1.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
2.
Caribbean Sea
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The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the islands of the West Indies. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km2, the seas deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at 7,686 m below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays, the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, Gulf of Paria, the Caribbean Sea has the worlds second biggest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It runs 1,000 km along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, the name Caribbean derives from the Caribs, one of the regions dominant Native American groups at the time of European contact during the late 15th century. During the first century of development, Spanish dominance in the region remained undisputed, from the 16th century, Europeans visiting the Caribbean region identified the South Sea as opposed to the North Sea. The Caribbean Sea had been unknown to the populations of Eurasia until 1492, at that time the Western Hemisphere in general was unknown to Europeans. Following the discovery of the islands by Columbus, the area was colonised by several Western cultures. As of 2015 the area is home to 22 island territories, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Caribbean Sea as follows, On the North. In the Windward Channel – a line joining Caleta Point and Pearl Point in Haïti, in the Mona Passage – a line joining Cape Engano and the extreme of Agujereada in Puerto Rico. From Galera Point through Trinidad to Galeota Point and thence to Baja Point in Venezuela, note that, although Barbados is an island on the same continental shelf, it is considered to be in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean Sea is an oceanic sea largely situated on the Caribbean Plate, the Caribbean Sea is separated from the ocean by several island arcs of various ages. The youngest stretches from the Lesser Antilles to the Virgin Islands to the north east of Trinidad, the larger islands in the northern part of the sea Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico lie on an older island arc. The geological age of the Caribbean Sea is estimated to be between 160 and 180 million years and was formed by a fracture that split the supercontinent called Pangea in the Mesozoic Era. It is assumed the proto-caribbean basin existed in the Devonian period, in the early Carboniferous movement of Gondwana to the north and its convergence with the Euramerica basin decreased in size. The next stage of the Caribbean Seas formation began in the Triassic, powerful rifting led to the formation of narrow troughs, stretching from modern Newfoundland to the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico which formed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. In the early Jurassic due to powerful marine transgression, water broke into the present area of the Gulf of Mexico creating a vast shallow pool, the emergence of deep basins in the Caribbean occurred during the Middle Jurassic rifting. The emergence of these marked the beginning of the Atlantic Ocean
3.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
4.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
5.
South America
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South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere. It may also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas, which is the used in nations that speak Romance languages. The reference to South America instead of other regions has increased in the last decades due to changing geopolitical dynamics. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, North America and it includes twelve sovereign states, a part of France, and a non-sovereign area. In addition to this, the ABC islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers. Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000, South America ranks fourth in area and fifth in population. Brazil is by far the most populous South American country, with more than half of the population, followed by Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela. In recent decades Brazil has also concentrated half of the regions GDP and has become a first regional power, most of the population lives near the continents western or eastern coasts while the interior and the far south are sparsely populated. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, the continents cultural and ethnic outlook has its origin with the interaction of indigenous peoples with European conquerors and immigrants and, more locally, with African slaves. Given a long history of colonialism, the majority of South Americans speak Portuguese or Spanish. South America occupies the portion of the Americas. The continent is delimited on the northwest by the Darién watershed along the Colombia–Panama border. Almost all of mainland South America sits on the South American Plate, South Americas major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin, and petroleum. These resources found in South America have brought high income to its countries especially in times of war or of rapid growth by industrialized countries elsewhere. However, the concentration in producing one major export commodity often has hindered the development of diversified economies and this is leading to efforts to diversify production to drive away from staying as economies dedicated to one major export. South America is one of the most biodiverse continents on earth, South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha, jaguar, vicuña, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a proportion of the Earths species. Brazil is the largest country in South America, encompassing around half of the land area
6.
Panama
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Panama, officially called the Republic of Panama, is a country usually considered to be entirely in North America or Central America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, the capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the countrys 4.1 million people. Panama was inhabited by indigenous tribes prior to settlement by the Spanish in the 16th century. Panama broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, when Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined, eventually becoming the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, in 1977 an agreement was signed for the total transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on 31 December 1999. Revenue from canal tolls continues to represent a significant portion of Panamas GDP, although commerce, banking, in 2015 Panama ranked 60th in the world in terms of the Human Development Index. Since 2010, Panama remains the second most competitive economy in Latin America, covering around 40 percent of its land area, Panamas jungles are home to an abundance of tropical plants and animals – some of them to be found nowhere else on the planet. There are several theories about the origin of the name Panama, some believe that the country was named after a commonly found species of tree. Others believe that the first settlers arrived in Panama in August, when butterflies abound, the best-known version is that a fishing village and its nearby beach bore the name Panamá, which meant an abundance of fish. Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán, while exploring the Pacific side in 1515, in 1517 Don Gaspar De Espinosa, a Spanish lieutenant, decided to settle a post there. In 1519 Pedrarias Dávila decided to establish the Empires Pacific city in this site, the new settlement replaced Santa María La Antigua del Darién, which had lost its function within the Crowns global plan after the beginning of the Spanish exploitation of the riches in the Pacific. Blending all of the above together, Panamanians believe in general that the word Panama means abundance of fish and this is the official definition given in social studies textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education in Panama. However, others believe the word Panama comes from the Kuna word bannaba which means distant or far away, at the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the known inhabitants of Panama included the Cuevas and the Coclé tribes. These people have disappeared, as they had no immunity from European infectious diseases. The earliest discovered artifacts of indigenous peoples in Panama include Paleo-Indian projectile points, later central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making in the Americas, for example the cultures at Monagrillo, which date back to 2500–1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations best known through their spectacular burials at the Monagrillo archaeological site, the monumental monolithic sculptures at the Barriles site are also important traces of these ancient isthmian cultures. Before Europeans arrived Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan, the largest group were the Cueva. The size of the population of the isthmus at the time of European colonization is uncertain
7.
Panama Canal
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The Panama Canal is an artificial 48-mile waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for maritime trade. The original locks are 33.5 metres wide, a third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016. The expanded canal began operation on June 26,2016. The new locks allow transit of larger, Post-Panamax ships, capable of handling more cargo, France began work on the canal in 1881 but stopped due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15,1914, Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. The U. S. continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, in 1999 the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government and is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority. Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914, by 2012, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal. It takes six to eight hours to pass through the Panama Canal, the American Society of Civil Engineers has called the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Such a route would have given the Spanish a military advantage over the Portuguese, during an expedition from 1788 to 1793, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for its construction. Given the strategic location of Panama and the potential offered by its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, other links in the area were attempted over the years. The ill-fated Darien scheme was launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to set up a trade route. Generally inhospitable conditions thwarted the effort, and it was abandoned in April 1700, another effort was made in 1843. They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal and it was a wholly British endeavor and it was expected to be completed in five years, but the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal across Mexicos Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Nothing came of that plan either. )In 1846 the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the U. S. and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1849, the discovery of gold in California created great interest in a crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Panama Railway was built by the United States to cross the isthmus and opened in 1855
8.
Atlantic
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
9.
Gulf Stream
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The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W, it splits in two, with the stream, the North Atlantic Drift, crossing to Northern Europe and the southern stream. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and it is part of the North Atlantic Gyre. Its presence has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types, the Gulf Stream is also a significant potential source of renewable power generation. The Gulf Stream may be slowing down as a result of climate change, the Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres wide and 800 metres to 1,200 metres deep. The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with the maximum speed typically about 2.5 metres per second. European discovery of the Gulf Stream dates to the 1512 expedition of Juan Ponce de León and its existence was also known to Peter Martyr dAnghiera. Benjamin Franklin became interested in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns, Franklin asked Timothy Folger, his cousin twice removed, a Nantucket Island whaling captain, for an answer. Franklin worked with Folger and other experienced ship captains, learning enough to chart the Gulf Stream and he offered this information to Anthony Todd, secretary of the British Post Office, but it was ignored by British sea captains. Franklins Gulf Stream chart was published in 1770 in England, where it was mostly ignored, subsequent versions were printed in France in 1778 and the U. S. in 1786. The Gulf Stream proper is a current, driven largely by wind stress. The North Atlantic Drift, in contrast, is largely thermohaline circulation–driven, in 1958 the oceanographer Henry Stommel noted that very little water from the Gulf of Mexico is actually in the Stream. By carrying warm water northeast across the Atlantic, it makes Western, a river of sea water, called the Atlantic North Equatorial Current, flows westward off the coast of Central Africa. When this current interacts with the northeastern coast of South America, one passes into the Caribbean Sea, while a second, the Antilles Current, flows north and east of the West Indies. These two branches north of the Straits of Florida. The trade winds blow westward in the tropics, and the westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes and this wind pattern applies a stress to the subtropical ocean surface with negative curl across the north Atlantic Ocean. The resulting Sverdrup transport is equatorward, the conservation of potential vorticity also causes bends along the Gulf Stream, which occasionally break off due to a shift in the Gulf Streams position, forming separate warm and cold eddies. This overall process, known as western intensification, causes currents on the boundary of an ocean basin, such as the Gulf Stream
10.
Henry Fairfield Osborn
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Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. ForMemRS was an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenist, and the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years. Son of the prominent railroad tycoon William Henry and Virginia Reed Osborn, Henry Fairfield Osborn was born in Fairfield and he studied at Princeton University, obtaining a B. A. in geology and archaeology, where he was mentored by paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. In 1880, Osborn obtained a Sc. D. in paleontology from Princeton, becoming a Lecturer in Biology, knight, who made murals of dinosaurs in their habitats and sculptures of the living creatures. On November 23,1897 he was elected member of the Boone and Crockett Club, additionally, Osborn served as President of the New York Zoological Society from 1909 to 1925. Long a member of the US Geological Survey, Osborn became its senior vertebrate paleontologist in 1924 and he led many fossil-hunting expeditions into the American Southwest, starting with his first to Colorado and Wyoming in 1877. Osborn conducted research on Tyrannosaurus brains by cutting open fossilized braincases with a diamond saw and he accumulated a number of prizes for his work in paleontology. In 1901, Osborn was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and he described and named Ornitholestes in 1903, Tyrannosaurus rex in 1905, Pentaceratops in 1923, and Velociraptor in 1924. In 1929 Osborn was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences and his legacy at the American Museum has proved more enduring. Biographer Ronald Rainger has described Osborn as a science administrator. Indeed, Osborns greatest contributions to science ultimately lay in his efforts to popularize it through visual means, the murals, habitat dioramas, and dinosaur mounts executed during his tenure at the museum attracted millions of visitors, and inspired other museums to imitate his innovations. But his decision to invest heavily in exhibition also alienated certain members of the scientific community, additionally, his efforts to imbue the museum’s exhibits and educational programs with his own racist and eugenist beliefs disturbed many of his contemporaries and have marred his legacy. An African dwarf crocodile, Osteolaemus osborni, was named in his honor by Karl Patterson Schmidt in 1919, Osborn developed his own evolution theory of mans origins called the Dawn Man Theory. His theory was founded on the discovery of Piltdown Man which was dated to the Late Pliocene, therefore, Osborn argued that all apes following the pre-Darwinian classification of Linnaeus had evolved entirely parallel to the ancestors of man. While believing in common ancestry between man and ape, Osborn denied that this ancestor was ape-like, the common ancestor between man and ape Osborn always maintained was more Human than ape. Writing to Arthur Keith in 1927, he remarked when our Oligocene ancestor is found it not be an ape. His student William K. Osborn was originally a supporter of Edward Drinker Copes neo-Lamarckism, however, Osborn became a proponent of organic selection, also known as the Baldwin effect. Osborn was a believer in orthogenesis, he coined the term aristogenesis for his theory and his aristogenesis was based on a physicochemical approach to evolution. He believed that aristogenes operate as biomechanisms in the geneplasm of the organism and he also held the view that mutations and natural selection play no creative role in evolution and that aristogenesis was the origin of new novelty
11.
Alfred Wegener
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Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist. Wegener was involved in expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation before the existence of the jet stream was accepted. Alfred Wegener was born in Berlin on 1 November 1880 as the youngest of five children in a clergymans family and his father, Richard Wegener, was a theologian and teacher of classical languages at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. In 1886 his family purchased a manor house near Rheinsberg. Today there is an Alfred Wegener Memorial site and tourist information office in a building that was once the local schoolhouse. He was cousin to movie pioneer Paul Wegener, Wegener attended school at the Köllnisches Gymnasium on Wallstrasse in Berlin, graduating as the best in his class. Afterward he studied Physics, meteorology and Astronomy in Berlin, Heidelberg, from 1902 to 1903 during his studies he was an assistant at the Urania astronomical observatory. He obtained a doctorate in astronomy in 1905 based on a dissertation written under the supervision of Julius Bauschinger at Friedrich Wilhelms University, Wegener had always maintained a strong interest in the developing fields of meteorology and climatology and his studies afterwards focused on these disciplines. In 1905 Wegener became an assistant at the Aeronautisches Observatorium Lindenberg near Beeskow and he worked there with his brother Kurt, two years his senior, who was likewise a scientist with an interest in meteorology and polar research. The two pioneered the use of balloons to track air masses.5 hours from April 5–7,1906. In that same year 1906, Wegener participated in the first of his four Greenland expeditions, the expedition was led by the Dane Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen and charged with studying the last unknown portion of the northeastern coast of Greenland. Here Wegener also made his first acquaintance with death in a wilderness of ice when the expedition leader, after his return in 1908 and until World War I, Wegener was a lecturer in meteorology, applied astronomy and cosmic physics at the University of Marburg. His students and colleagues in Marburg particularly valued his ability to clearly and understandably explain even complex topics, after a stopover in Iceland to purchase and test ponies as pack animals, the expedition arrived in Danmarkshavn. Even before the trip to the ice began the expedition was almost annihilated by a calving glacier. The Danish expedition leader, Johan Peter Koch, broke his leg when he fell into a glacier crevasse, Wegener and Koch were the first to winter on the inland ice in northeast Greenland. Inside their hut they drilled to a depth of 25 m with an auger, in summer 1913 the team crossed the inland ice, the four expedition participants covering a distance twice as long as Fridtjof Nansens southern Greenland crossing in 1888. Only a few kilometers from the western Greenland settlement of Kangersuatsiaq the small team ran out of food while struggling to find their way through difficult glacial breakup terrain. But at the last moment, after the last pony and dog had eaten, they were picked up at a fjord by the clergyman of Upernavik
12.
Continental drift
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Continental drift is the movement of the Earths continents relative to each other, thus appearing to drift across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have drifted was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596, the concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by some for lack of a mechanism and others because of prior theoretical commitments. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, W. J. Kious described Ortelius thoughts in this way, Abraham Ortelius in his work Thesaurus Geographicus. Suggested that the Americas were torn away from Europe and Africa, by earthquakes and floods and went on to say, The vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves, if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three. In his Manual of Geology,1863, Dana says The continents, Dana was enormously influential in America – his Manual of Mineralogy is still in print in revised form – and the theory became known as Permanence theory. This suggested that the oceans were a permanent feature of the earths surface and this led Mantovani to propose an Expanding Earth theory which has since been shown to be incorrect. Continental drift without expansion was proposed by Frank Bursley Taylor, who suggested in 1908 that the continents were moved into their present positions by a process of continental creep. Wegener said that of all theories, Taylors, although not fully developed, had the most similarities to his own. In the mid-20th century, the theory of drift was referred to as the Taylor-Wegener hypothesis. Alfred Wegener first presented his hypothesis to the German Geological Society on January 6,1912 and his hypothesis was that the continents had once formed a single landmass, called Pangea, before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations. Wegener was the first to use the continental drift and formally publish the hypothesis that the continents had somehow drifted apart. Although he presented evidence for continental drift, he was unable to provide a convincing explanation for the physical processes which might have caused this drift. The Polflucht hypothesis was studied by Paul Sophus Epstein in 1920. The theory of drift was not accepted for many years. One problem was that a driving force was missing. A second problem was that Wegeners estimate of the velocity of continental motion,250 cm/year, was implausibly high, and it did not help that Wegener was not a geologist. Other geologists also believed that the evidence that Wegener had provided was not sufficient, the British geologist Arthur Holmes championed the theory of continental drift at a time when it was deeply unfashionable. He proposed in 1931 that the Earths mantle contained convection cells that dissipated radioactive heat and his Principles of Physical Geology, ending with a chapter on continental drift, was published in 1944
13.
History of Panama
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The earliest artifacts discovered off in Panama have included Paleo-Indians projectile points. Later central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making in the Americas and these evolved into significant populations that are best known through the spectacular burials at the Monagrillo archaeological site, and the beautiful polychrome pottery of the Gran Coclé style. The monumental monolithic sculptures at the Barriles site are important evidence of the ancient isthmian cultures. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan, there is no accurate knowledge of the size of the Pre-Columbian indigenous population of the isthmus at the time of the European conquest. Estimates range as high as two people, but more recent studies place that number closer to 200,000. Archaeological finds, as well as testimonials by early European explorers, describe diverse native isthmian groups exhibiting cultural variety, the indigenous people of Panama lived by hunting, gathering edible plants & fruits, growing corn, cacao, and root crops. They lived in huts made of palm leaves over a rounded branch structure. In 1501, Rodrigo de Bastidas was the first European to explore the Isthmus of Panama sailing along the eastern coast. A year later Christopher Columbus on his voyage, sailing south and eastward from upper Central America, explored Bocas del Toro, Veragua. Soon Spanish expeditions would converge upon Tierra Firma which served in Spanish colonial times as the name for the Isthmus of Panama. In 1509, authority was granted to Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa to colonize the territories between the west side of the Gulf of Uraba to Cabo Gracias a Dios in present-day Honduras. The idea was to create a unitary administrative organization similar to what later became Nueva España. Tierra Firme later received control over territories, the Isla de Santiago the Cayman Islands, Roncador, Quitasueño. In September 1510, the first permanent European settlement, Santa María la Antigua del Darién on the Americas mainland was founded, vasco Nuñez de Balboa and Martín Fernández de Enciso agreed on the site near the mouth of the Tarena River on the Atlantic. Balboa maneuvered and was appointed Mayor on the first official cabildo abierto held on the mainland, on August 28,1513, the Santa María de La Antigua del Darién mission was erected with Fray Juan de Quevedo as the first Catholic Bishop in the continental Americas. On September 25,1513 the Balboa expedition verified claims by people that the Panama isthmus had another coast to the southwest along another ocean. Balboa was the first known European to see the Pacific Ocean, the fantastic descriptions of the isthmus by Balboa, as well as by Columbus and other explorers, impressed Ferdinand II of Aragon and Castilla, who named the territory Castilla Aurifica. He assigned Pedro Arias Dávila as Royal Governor, Pedrarias arrived in June 1514 with a 22 vessel,1,500 men armada
14.
Charles Christian Nahl
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Carl Christian Heinrich Nahl, later known as Charles Nahl, and sometimes Karl Nahl, Charles Christian Nahl or Charles C. Nahl, was a German-born painter who is called Californias first significant artist and he was the son of Georg Valentin Friedrich Nahl and Henriette Nahl. He came from a line of artists and sculptors. His great-grandfather was Johann August Nahl, the German sculptor and stuccist, Nahl was trained at the Cassel Academy. Unease over the state of Hesse led him and his friend Frederick August Wenderoth to Paris in 1846. The February Revolution prompted another move with his mother and siblings, including half-brother Hugo Wilhelm Arthur Nahl to Brooklyn, New York and he arrived in Nevada City, California the next year, and then moved to Rough and Ready, California. Here, he purchased a salted mine, having no luck along the Yuba River, Nahl and Hugo opened a studio with Wenderoth in Sacramento, moving to San Francisco after the 1852 Sacramento fire. The Nahl brothers were fine athletes, at their home in San Franciscos Bush Street, their backyard gymnasium served as the early version of the Olympic Club and was its headquarters during the period of 1855 to 1860. At his brothers suggestion, it was named the San Francisco Olympic Club and, at the inaugural meeting on May 6,1860. Watercolor galery of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art link collection on Artcyclopedia Romans and Sabines Crocker Art Museum online Charles Christian Nahl at Find a Grave
15.
Peru
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Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures spanning from the Norte Chico civilization in Caral, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty with its capital in Lima, ideas of political autonomy later spread throughout Spanish America and Peru gained its independence, which was formally proclaimed in 1821. After the battle of Ayacucho, three years after proclamation, Peru ensured its independence, subsequently, the country has undergone changes in government from oligarchic to democratic systems. Peru has gone through periods of political unrest and internal conflict as well as periods of stability, Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is a country with a high Human Development Index score. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, the Peruvian population, estimated at 31.2 million in 2015, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages and this mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music. The name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama. When his possessions were visited by Spanish explorers in 1522, they were the southernmost part of the New World yet known to Europeans, thus, when Francisco Pizarro explored the regions farther south, they came to be designated Birú or Perú. An alternative history is provided by the contemporary writer Inca Garcilasco de la Vega, son of an Inca princess, the Spanish Crown gave the name legal status with the 1529 Capitulación de Toledo, which designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Under Spanish rule, the country adopted the denomination Viceroyalty of Peru, the earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using such as irrigation and terracing, camelid husbandry. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money, the oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal, the Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Perus Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture. The Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BC was probably more of a religious than a political phenomenon, on the coast, these included the civilizations of the Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and the more outstanding Chimu and Mochica. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo, in the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in Cusco
16.
Henry Morgan
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Sir Henry Morgan was a Welsh privateer, landowner and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, with the prize money from the raids he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island. Much of Morgans early life is unknown and he was born in south Wales, but it is not known how he made his way to the West Indies, or how he began his career as a privateer. He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the early 1660s, Morgan became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica. When diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, Morgan subsequently conducted successful and highly lucrative raids on Puerto Principe and Porto Bello. In 1668 he sailed for Maracaibo and Gibraltar, both on Lake Maracaibo in modern-day Venezuela and he raided both cities and stripped them of their wealth before destroying a large Spanish squadron as he escaped. In 1671 Morgan attacked Panama City, landing on the Caribbean coast and traversing the isthmus before he attacked the city, the battle was a rout, although the privateers profited less than in other raids. Morgan was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to Jamaica shortly afterward to serve as the territorys Lieutenant Governor and he served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and on three occasions he acted as Governor of Jamaica in the absence of the post-holder. He died in Jamaica on 25 August 1688 and his life was romanticised after his death and he became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres. Henry Morgan was born around 1635 in Wales, either in Llanrumney, Glamorgan or Pencarn, several sources state Morgans father was Robert Morgan, a farmer. It is unknown how Morgan made his way to the Caribbean, in the 17th century the Caribbean offered an opportunity for young men to become rich quickly, although significant investment was needed to obtain high returns from the sugar export economy. Other opportunities for gain were through trade or plunder of the Spanish Empire. Much of the plunder was from privateering, whereby individuals and ships were commissioned by government to attack the countrys enemies. It is probable that in the early 1660s Morgan was active with a group of privateers led by Sir Christopher Myngs attacking Spanish cities and settlements in the Caribbean and Central America. In 1663 it is likely that Morgan captained one of the ships in Myngs fleet, and took part in the attack on Santiago de Cuba, about 1,500 privateers used Jamaica as a base for their activity and brought significant revenue to the island. As the planting community of 5,000 was still new and developing, a privateer was granted a letter of marque which gave him a licence to attack and seize vessels, normally of a specific country, or with conditions attached. A portion of all obtained by the privateers was given to the sovereign or the issuing ambassador. In August 1665 Morgan, along with fellow captains John Morris and Jacob Fackman, Modyford was impressed enough with the spoils to report back to the government that Central America was the properest place for an attack on the Spanish Indies
17.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
18.
Viceroyalty of Peru
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The Viceroyalty of Peru was a Spanish colonial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained most of Spanish-ruled South America, governed from the capital of Lima. The Viceroyalty of Peru was one of the two Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The treaty was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while Spain controlled Portugal, eventually, the viceroyalty would dissolve, as with much of the Spanish empire, when challenged by national independence movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century. From September 2,1564 to November 26,1569 he was viceroy of Peru. In 1542, the Spanish created the Viceroyalty of New Castile, in 1544, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V named Blasco Núñez Vela Perus first viceroy, but the viceroyalty was not organized until the arrival of Viceroy Francisco Álvarez de Toledo. Toledo made a tour of inspection of the colony. He improved the safety in the viceroyalty with fortifications, bridges, still, Luis Jerónimo de Cabrera, 4th Count of Chinchón sent out the third expedition to explore the Amazon River, under Cristóbal de Acuña. Many Pacific islands were visited by Spanish ships in the sixteenth century and these included New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands and the Marquesas Islands by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira. These groups had the advantage of remote geography and river access from the mouth of the Amazon, meanwhile, the Spanish were barred by their laws from slaving of indigenous people, leaving them without a commercial interest deep in the interior of the basin. One famous attack upon a Spanish mission in 1628 resulted in the enslavement of 60,000 indigenous people, in fact as time passed they were used as a self funding occupation force by the Portuguese authorities in what was effectively a low level war of territorial conquest. In 1617, Francisco de Borja y Aragón divided the government of Río de la Plata into two, Buenos Aires and Paraguay, both dependencies of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Viceroy Borja y Aragón also established the Tribunal del Consulado, a special court, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, Marquis of Guadalcázar reformed the fiscal system and stopped the interfamily rivalry that was bloodying the domain. Fernández de Cabrera suppressed an insurrection of the Uru and Mapuche Indians, viceroys had to protect the Pacific coast from French contraband and English and Dutch pirates. They expanded the naval forces, fortified the ports of Valdivia, Valparaíso, Arica and Callao and constructed city walls in Lima, nevertheless, the famous English privateer Henry Morgan took Chagres and captured and sacked the city of Panama in the early part of 1670. Also Peruvian forces repelled the attacks by Edward David, Charles Wager, the Peace of Utrecht allowed the British to send ships and merchandise to the fair at Portobello. In this period, revolts were common, around 1656, Pedro Bohórquez crowned himself Inca of the Calchaquí Indians, inciting the indigenous population to revolt. From 1665 until 1668, the rich mineowners José and Gaspar Salcedo revolted against the colonial government, the clergy were opposed to the nomination of prelates from Spain. Viceroy Diego Ladrón de Guevara had to take measures against an uprising of slaves at the hacienda of Huachipa de Lima, there were terrible earthquakes and epidemics, too
19.
Spanish treasure fleet
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Passengers and goods such as textiles, books and tools were transported in the opposite direction. The West Indies fleet was the first permanent transatlantic trade route in history, similarly, the Manila galleons were the first permanent trade route across the Pacific. Spanish ships had brought goods from the New World since Christopher Columbuss first expedition of 1492, the Spanish government started a system of convoys in the 1560s in response to the sacking of Havana by French privateers. The main procedures were established after the recommendations of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the treasure fleets sailed along two sea lanes. A secondary route was that of the Manila Galleons or Galeón de Manila which linked the Philippines to Acapulco in Mexico across the Pacific Ocean, from Acapulco, the Asian goods were transhipped by mule train to Veracruz to be loaded onto the Caribbean treasure fleet for shipment to Spain. To better defend this trade, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and Álvaro de Bazán designed the model of the galleon in the 1550s. Spain controlled the trade through the Casa de Contratación based in Seville, by law, the colonies could trade only with the one designated port in the mother country, Seville. Maritime archaeology has shown that the quantity of goods transported was sometimes higher than recorded at the Archivo General de Indias. Spanish merchants and Spaniards acting as fronts for foreign merchants sent their goods on these fleets to the New World, some resorted to contraband to transport their cargoes untaxed. The Crown of Spain taxed the wares and precious metals of private merchants at a rate of 20%, Spain became the richest country in Europe by the end of the 16th century. The flow of precious metals also made many traders wealthy both in Spain and abroad, the increase in gold and silver on the Iberian market sometimes caused high inflation in the 17th century, affecting the Spanish economy. As a consequence, the Crown was forced to delay the payment of some major debts, by 1690 some of these lenders could no longer offer financial support to the Crown. The Spanish monopoly over its West and East Indies colonies lasted for two centuries. The economic importance of exports later declined with the drop of production of the American precious metals mines, however, the growth in trade was strong in the early years. Numbering just 17 ships in 1550, the fleets expanded to more than 50 much larger vessels by the end of the century, by the second half of the 17th century, that number had dwindled to less than half of its peak. The Spanish trade of goods was sometimes threatened by its colonial rivals who tried to seize islands as bases along the Spanish Main and in the Spanish West Indies, however, the Atlantic trade was largely unharmed. The English acquired small islands like St Kitts in 1624, expelled in 1629 they returned in 1639, French pirates established themselves in Saint-Domingue in 1625, were expelled only to return later and the Dutch occupied Curaçao in 1634. In 1739, British Admiral Edward Vernon raided Portobello, but in 1741 his campaign against Cartagena de Indias ended in defeat with heavy losses of men and ships
20.
Seville
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Seville is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville, Spain. It is situated on the plain of the river Guadalquivir, the inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos or hispalenses, after the Roman name of the city, Hispalis. Its Old Town, with an area of 4 square kilometres, the Seville harbour, located about 80 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean, is the only river port in Spain. Seville is also the hottest major metropolitan area in the geographical Western Europe, Seville was founded as the Roman city of Hispalis. It later became known as Ishbiliya after the Muslim conquest in 712, in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan departed from Seville for the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Spal is the oldest known name for Seville and it appears to have originated during the Phoenician colonisation of the Tartessian culture in south-western Iberia and, according to Manuel Pellicer Catalán, meant lowland in the Phoenician language. During Roman rule, the name was Latinised as Hispalis, nO8DO is the official motto of Seville. It is popularly believed to be a rebus signifying the Spanish No me ha dejado, meaning It has not abandoned me, the eight in the middle represents a madeja, or skein of wool. The emblem is present on the flag and features on city property such as manhole covers. Seville is approximately 2,200 years old, the passage of the various civilisations instrumental in its growth has left the city with a distinct personality, and a large and well-preserved historical centre. The city was known from Roman times as Hispalis, important archaeological remains also exist in the nearby towns of Santiponce and Carmona. The walls surrounding the city were built during the rule of Julius Caesar. Following Roman rule, there were successive conquests of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica by the Vandals, the Suebi, Seville was taken by the Moors, Muslims from North of Africa, during the conquest of Hispalis in 712. It was the capital for the kings of the Umayyad Caliphate, the Moorish urban influences continued and are present in contemporary Seville, for instance in the custom of decorating with herbaje and small fountains the courtyards of the houses. However, most buildings of the Moorish aesthetic actually belong to the Mudéjar style of Islamic art, developed under Christian rule and inspired by the Arabic style. Original Moorish buildings are the Patio del Yeso in the Alcázar, the city walls, in 1247, the Christian King Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon began the conquest of Andalusia. The decisive action took place in May 1248 when Ramon Bonifaz sailed up the Guadalquivir, the city surrendered on 23 November 1248. The citys development continued after the Castilian conquest in 1248, Public buildings constructed including churches, many of which were built in the Mudéjar style, and the Seville Cathedral, built during the 15th century with Gothic architecture
21.
Lionel Wafer
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Lionel Wafer was a Welsh explorer, buccaneer and privateer. A ships surgeon, Wafer made several voyages to the South Seas, the following year he settled in Jamaica to practise his profession. In 1679 two noted buccaneers named Capt John Cook and Linen convinced him to become a surgeon for their fleet, in 1680, Wafer met William Dampier at Cartagena and joined in a privateering venture under the leadership of Capt Bartholomew Sharp. After being injured during a journey, Wafer was left behind with four others in the Isthmus of Darien in Panama. He gathered information about their culture, including their shamanism and a vocabulary of their language. He studied the history of the isthmus. The following year, Wafer left the Indians promising to return and marry the chiefs sister and he fooled the buccaneers at first as he was dressed as an Indian, wearing body-paint and ornamented with a nose-ring. It took them time to recognise him. Wafer reunited with Dampier, and after privateering with him on the Spanish Main until 1688, by 1690 Wafer was back in England and in 1695 he published A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, which described his adventures. It was translated into French, German, and Swedish, the Darien Company hired him as an adviser when it was planning its settlement on the isthmus in 1698. He died in London in 1705, a New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, Lionel Wafer. Excerpt from the 1729 Knapton edition, a Buccaneer More Interested in Nature than Gold, by Cindy Vallar, about Lionel Wafers and William Dampiers common adventures
22.
Cuna Indians
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The Kuna, following orthographic reform in 2010 also known as Guna, and historically as Cuna, are an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. The Congreso General de la Nación Gunadule since 2010 promotes the spelling Guna, in the Kuna language, they call themselves Dule or Tule, meaning people, and the name of the language in Kuna is Dulegaya, literally people-mouth. The Kuna live in three politically autonomous comarcas or reservations in Panama, and in a few villages in Colombia. There are also communities of Kuna people in Panama City, Colón, the most Kunas live on small islands off the coast of the comarca of Kuna Yala known as the San Blas Islands. The other two Kuna comarcas in Panama are Kuna de Madugandí and Kuna de Wargandí and they celebrate this on the 25 of February. In Kuna Yala, each community has its own political organization, the saila is traditionally both the political and spiritual leader of the community, he memorizes songs which relate the sacred history of the people, and in turn transmits them to the people. Decisions are made in meetings held in the Onmaked Nega, or Ibeorgun Nega and it is in the Onmaked Nega that the saila sings the history, legends and laws of the Kuna, as well as administering the day-to-day political and social affairs. The saila is usually accompanied by one or more voceros who function as interpreters and counselors for the saila, traditionally, Kuna families are matrilinear, with the groom moving to become part of the brides family. The groom takes the last name of the bride as well, today there are 49 communities in Kuna Yala. The region as a whole is governed by the Kuna General Congress, the Kuna are famous for their bright molas, a colorful textile art form made with the techniques of appliqué and reverse appliqué. Mola panels are used to make the blouses of the Kuna womens national dress, mola means clothing in the Kuna language. The Kuna word for a blouse is Tulemola, Kuna peoples clothing. The economy of Kuna Yala is based on agriculture, fishing, plantains, coconuts, and fish form the core of the Kuna diet, supplemented with imported foods, a few domestic animals, and wild game. Coconuts, called ogob in the Kuna language, and lobsters skungit are the most important export products, migrant labor and the sale of molas provide other sources of income. The Kuna have a deep rooted history of mercantilism and a longstanding tradition of selling goods through family owned venues. Most imported goods originate from Colombian, Mexican or Chinese ships and are sold in retail stores owned by Kuna people. The Kuna traditionally excise no tax when trading goods and place emphasis on economic success. This tradition of trade and self-determination has been credited by many as a reason why the Kuna have been able to successfully function independently compared to other indigenous groups
23.
Darien scheme
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The aim was for the colony to have an overland route that connected the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It was finally abandoned in March 1700 after a siege by Spanish forces, the late 17th century was a difficult period for Scotland. The countrys economy was small, its range of exports very limited and it was in a weak position in relation to England. In an era of economic rivalry in Europe, Scotland was incapable of protecting itself from the effects of English competition and legislation. The kingdom had no reciprocal export trade and its once thriving industries such as shipbuilding were in deep decline, moreover, the Navigation Acts further increased economic dependence on England by limiting Scotlands shipping, and the Royal Scots Navy was tiny. Several ruinous civil wars in the late 1600s had exhausted the people, in the 1690s seven ill years saw widespread crop failures, which brought famine. The deteriorating economic position of Scotland led to calls for a political union, or at least a customs union. However, the feeling among Scots was that the country should become a great mercantile. In the face of opposition by English commercial interests, the Company of Scotland raised subscriptions in Amsterdam, Hamburg, for his part, King William II of Scotland and III of England had given only lukewarm support to the whole Scottish colonial endeavour. England was at war with France and hence did not want to offend Spain, England was also under pressure from the London-based East India Company, who were keen to maintain their monopoly over English foreign trade. It therefore forced the English and Dutch investors to withdraw and this left no source of finance but Scotland itself. It was, for Scotland, an amount of capital. Paterson was instrumental in getting the company off the ground in London and he had failed to interest several European countries in his project but, in the aftermath of the English reaction to the company, he was able to get a respectful hearing for his ideas. Many former officers and soldiers, who had hope of other employment. Many of them were acquainted from serving in the army and several – Thomas Drummond, in some eyes they appeared to be a clique and this was to cause much suspicion among other members of the expedition. The first expedition of five ships set sail from the east coast port of Leith to avoid observation by English warships in July 1698, the journey around Scotland while kept below deck was so traumatic that some colonists thought it comparable to the worst parts of the whole Darien experience. Their orders were to proceed to the Bay of Darien, some few leagues to the leeward of the mouth of the great River of Darien. and there make a settlement on the mainland. After calling at Madeira and the West Indies, the fleet made landfall off the coast of Darien on 2 November, a watchhouse on a mountain completed the fortifications
24.
California Gold Rush
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The California Gold Rush began on January 24,1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutters Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States, the Gold Rush initiated the California Genocide, with 100,000 Native Californians dying between 1848 and 1868. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory to the state of the first nominee for the Republican Party. The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial, whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called forty-niners. The first to hear confirmed information of the rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Latin America. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California, in 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by vote, and the future states interim first governor. In September,1850, California became a state, at the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of staking claims was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service, by 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, Gold worth tens of billions of todays dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with more than they had started with. The Mexican–American War ended on February 3,1848, although California was firmly in American hands before that, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for, among other things, the formal transfer of Upper California to the United States. The California Gold Rush began at Sutters Mill, near Coloma, on January 24,1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two tested the metal. However, rumors started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher
25.
Pacific Mail Steamship Company
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These merchants had acquired the right to transport mail under contract from the United States Government from the Isthmus of Panama to California awarded in 1847 to one Arnold Harris. The first three steamships constructed for Pacific Mail were the SS California, the SS Oregon, and the SS Panama. During the California Gold Rush in 1849, the company was a key mover of goods and people and played a key role in the growth of San Francisco, California. In addition to their maritime activities Pacific Mail also ran some of the earliest steamboats on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, domingo Marcucci came from Philadelphia in the Pacific Mail steamship SS Oregon with a knocked-down steamboat in its hold. He started a shipyard in San Francisco on September 18,1849, on the beach at Happy Valley, at the foot of Folsom Street, marcuccis company assembled the Captain Sutter in six weeks. Subsequently in March 1850, for the company, he assembled the Georgiana. In 1850, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company established a steamship line competing with the U. S, Mail Steamship Company between New York City and Chagres. George Law placed a line of steamers in the Pacific. In April 1851, the rivalry was ended when the U. S, Mail Steamship Company purchased Pacific Mail steamers on the Atlantic side, and George Law sold his new company and its ships to the Pacific Mail. One of the steamships, the SS Winfield Scott, acquired when the New York and California Steamship Company went out of business. All officers were armed for the protection of their ships, detachments of Union soldiers sailed with Pacific Mail steamers. In 1867, the company launched the first regularly scheduled trans-Pacific steamship service with a route between San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Yokohama, and extended service to Shanghai and this route led to an influx of Japanese and Chinese immigrants, bringing additional cultural diversity to California. As the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met in Utah in 1869, many of its ships were sold or put on other routes. While docked at San José de Guatemala, the Pacific Mail steamship SS Acapulco was involved in the Barrundia Affair of 1890, the affair led to the recall of the U. S. Minister to Central America, Lansing Bond Mizner, by President Benjamin Harrison, the company was a charter member of the Dow Jones Transportation Average. In 1925, the company was purchased by Robert Dollar, of the Dollar Steamship Company, with the government bail-out of the Dollar Line in 1938, ownership passed to American President Lines, but by this time, PMSS essentially existed only on paper. It was formally closed down in 1949, after just over a century of existence, SS California, Built for the company, it was launched May 19,1848 by William H. Webb, New York. It left New York on October 6,1848 for Valparaiso, Panama City and San Francisco and she was used as a spare steamer at San Francisco in 1856 and at Panama City in 1857
26.
San Francisco, California
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
27.
Ferdinand de Lesseps
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Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States, which solved the medical problems and changed the design to a non-sea level canal with locks. The origins of de Lesseps family are traceable back as far as the end of the 14th century and his ancestors, it is believed, came from Spain, and settled at Bayonne during the regions occupation by the English. From the middle of the 18th century the ancestors of de Lesseps followed diplomatic careers and his uncle was ennobled by King Louis XVI, and his father was made a count by Emperor Napoleon I. His father, Mathieu de Lesseps, was in the service, his mother, Catherine de Grévigné, was Spanish on her mothers side. She was a daughter of Henri de Grevigné and wife Francisca Antonia Gallegos, Ferdinand de Lesseps was born November 19,1805 in Versailles, Yvelines. His first years were spent in Italy, where his father was occupied with his consular duties and he was educated at the College of Henry IV in Paris. From the age of 18 years to 20 he was employed in the department of the army. From 1825 to 1827 he acted as assistant vice-consul at Lisbon and this uncle was an old companion of Jean-François de La Pérouse and the only survivor of the expedition in which La Pérouse perished. Barthélemy de Lesseps had left the expedition in Kamchatka to travel to St Petersburg overland, in 1828 de Lesseps was sent as an assistant vice-consul to Tunis, where his father was consul-general. He aided the escape of Youssouff, pursued by the soldiers of the Bey, of whom he was one of the officers, Youssouff acknowledged this protection given by a Frenchman by distinguishing himself in the ranks of the French army at the time of the French conquest of Algeria. De Lesseps was also entrusted by his father with missions to Marshal Count Bertrand Clausel, the marshal wrote to Mathieu de Lesseps on 18 December 1830, I have had the pleasure of meeting your son, who gives promise of sustaining with great credit the name he bears. In 1832 de Lesseps was appointed vice-consul at Alexandria, while the vessel de Lesseps sailed to Egypt in was in quarantine at the Alexandrian lazaretto, M. This work struck de Lessepss imagination, and gave him the idea of constructing a canal across the African isthmus, because of this, de Lesseps received a warm welcome from the viceroy and became good friends with his son, Said Pasha. In 1833 de Lesseps was sent as consul to Cairo, and soon given the management of the consulate general at Alexandria. While he was there an epidemic of plague broke out and lasted for two years, resulting in the deaths of more than a third of the inhabitants of Cairo and Alexandria. During this time de Lesseps went from one city to the other and constantly displayed an admirable zeal, towards the close of the year 1837 he returned to France, and on 21 December married Mlle Agathe Delamalle, daughter of the government prosecuting attorney at the court of Angers. By this mariage de Lesseps became the father of five sons, Charles Théodore de Lesseps, Charles Aimé de Lesseps, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, Ferdinand Victor de Lesseps and Aimé Victor de Lesseps. In 1839 he was appointed consul at Rotterdam, and in the following year transferred to Málaga, in 1842 he was sent to Barcelona, and soon afterwards promoted to the grade of consul general
28.
Suez Canal
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The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. It was constructed by the Suez Canal Company between 1859 and 1869, after 10 years of construction, it was officially opened on November 17,1869. It extends from the terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. Its length is 193.30 km, including its northern and southern access channels, in 2012,17,225 vessels traversed the canal. The original canal was a waterway with passing locations in the Ballah Bypass. It contains no locks system, with seawater flowing freely through it, in general, the canal north of the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. South of the lakes, the current changes with the tide at Suez, the canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority of Egypt. Under the Convention of Constantinople, it may be used in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag. In August 2014, construction was launched to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass for 35 km to speed the canals transit time, the expansion was planned to double the capacity of the Suez Canal from 49 to 97 ships a day. At a cost of $8.4 billion, this project was funded with interest-bearing investment certificates issued exclusively to Egyptian entities, the New Suez Canal, as the expansion was dubbed, was opened with great fanfare in a ceremony on 6 August 2015. On 24 February 2016, the Suez Canal Authority officially opened the new side channel and this side channel, located at the northern side of the east extension of the Suez Canal, serves the East Terminal for berthing and unberthing vessels from the terminal anytime of day and night. Ancient west–east canals were built to travel from the Nile River to the Red Sea. One smaller canal is believed to have been constructed under the auspices of Senusret II or Ramesses II. Another canal, probably incorporating a portion of the first, was constructed under the reign of Necho II, the legendary Sesostris may have started work on an ancient canal joining the Nile with the Red Sea. In his Meteorology, Aristotle wrote, One of their kings tried to make a canal to it, so he first, and Darius afterwards, stopped making the canal, lest the sea should mix with the river water and spoil it. Strabo wrote that Sesostris started to build a canal, and Pliny the Elder wrote,165. Later the Persian king Darius had the idea, and yet again Ptolemy II. This proved to be the canal made by the Persian king Darius I
29.
Panama scandals
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The Panama scandals was a corruption affair that broke out in the French Third Republic in 1892, linked to the building of the Panama Canal. On 4 February 1889, the Tribunal Civil de la Seine ordered the winding up of the Panama Canal Company in Paris, work on the isthmus was stopped in the meantime, while the court-appointed liquidator arranged to maintain the existing buildings, tools and machinery. Within a few years, however, high losses were incurred due to the damp, the French government delayed the liquidation further and further, because the take-over offers by various American companies seemed insufficient. An intermediate company could not be started for lack of capital, the liquidator appointed a commission of inquiry, whose 1890 report recommended continuation of the sluice canal and renewal of the 1878 contract with Colombia. This was agreed on in 1890 in Bogotá, to run until 1904, the dimensions of the bankruptcy were clear by 1892. From the nine stock issues, the Panama Canal Company received 1.2 billion gold Francs,960 million of which were invested in Panama, a large amount having been pocketed by financiers and politicians. Meanwhile,510 members of parliament – including six ministers – were accused of receiving bribes from the Panama Canal Company to hide the companys financial status from the public. Lesseps, his son Charles, members of the management as well as the engineer Gustave Eiffel, were at first given long jail sentences, in the bribery trial, the former city development minister, Bethaut, received five years imprisonment, of which he served three years. Baron Reinach – the financial adviser of the Canal Company and agent for the various bribes – committed suicide, on 7 December 1894, Lesseps died. Politicians accused of involvement included Léon Bourgeois and Alfred Joseph Naquet, the investigations into the Panama affair were resumed in 1897, but the defendants were acquitted. Georges Clemenceau was defeated in the 1893 election because of his association with Cornelius Herz, although three governments collapsed, this crisis differed from the Boulanger affair in that the Republic was never really in threat of being overthrown. However, it did raise doubts in the eye and meant that politicians were no longer trusted. To monarchists it proved that the republic was corrupt, Reinach was a secret financial advisor to the government and handled its relations with the Panama Company. Herz was Reinachs contact in the wing, but Herzs double-dealing blackmail ultimately drove Reinach to suicide. However, before his death Reinach gave a list of the members of Parliament to the Libre Parole, Edouard Drumonts antisemitic daily. Overnight, the story transformed La Libre Parole from an obscure sheet into one of the most influential papers in the country, the list of culprits was published morning by morning in small installments, so that hundreds of politicians had to live on tenterhooks for months. The scandal showed, in Arendts view, that the middlemen between the sector and the state were almost exclusively Jews, thus helping to pave the road for the Dreyfus Affair. In 1894, a second French company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama, was created to manage the assets, the new company sought a buyer for the assets, with an asking price of US $109 million
30.
Colombia
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Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, the territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, the Quimbaya and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada, the new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Since the 1960s the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage. Cultural diversity has also influenced by Colombias varied geography. The urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, ecologically, it is one of the worlds 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer. Colombia is a power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is an accessing member to the OECD. Colombia has an economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run. The name Colombia is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus and it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those portions under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819. When Venezuela, Ecuador and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, New Granada officially changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was changed, this time to United States of Colombia. To refer to country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica, the oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period, at Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found
31.
Allopatric speciation
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This can be the result of population dispersal leading to emigration, or by geographical changes such as mountain formation, island formation, or large scale human activities. Allopatric speciation is thought to be the dominant mode of speciation, the separate populations over time may evolve distinctly different characteristics. Allopatric isolation is a key factor in speciation and a process by which new species arise. Adaptive radiation, as observed by Charles Darwin in Galapagos finches, is a consequence of allopatric speciation among island populations, allopatric speciation may occur when a species is subdivided into geographically isolated populations. Such separation commonly is referred to as vicariance, allopatric and allopatry are terms from biogeography, referring to organisms whose ranges are entirely separate such that they do not occur in any one place together. If these organisms are related, such a distribution is usually the result of allopatric speciation. Separation may be attributed to either geological processes or population dispersal, on a global scale, plate tectonics is a major geological factor that can lead to the separation of populations to result in the distribution of species. Approximately 50,000 years ago, the Death Valley region of the western United States had a climate which produced an interconnecting system of freshwater rivers. Climatic changes resulted in a trend that has continued for the last 10,000 years. As the lakes and rivers shrank, fish populations became geologically isolated, the few remaining springs are currently home to a variety of fish, many sharing a close common ancestor, yet each has uniquely adapted to its own particular pool. The extent to which a barrier can effectively isolate a population correlates to the mobility of the organism or its offspring. For example, physical barriers such as canyons may effectively block migration and dispersal of small mammals, however, population dispersal is used to describe migratory events, either in the form of range expansion or jump dispersal, which may lead to genetic isolation. Migrations or accidental relocations may lead to population fragments, whereby groups merely become separated by distance, once gene flow between the two groups is disrupted, speciation becomes a possibility. When populations become isolated, heritable variations may accumulate so that they become different from the parental population. Given sufficient time, these variations may lead to reproductive isolation, portions of a populations that exist along the edges of the parent populations geographic territory have higher likelihood of developing reproductive isolation. Such peripheral populations are likely to possess genes that are different from the parental population, after isolation, the founding population is less likely to represent the gene pool of the parent population. In addition, peripheral isolates are likely to represent a number of individuals. The outer periphery of a populations habitat tends to be extreme, hence, for most peripheral isolates, it is more likely that they die off rather than survive and speciate
32.
Great American Interchange
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The migration peaked dramatically around three million years ago during the Piacenzian age. It resulted in the joining of the Neotropic and Nearctic ecozones definitively to form the Americas, the interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature. Its most dramatic effect is on the zoogeography of mammals but it gave an opportunity for reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, weak-flying or flightless birds. The occurrence of the interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the father of biogeography, Wallace had spent 1848–1852 exploring and collecting specimens in the Amazon basin. Others who made significant contributions to understanding the event in the century that followed include Florentino Ameghino, W. D. Matthew, scott, Bryan Patterson, George Gaylord Simpson and S. David Webb. Analogous interchanges occurred earlier in the Cenozoic, when the formerly isolated land masses of India and Africa made contact with Eurasia c.50 and 30 Ma ago, respectively. Its endemic mammals initially consisted primarily of metatherians, xenarthrans, and a group of native ungulates, notoungulates, litopterns, astrapotheres. Marsupials appear to have traveled via Gondwanan land connections from South America through Antarctica to Australia in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary, a 61-Ma-old platypus-like monotreme fossil from Patagonia may represent an Australian immigrant. Paleognath birds may have migrated by this route around the same time, other taxa that may have dispersed by the same route are parrots, chelid turtles and meiolaniid turtles. Marsupials present in South America included didelphimorphs and several small groups, larger predatory relatives of these also existed, like the borhyaenids. Metatherians were the only South American mammals to specialize as carnivores, sparassodonts shared the ecological niches for large predators with fearsome flightless terror birds, whose closest extant relatives are the seriemas. Terrestrial ziphodont sebecid crocodilians were also present at least through the middle Miocene, some of South Americas aquatic crocodilians, such as Gryposuchus, Mourasuchus and Purussaurus, reached monstrous sizes, with lengths up to 12 m. They shared their habitat with one of the largest turtles of all time, xenarthrans are a curious group of mammals that developed morphological adaptations for specialized diets very early in their history. The notoungulates and litopterns had many forms, like Macrauchenia. Both groups started evolving in the Lower Paleocene, possibly from condylarth stock, diversified, dwindled before the great interchange, the pyrotheres and astrapotheres were also strange but were less diverse and disappeared earlier, well before the interchange. The North American fauna was a typical boreoeutherian one, the invasions of South America started about 40 Ma ago, when caviomorph rodents arrived in South America. Their subsequent vigorous diversification displaced some of South Americas small marsupials and gave rise to – among others – capybaras, chinchillas, viscachas and this invasion most likely came from Africa. The crossing from West Africa to the northeast corner of Brazil was much shorter then, due to continental drift, crossings of the ocean were accomplished when at least one fertilised female accidentally floated over on driftwood or mangrove rafts
33.
Tectonic plate
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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
34.
Earth's crust
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In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle. The crust of the Earth is composed of a variety of igneous, metamorphic. The crust is underlain by the mantle, the upper part of the mantle is composed mostly of peridotite, a rock denser than rocks common in the overlying crust. The boundary between the crust and mantle is conventionally placed at the Mohorovičić discontinuity, a boundary defined by a contrast in seismic velocity, the crust occupies less than 1% of Earths volume. The crust of the Earth is of two types, oceanic and continental. The oceanic crust is 5 km to 10 km thick and is composed primarily of basalt, diabase, the continental crust is typically from 30 km to 50 km thick and is mostly composed of slightly less dense rocks than those of the oceanic crust. Some of these less dense rocks, such as granite, are common in the continental crust, both the continental and oceanic crust float on the mantle. Because the continental crust is thicker, it both to greater elevations and greater depth than the oceanic crust. The slightly lower density of continental rock compared to basaltic oceanic rock contributes to the higher relative elevation of the top of the continental crust. As the top of the continental crust reaches elevations higher than that of the oceanic, the temperature of the crust increases with depth, reaching values typically in the range from about 200 °C to 400 °C at the boundary with the underlying mantle. The crust and underlying relatively rigid uppermost mantle make up the lithosphere, because of convection in the underlying plastic upper mantle and asthenosphere, the lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates that move. The temperature increases by as much as 30 °C for every kilometer locally in the part of the crust. Earth has probably always had some form of basaltic crust, in contrast, the bulk of the continental crust is much older. The oldest continental crustal rocks on Earth have ages in the range from about 3.7 to 4, some zircon with age as great as 4.3 billion years has been found in the Narryer Gneiss Terrane. The average age of the current Earths continental crust has been estimated to be about 2.0 billion years, most crustal rocks formed before 2.5 billion years ago are located in cratons. Such old continental crust and the underlying mantle asthenosphere are less dense than elsewhere in Earth, formation of new continental crust is linked to periods of intense orogeny, these periods coincide with the formation of the supercontinents such as Rodinia, Pangaea and Gondwana. The continental crust has a composition similar to that of andesite. The most abundant minerals in Earths continental crust are feldspars, which make up about 41% of the crust by weight, followed by quartz at 12%, Continental crust is enriched in incompatible elements compared to the basaltic ocean crust and much enriched compared to the underlying mantle
35.
Cocos Plate
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The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created by sea floor spreading along the East Pacific Rise, from the rise the plate is pushed eastward and pushed or dragged under the less dense overriding Caribbean Plate, in the process called subduction. The subducted leading edge heats up and adds its water to the mantle above it, in the mantle layer called the asthenosphere, mantle rock melts to make magma, trapping superheated water under great pressure. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench, the eastern boundary is a transform fault, the Panama Fracture Zone. The southern boundary is a ridge, the Galapagos Rise. The western boundary is another ridge, the East Pacific Rise. The Cocos and Nazca Plates are the remnants of the former Farallon Plate, a hotspot under the Galapagos Islands lies along the Galapagos Rise. The Rivera Plate north of the Cocos Plate is thought to have separated from the Cocos Plate 5-10 million years ago, the boundary between the two plates appears to lack a definite transform fault, yet they are regarded as distinct. The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake was a result of the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate, the also devastating 2001 El Salvador earthquakes were generated in the subduction of this plate on the Caribbean Plate. The volcanic arc Martin Meschede and Udo Barckhausen, Plate tectonic evolution of the Cocos-Nazca plate, reconstructing its geological evolution
36.
Caribbean Plate
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The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers in area, the Caribbean Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and these borders are regions of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Part of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, the Puerto Rico trench is at a complex transition from the subduction boundary to the south and the transform boundary to the west. The eastern boundary is a zone, the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. Subduction forms the islands of the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc from the Virgin Islands in the north to the islands off the coast of Venezuela in the south. Large historical earthquakes in 1839 and 1843 in this region are possibly megathrust earthquakes and this boundary is in part the result of transform faulting along with thrust faulting and some subduction. The rich Venezuelan petroleum fields possibly result from this complex plate interaction, the Caribbean plate is moving eastward about 22 millimeters per year in relation to the South American plate. In Venezuela much of the movement between the Caribbean Plate and the South American plate occurs along the faults of Boconó, El Pilar, the western portion of the plate is occupied by Central America. The Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean is subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate and this subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc. The usual theory as to the origin of the Caribbean Plate was confronted by a theory in 2002. The mainstream theory holds that it is the Caribbean large igneous province formed in the Pacific Ocean tens of millions of years ago. As the Atlantic Ocean widened, North America and South America were pushed westward, the Pacific Ocean floor subducted under this oceanic crust between the continents. With the formation of the Isthmus of Panama 3 million years ago, the more recent theory asserts that the Caribbean Plate came into being from an Atlantic hotspot which no longer exists. The Caribbean Plate began its eastward migration 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous and this migration eventually resulted in a volcanic arc stretching from north-western South America to the Yucatán Peninsula, today represented by the Aves Islands and the Lesser and Greater Antilles
37.
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
38.
Island
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An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge, examples are Singapore and its causeway, and the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. There are two types of islands in the sea, continental and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is also part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere. This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, Iceland, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
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Sediment
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For sediment in beverages, see dregs. For example, sand and silt can be carried in suspension in water and on reaching the sea be deposited by sedimentation. Sediments are most often transported by water, but also wind, beach sands and river channel deposits are examples of fluvial transport and deposition, though sediment also often settles out of slow-moving or standing water in lakes and oceans. Desert sand dunes and loess are examples of transport and deposition. Glacial moraine deposits and till are ice-transported sediments, sediment can be classified based on its grain size and/or its composition. Sediment size is measured on a log base 2 scale, called the Phi scale, composition of sediment can be measured in terms of, parent rock lithology mineral composition chemical make-up. This leads to an ambiguity in which clay can be used as both a size-range and a composition, sediment is transported based on the strength of the flow that carries it and its own size, volume, density, and shape. Stronger flows will increase the lift and drag on the particle, causing it to rise, rivers and streams carry sediment in their flows. This sediment can be in a variety of locations within the flow and these relationships are shown in the following table for the Rouse number, which is a ratio of sediment fall velocity to upwards velocity. If the upwards velocity is less than the settling velocity, but still high enough for the sediment to move, it will move along the bed as bed load by rolling, sliding. If the upwards velocity is higher than the velocity, the sediment will be transported high in the flow as wash load. As there are generally a range of different particle sizes in the flow, sediment motion can create self-organized structures such as ripples, dunes, antidunes on the river or stream bed. These bedforms are often preserved in rocks and can be used to estimate the direction. Overland flow can erode soil particles and transport them downslope, the erosion associated with overland flow may occur through different methods depending on meteorological and flow conditions. If the initial impact of rain droplets dislodges soil, the phenomenon is called rainsplash erosion, if overland flow is directly responsible for sediment entrainment but does not form gullies, it is called sheet erosion. If the flow and the substrate permit channelization, gullies may form, glaciers carry a wide range of sediment sizes, and deposit it in moraines. The overall balance between sediment in transport and sediment being deposited on the bed is given by the Exner equation and this expression states that the rate of increase in bed elevation due to deposition is proportional to the amount of sediment that falls out of the flow. This can be localized, and simply due to obstacles, examples are scour holes behind boulders, where flow accelerates
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Miocene
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The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago. The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell and its name comes from the Greek words μείων and καινός and means less recent because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene Epoch and is followed by the Pliocene Epoch, the earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, with the climate slowly cooling towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event, the apes arose and diversified during the Miocene, becoming widespread in the Old World. By the end of this epoch, the ancestors of humans had split away from the ancestors of the chimpanzees to follow their own evolutionary path, as in the Oligocene before it, grasslands continued to expand and forests to dwindle in extent. In the Miocene seas, kelp forests made their first appearance, the plants and animals of the Miocene were fairly modern. The Miocene faunal stages from youngest to oldest are typically named according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, Two subdivisions each form the lower, middle, continents continued to drift toward their present positions. Mountain building took place in western North America, Europe, both continental and marine Miocene deposits are common worldwide with marine outcrops common near modern shorelines. Well studied continental exposures occur in the North American Great Plains, India continued to collide with Asia, creating dramatic new mountain ranges. The Tethys Seaway continued to shrink and then disappeared as Africa collided with Eurasia in the Turkish–Arabian region between 19 and 12 Ma. The subsequent uplift of mountains in the western Mediterranean region and a fall in sea levels combined to cause a temporary drying up of the Mediterranean Sea near the end of the Miocene. The global trend was towards increasing aridity caused primarily by global cooling reducing the ability of the atmosphere to absorb moisture, climates remained moderately warm, although the slow global cooling that eventually led to the Pleistocene glaciations continued. Although a long-term cooling trend was well underway, there is evidence of a period during the Miocene when the global climate rivalled that of the Oligocene. The Miocene warming began 21 million years ago and continued until 14 million years ago, by 8 million years ago, temperatures dropped sharply once again, and the Antarctic ice sheet was already approaching its present-day size and thickness. Greenland may have begun to have large glaciers as early as 7 to 8 million years ago, life during the Miocene Epoch was mostly supported by the two newly formed biomes, kelp forests and grasslands. This allows for more grazers, such as horses, rhinoceroses, ninety five percent of modern plants existed by the end of this epoch. The higher organic content and water retention of the deeper and richer grassland soils, with long term burial of carbon in sediments, produced a carbon and this, combined with higher surface albedo and lower evapotranspiration of grassland, contributed to a cooler, drier climate. The expansion of grasslands and radiations among terrestrial herbivores correlates to fluctuations in CO2
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Northern Europe
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Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. However, narrower definitions may also be used based on geographical factors, such as climate. Greenland, geographically a part of North America, is politically a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, while Northern Europe overlaps with most of Northwestern Europe, north-Central Europe, and Northeastern Europe, it does not border Southern Europe. Countries which are central-western, central-central, or central-eastern are generally considered part of neither Northern Europe or Southern Europe. Historically, when Europe was dominated by the Mediterranean region, everything not near this sea was termed Northern Europe, including southern Germany, all of the Low Countries and this meaning is still used today in some contexts, such as in discussions of the Northern Renaissance. In medieval times, the term Thule was used to mean a place in the extreme northern reaches of the continent. The region has a south west extreme of around 50 degrees north, the entire regions climate is mildly affected by the Gulf Stream. From the west climates vary from maritime and maritime subarctic climates, in the north and central climates are generally subarctic or Arctic and to the east climates are mostly subarctic and temperate/continental. With the exception of the United Kingdom and Ireland, Northern European countries are known for harsh winters with temperatures reaching as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius in some parts. Countries in Northern Europe have large, developed economies and some of the highest standards of living in the world and they often score highly on surveys measuring quality of life, such as the Human Development Index
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Arctic ice cap
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The Arctic ice pack is the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and its vicinity. The Arctic ice pack undergoes a seasonal cycle in which ice melts in spring and summer, reaches a minimum around mid-September, then increases during fall. Summer ice cover in the Arctic is about 50% of winter cover, some of the ice survives from one year to the next. Currently 28% of Arctic basin sea ice is ice, thicker than seasonal ice, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas. As well as the seasonal cycle there has been an underlying trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic in recent decades. Sea ice has an important effect on the balance of the polar oceans, since it insulates the warm ocean from the much colder air above. Sea ice is highly reflective of solar radiation, reflecting about 60% of incoming solar radiation when bare and this is much greater than the reflectivity of the sea and thus the ice also affects the absorption of sunlight at the surface. The sea ice cycle is also an important source of dense bottom water, while freezing, water rejects its salt content, leaving pure ice. The remaining surface water, made dense by the salinity, sinks. This production of water is a factor in maintaining the thermohaline circulation. In the Arctic, a key area where pancake ice forms the dominant ice type over a region is the so-called Odden ice tongue in the Greenland Sea. Most of the old ice continues south, driven by the wind, so an open water surface is exposed on which new ice forms as frazil. Reliable measurements of sea ice edge begin within the satellite era, from the late 1970s, the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer on Seasat and Nimbus 7 satellites provided information that was independent of solar illumination or meteorological conditions. The frequency and accuracy of passive microwave measurements improved with the launch of the DMSP F8 Special Sensor Microwave/Imager SSMI in 1987. Both the sea ice area and extent are estimated, with the latter being larger, the trends from 1979 to 2002 have been a statistically significant Arctic sea ice decrease of −2. 5% ±0. 9% per decade during those 23 years. Climate models simulated this trend in 2002, the September minimum ice extent trend for 1979–2011 declined by 12. 0% per decade during 32 years. In 2007 the minimum extent fell by more than a million square kilometers, new research shows the Arctic Sea ice to be melting faster than predicted by any of the 18 computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in preparing its 2007 assessments. In 2012, a new low of about 3,500,000 km2 was reached
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Quaternary glaciation
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During this period, ice sheets expanded, notably from out of Antarctica and Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets occurred elsewhere. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities, the ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, affect a major feedback on climate cooling. The Quaternary glaciation was the first ice age to be demonstrated in geology and this was done over the 1700s and 1800s CE. Over the last century, extensive field observations have provided evidence that continental glaciers covered large parts of Europe, North America, even before the theory of worldwide glaciation was generally accepted, many observers recognized that more than a single advance and retreat of the ice had occurred. Since then other, earlier ice ages have been identified, the Quaternary glaciation is the last of five known glaciations during Earths history. The other four are the Huronian glaciation, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan glaciation, over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period, starting 2.58 Ma, is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet—the Antarctic ice sheet—has existed continuously, there is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes—referred to as glacial ice sheets at least 4 km thick at their maximum also existed in Europe, North America. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials, currently, Earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the land surface, still exist in Greenland, Antarctica. During the glacial periods, the present hydrologic system was completely interrupted throughout large areas of the world and was modified in others. Due to the volume of ice on land, sea level was approximately 120 meters lower than present, extensive evidence now shows that a number of periods of growth and retreat of continental glaciers occurred during the ice age, called glacials and interglacials. The interglacial periods of climate are represented by buried soil profiles, peat beds. No completely satisfactory theory has been proposed to account for Earths history of glaciation, the cause of glaciation may be related to several simultaneous factors, such as astronomical cycles, atmospheric composition, plate tectonics, and ocean currents. The role of Earths orbital changes in controlling climate was first advanced by James Croll in the late 19th century, later, Milutin Milanković, a Serbian geophysicist, elaborated on the theory and calculated these irregularities in Earths orbit could cause the climatic cycles known as Milankovitch cycles. They are the result of the behavior of several types of cyclical changes in Earths orbital properties. Changes in the eccentricity of Earth occur on a cycle of about 100,000 years
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Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation within an area, biome, terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics and these tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 per cent of earths surface, and contain about 90 percent of the worlds species. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, there are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, the number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is a component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines. The richness of biodiversity depends on the conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 300,000 species of plants are known to date, all species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions, more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, there are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, remains of life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth, then it could be common in the universe
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Paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms evolution and interactions with each other, paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuviers work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i. e. old, ancient, ὄν, on, i. e. being, creature and λόγος, logos, i. e. speech, thought, study. Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics. The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition is the study of ancient life, paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself. This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past, hence it has three main elements, description of the phenomena, developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change, and applying those theories to specific facts. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by an accident during other research. Paleontology lies on the boundary between biology and geology since paleontology focuses on the record of past life but its source of evidence is fossils. In addition paleontology often uses techniques derived from other sciences, including biology, osteology, ecology, chemistry, techniques developed in engineering have been used to analyse how ancient organisms might have worked, for example how fast Tyrannosaurus could move and how powerful its bite was. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions, vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils of vertebrates, from the earliest fish to the immediate ancestors of modern mammals. Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils of such as molluscs, arthropods. Paleobotany focuses on the study of plants, but traditionally includes the study of fossil algae. Palynology, the study of pollen and spores produced by plants and protists. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong, one example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere, together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built
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Opossum
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The opossums, also known as possums, are marsupial mammals of the order Didelphimorphia /daɪˌdɛlfᵻˈmɔːrfiə/). The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 103 or more species in 19 genera, opossums originated in South America, and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of the two continents. Their unspecialized biology, flexible diet, and reproductive habits make them successful colonizers and survivors in diverse locations and conditions, the word opossum is borrowed from the Powhatan language and was first recorded between 1607 and 1611 by John Smith and William Strachey. Both men encountered the language at the British settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, stracheys notes describe the opossum as a beast in bigness of a pig and in taste alike, while Smith recorded it hath an head like a swine. Tail like a rat. of the bigness of a cat, the Powhatan word ultimately derives from a Proto-Algonquian word meaning white dog or dog-like beast. The opossum is also known as a possum, particularly in the Southern United States. Didelphimorphia refers to the fact that, like all marsupials, these animals have two wombs, didelphimorphs are small to medium-sized marsupials, ranging in size from a small mouse to a large house cat. They tend to be omnivores, although there are many exceptions. Most members of this taxon have long snouts, a braincase. By mammalian standards, this is an unusually full jaw, the incisors are very small, the canines large, and the molars are tricuspid. Didelphimorphs have a stance and the hind feet have an opposable digit with no claw. Like some New World monkeys, opossums have prehensile tails, like all marsupials, the fur consists of awn hair only, and the females have a pouch. The tail and parts of the feet bear scutes, the stomach is simple, with a small cecum. Notably, the male opossum has a forked penis bearing twin glandes, opossums have a remarkably robust immune system, and show partial or total immunity to the venom of rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and other pit vipers. Opossums are about eight times less likely to carry rabies than wild dogs, although all living opossums are essentially opportunistic omnivores, different species vary in the amount of meat and vegetation they include in their diet. Members of the Caluromyinae are essentially frugivorous, whereas the lutrine opossum, the yapok is particularly unusual, as it is the only living semi-aquatic marsupial, using its webbed hindlimbs to dive in search of freshwater mollusks and crayfish. As a marsupial, the female opossum has a system that includes a bifurcated vagina, a divided uterus and a marsupium. The average estrous cycle of the opossum is about 28 days, opossums do possess a placenta, but it is short-lived, simple in structure, and, unlike that of placental mammals, is not fully functional
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Armadillo
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Armadillos are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata with a leathery armour shell. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the surviving families in the order. The word armadillo means little armoured one in Spanish, the Aztecs called them āyōtōchtli, Nahuatl for turtle-rabbit, āyōtl and tōchtli. The Portuguese word for armadillo is tatu which derives from the Tupi language, similar names are also found in other, especially European, languages. About nine extant genera and 21 extant species of armadillo have been described and their average length is about 75 cm, including tail. The giant armadillo grows up to 150 cm and weighs up to 54 kg, while the pink fairy armadillo is a diminutive species, all species are native to the Americas, where they inhabit a variety of different environments. Like all of the Xenarthra lineages, armadillos originated in South America, due to the continents former isolation, they were confined there for most of the Cenozoic. The recent formation of the Isthmus of Panama allowed a few members of the family to migrate northward into southern North America by the early Pleistocene, today, all extant armadillo species are still present in South America. They are particularly diverse in Paraguay and surrounding areas, some, including four species of Dasypus, are widely distributed over the Americas, whereas others, such as Yepess mulita, are restricted to small ranges. Their range has expanded in North America over the last century due to a lack of natural predators. Armadillos are small to medium-sized mammals, the smallest species, the pink fairy armadillo, is roughly chipmunk-sized at 85 g and 13–15 cm in total length. The largest species, the giant armadillo, can be the size of a pig and weigh up to 54 kg. Many species use their claws to dig for food, such as grubs. The nine-banded armadillo prefers to build burrows in moist soil near the creeks, streams, the diets of different armadillo species vary, but consist mainly of insects, grubs, and other invertebrates. Some species, however, feed almost entirely on ants and termites, in common with other xenarthrans, armadillos, in general, have low body temperatures of 33–36 °C and low basal metabolic rates. This is particularly true of types that specialize in using termites as their food source. The armour is formed by plates of bone covered in relatively small, overlapping epidermal scales called scutes. Most species have rigid shields over the shoulders and hips, with a number of bands separated by flexible skin covering the back, additional armour covers the top of the head, the upper parts of the limbs, and the tail
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