65 kilometres wide and this range includes Mount Stanley at 5,119 metres, Mount Speke at 4,890 metres and Mount Baker at 4,843 metres. The Virunga Massif along the border between Rwanda and the DRC consists of eight volcanoes, two of these, Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo, are still highly active. Most of the rise to between 2,000 metres and 3,500 metres. The Albertine Rift montane forests are important eco-regions, transitional forests, intermediate between lowland and montane forest, are found at elevations from around 1,000 metres to 1,750 metres. Montane forest covers the slopes from around 1,600 metres to 3,500 metres, above 2,400 metres there are areas of bamboo and elfin forest. Heather and grasses predominate above 3,500 metres, the ecology is threatened by deforestation as a growing population seeks new farmland. Illegal timber extraction is another problem, and artisanal gold mining causes some local damage
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Gregory Rift
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The Gregory Rift is the eastern branch of the East African Rift fracture system. The rift is being caused by the separation of the Somali plate from the Nubian plate, ancient fossils of early hominins, the ancestors of humans, have been found in the southern part of the Gregory Rift. The Gregory Rift is named in honour of the British geologist John Walter Gregory who explored the geology of the rift in 1892-93 and 1919, the Gregory Rift lies within the Mozambique belt, often considered to be the remains of an orogenic system similar to the Himalayas. This belt runs from Ethiopia through Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, the rift is widest at the northern end in the Afar region, narrowing to a few kilometers in northern Tanzania, then splaying out in the North Tanzania Divergence. The Gregory Rift has shoulders rising over 3,000 metres above sea level,1,000 metres above the part of the graben. The Tanzanian portion includes Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, and this portion also contains Ol Doinyo Lengai, the worlds only active carbonatite volcano. Lakes in the other than Lake Turkana are mostly small and shallow, some with fresh water. The thickness of sediments is mostly unknown. In Lake Turkana they seem to be at most 4 kilometres thick, in the Baringo - Bogoria half-graben from 500 metres to 1,000 metres thick and in the Afar depression up to 100 metres thick. The first geologist to explore the region was Joseph Thomson, a member of an expedition in 1879–1880 sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society of Britain, from his observations he deduced the existence of a great fault. Thomson returned in 1883, traveling through the valley in Kenya from Mount Longonot to Lake Baringo. John Walter Gregory visited central Kenya in 1893 and again in 1919 and his 1896 book The Great Rift Valley is considered a classic. Gregory was the first to use the term rift valley, which he defined as a valley with parallel and almost vertical sides. In 1913 the German geologist Hans Reck made the first study of the strata in the Olduvai Gorge to the west of the Crater Highlands and he brought a large collection of mammalian fossils back to Berlin. In 1928 Louis Leakey, the anthropologist, visited Berlin, where he saw some of Recks materials were artifacts. Leakey began exploring Olduvai in the 1930s and collecting material that has led to the site being recognized as an important center of early hominin occupation. Volcanism and rifting started in Kenya in the region of Turkana between 40 and 35 million years ago and then spread north and south. Volcanic activity started in the central Ethiopian plateau around 30 million years ago, the first period of activity deposited flood basalts and rhyolites from 500 metres to 2,000 metres thick
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Virunga Mountains
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The Virunga Mountains are a chain of volcanoes in East Africa, along the northern border of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda. The mountain range is a branch of the Albertine Rift Mountains and they are located between Lake Edward and Lake Kivu. The name Virunga is an English version of the Kinyarwanda word ibirunga, the mountain range consists of eight major volcanoes. Most of them are dormant, except Mount Nyiragongo 3,462 metres and Mount Nyamuragira 3,063 metres, recent eruptions occurred in 2006 and in January 2010. Mount Karisimbi is the highest volcano at 4,507 metres, the oldest mountain is Mount Sabyinyo, which rises 3,634 metres above sea level. The Virunga Mountains are home of the endangered mountain gorilla, listed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species due to habitat loss, poaching, disease. The Karisoke Research Center, founded by Dian Fossey to observe gorillas in their habitat, is located between Mount Karisimbi and Mount Bisoke. Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, samba Mapangala, a Congolese-Kenyan musician, had a band called Orchestra Virunga. George Schaller Earl Denman Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Mfumbiro, official Virunga National Park website Kwita Izina - official Baby Gorilla Naming Ceremony site - Virunga Rwanda Map of Virunga Mountains - Virunga Volcanoes Travel Portal
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Rwenzori Mountains
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The Rwenzori mountains support glaciers and are one source of the river Nile. The Rwenzori Mountains reach heights up to 5,109 metres, the highest Rwenzori peaks are permanently snow-capped. Rwenzori Mountains National Park and Virunga National Park are located in the range, the mountains formed about three million years ago in the late Pliocene epoch and are the result of an uplifted block of crystalline rocks including gneiss, amphibolite, granite, and quartzite. They are on the flanks of the Albertine Rift, the branch of the East African Rift. This uplift divided the paleolake Obweruka and created three of the present-day African Great Lakes, Lake Albert, Lake Edward, and Lake George, the range is about 120 kilometres long and 65 kilometres wide. It consists of six massifs separated by gorges, Mount Stanley, Mount Speke, Mount Baker, Mount Emin, Mount Gessi. Mount Stanley has several summits, with Margherita Peak being the highest point. The rock is metamorphic, and the mountains are believed to have been tilted and squeezed upwards by plate movement and they are in an extremely humid area and frequently enveloped in clouds. In 150 AD, the Alexandrian Greek geographer Ptolemy referred to a snowcapped massif in the heart of Africa by the name of Selenes oros, Latinized as Lunae Montes and these are now widely accepted to be the Rwenzori Mountains. The first modern European sighting of the Rwenzori was by the expedition of Henry Morton Stanley in 1889, the first ascent to the summit was made by the Duke of the Abruzzi in 1906. His expedition quickly made first ascents of all major snow and ice peaks, mapping their complex geography and his team consisted of mountain guides, biologists, surveyors, a geologist, photographers, and about 150 porters. Photographer Vittorio Sella took a number of showing a now-vanished world. Sellas photographic work is conserved at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin and at the Istituto di Fotografia Alpina Vittorio Sella in Biella, the Makerere University, Uganda, also has a selection of his images. The first traverse of the six massifs of the Rwenzori Mountains was done in 1975, starting on 27 January, the traverse was done by Polish climbers Janusz Chalecki, Stanisław Cholewa, and Leszek Czarnecki, with Mirosław Kuraś accompanying them on the last half of the traverse. The Rwenzori range is the home of the Konjo and Amba peoples, in the early 1900s, these two tribes were added to the Toro Kingdom by the colonial powers. The Konjo and Amba began to agitate for separation from Toro in the 1950s, a movement that became Rwenzururu, the insurgency ended through a negotiated settlement in 1982, though the Rwenzururu Kingdom was acknowledged by the government in 2008. The Rwenzori are known for their vegetation, ranging from tropical rainforest through alpine meadows to snow, the range supports its own species and varieties of giant groundsel and giant lobelia and even has a six metre high heather covered in moss that lives on one of its peaks. Although the flora in the Rwenzori is closely related to that of other East-African high mountains it is more luxuriant here
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Rift Valley lakes
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The Rift Valley lakes are a group of lakes in the East African Rift that runs north-south through the eastern side of the African continent, from Ethiopia in the north to Malawi in the south. These lakes include some of the oldest, largest, and deepest lakes in the world, many are freshwater ecoregions of great biodiversity, while others are alkaline soda lakes supporting highly specialised organisms. The Rift Valley lakes are known for the evolution of at least 800 cichlid fish species that live in their waters. More species are expected to be discovered, the World Wildlife Fund has designated these lakes as one of its Global 200 priority ecoregions for conservation. In this article, the lakes are listed, generally in order from north to south. Lakes such as Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika have formed in the valleys of the East African Rift zone. Hide another face, dissolved within are billions of cubic meters of methane and more still of carbon dioxide. The Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes are the northernmost of the African Rift Valley lakes, most of the Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes do not have an outlet, and most are alkaline. South of the Ethiopian highlands, the valley splits into two major troughs. The Eastern Rift is home to the Kenyan Rift Valley lakes, the Kenyan section of the Rift Valley is home to eight lakes, of which three are freshwater and the rest alkaline. Of the latter, the soda lakes of the Eastern Rift Valley have crystallised salt turning the shores white and are famous for the large flocks of flamingo that feed on crustaceans. Lake Baringo, second largest of the Kenyan Rift Valley lakes,80 square miles, elevation 1,000 metres, freshwater Lake Bogoria, shallow soda lake, a national preserve. 34 square kilometres, elevation 990 metres Lake Elmenteita, shallow soda lake, Lake Logipi, a shallow hot-spring fed soda lake in the Suguta Valley just south of Lake Turkana. Lake Magadi, shallow soda lake near the border with Tanzania. Lake Naivasha,160 square kilometres although it varies somewhat with rainfall, elevation 1,890 metres, freshwater Lake Nakuru,40 square kilometres, elevation 1,759 metres Lake Turkana, the largest of the Kenyan lakes, on the border of Kenya and Ethiopia. The lakes of the Western or Albertine Rift, with Lake Victoria, include the largest, deepest and they are also referred to as the Central African lakes. Lakes Albert, Victoria, and Edward are part of the Nile River basin, Lake Victoria, with an area of 68,800 square kilometres, is the largest lake in Africa. It is not in the valley, instead occupying a depression between the eastern and western rifts formed by the uplift of the rifts to either side
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Lake Tanganyika
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Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is the second oldest freshwater lake in the world, second largest by volume, the lake is divided among four countries – Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia, with Tanzania and DRC possessing the majority of the lake. The water flows into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean, the name apparently refers to Tanganika, the great lake spreading out like a plain, or plain-like lake. Lake Tanganyika is situated within the Albertine Rift, the branch of the East African Rift. It is the largest rift lake in Africa and the second largest lake by volume in the world and it is the deepest lake in Africa and holds the greatest volume of fresh water, accounting for 18% of the worlds available fresh water. It extends for 676 km in a general direction and averages 50 km in width. The lake covers 32,900 km2, with a shoreline of 1,828 km, a depth of 570 m. It holds an estimated 18,900 cubic kilometres and this is equivalent to about 16% of all fresh water on Earth. The catchment area of the lake is 231,000 km2, two main rivers flow into the lake, as well as numerous smaller rivers and streams. There is one major outflow, the Lukuga River, which empties into the Congo River drainage, the major river flowing into the lake is the Ruzizi River, formed about 10,000 years ago, which enters the north of the lake from Lake Kivu. The Malagarasi River, which is Tanzanias second largest river, enters the east side of Lake Tanganyika, the Malagarasi is older than Lake Tanganyika and, before the lake was formed, directly drained into the Congo River. Apparently it has rarely in the past had an outflow to the sea and it has been described as practically endorheic for this reason. The lakes connection to the sea is dependent on a water level allowing water to overflow out of the lake through the Lukunga into the Congo. Due to the tropical location, it has a high rate of evaporation. Thus it depends on a high inflow through the Ruzizi out of Lake Kivu to keep the lake high enough to overflow. Signs of ancient shorelines indicate that at times Tanganyika may have been up to 300 m lower than its present surface level, even its current outlet is intermittent and may not have been operating when first visited by Western explorers in 1858. Lake Tanganyika is an ancient lake and its three basins, which in periods with much lower water levels were separate lakes, are of different ages. The central began to form 9—12 million years ago, the northern 7—8 mya, there are several islands in Lake Tanganyika
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Virunga National Park
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The park was established in 1925 as Africas first national park and is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site since 1979. In recent years, poaching and the Congo Civil War have seriously damaged its wildlife population, the current park director since 2008 is the Belgian Prince Emmanuel de Merode. The park was created in 1925 by King Albert I of Belgium as the first national park on the continent of Africa. Land remuneration and the use of resources such as fishing and hunting by the local population became an ongoing problem. When the Belgians granted Congo independence in 1960 the new state deteriorated rapidly and it was only in 1969 when President Mobutu began to take a personal interest in conservation, that the park was revived. In the process of Mobutus Africanization campaign, it was renamed Virunga National Park, Virunga fared well for the better part of the 1970s. Foreign investment helped to improve the infrastructure and training facilities. In 1979 UNESCO designated the park as a World Heritage Site, in the mid-1980s the Mobutu regime began to lose its hold on power and the country began a long slide into chaos. Poaching depleted Virungas large mammal populations, infrastructure was destroyed, the Congolese Wildlife Authority slowly lost control of Virunga and UNESCO changed the World Heritage Site status to endangered. In 2013 the World Wildlife Fund raised concerns about plans by the UK based Soco International to carry out exploration for oil in the park, currently more than 80% of Virunga National Park has been allocated as oil concessions. Soco Internationals own environmental impact assessment reports admit that oil exploration is likely to cause pollution, irreparably damage habitats, the World Wildlife Fund have launched a campaign to petition Soco to refrain exploring the world heritage area for oil, and thereby avoid these outcomes. As of August 30,2014, SOCO demobilized its operations in the DRC, World Wildlife Fund executives now acknowledge that the battle over Virunga is hardly over. SOCO has yet to relinquish its operating permits or commit to an unconditional withdrawal, Virunga National Park is unrivaled in its diversity of landscapes and ecosystems. The park is known for its diversity, containing more bird, mammal. Although mountain gorillas are now rare and listed as one of the most critically endangered species. Their populations actually increased during the years of upheaval in the region. The 2010 mountain gorilla census has indicated that the efforts of Virunga have been very successful regarding the gorilla population. Both savanna and forest elephants as well as chimpanzees and low land gorillas can still be found in Virunga, along with okapi, giraffes, buffaloes and many endemic birds
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Democratic Republic of Congo
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as DR Congo, DRC, DROC, East Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo is a country located in Central Africa. From 1971 to 1997 it was named, and is still called, Zaire. It is the second-largest country in Africa by area and eleventh largest in the world, the Congolese Civil Wars, which began in 1996, brought about the end of Mobutu Sese Sekos 32-year reign and devastated the country. These wars ultimately involved nine African nations, multiple groups of UN peacekeepers and twenty armed groups, besides the capital, Kinshasa, the other major cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. DR Congos largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRCs exports in 2012, as of 2015, according to the Human Development Index, DR Congo has a low level of human development, ranking 176 out of 187 countries. The country was known officially as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 27 October 1971, in 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the change was not put into practice. The countrys name was restored by former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, some historians think that Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques, the people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s and it was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and he named it the Congo Free State. Leopolds rėgime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the railway ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville. Nearly all such projects were aimed at making it easier to increase the assets which Leopold. In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles, rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country
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Rwenzori Mountains National Park
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Rwenzori Mountains National Park is a Ugandan national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Rwenzori Mountains. Almost 1,000 km2 in size, the park has Africas third highest mountain peak and many waterfalls, lakes, the park is known for its beautiful plant life. Rwenzori Mountains National Park was established in 1991 and it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 because of its outstanding natural beauty. Rebel militias occupied the Rwenzori Mountains from 1997 to June 2001, the park was inscribed on UNESCOs List of World Heritage in Danger between 1999 and 2004 because of insecurity and a lack of resources in the park. Rwenzori Mountains National Park is located in south-western Uganda on the east side of the western African rift valley and it lies along Ugandas border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and borders the DRCs Virunga National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for 50 km. It is situated in the Bundibugyo, Kabarole, and Kasese districts,25 km from the town of Kasese. It is 996 square kilometres in size,70 percent of which exceeds an altitude of 2,500 metres, the park is 120 kilometres long and 48 kilometres wide. The park includes most of the centre and eastern half of the Rwenzori Mountains and those mountains are higher than the Alps and are ice-capped. Mount Stanley is located in the park, margherita Peak, one of Mount Stanleys twin summits, is Africas third highest peak with a height of 5,109 metres. Africas fourth and fifth highest peaks are located in the park. The park has glaciers, snowfields, waterfalls, and lakes and is one of Africas most beautiful mountain areas, the park has many species that are endemic to the Albertine Rift system, and there are several endangered species in the park. It has a diversity of plants and trees. The park is noted for its botany, which has described as some of the most beautiful in the world. There are five distinct zones in the park, which change according to changes in altitude. The park has 89 species of birds,15 species of butterfly, the parks wildlife varies with elevation, and its species include the forest elephant, chimpanzee, hyrax, black-and-white colobus, LHoests monkeys, duiker, and Ruwenzori turaco. The park is owned by the Ugandan government through Uganda National Parks and it is protected, although extraction may be sanctioned by a board of trustees. Kasese,437 km west of Ugandas capital Kampala, is the gateway to the park, the town has hotels and lodges, while the park has camping, a good trail network and huts for hikers. The park has excellent trekking and climbing opportunities with spectacular views, the most popular trek is a seven-day circuit of the park
"Great Rift Valley". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
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