1.
Changbai Mountains
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The Changbai Mountain Range is a mountain range on the border between China and North Korea. It is also referred to as the Šanggiyan, Jangbaek, or Ohnan mountains, the range extends from the Northeast Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning to the North Korean provinces of Ryanggang and Chagang. Most peaks exceed 2,000 metres in height, with the highest mountain being Paektu Mountain. The range represents the mythical birthplace of Bukūri Yongšon, ancestor of Nurhaci and the Aisin Gioro imperial family, who were the founders of the Manchu state, the Chinese name literally means Perpetually-White Mountain Region. The mountains are the source of the Songhua, Tumen and Yalu Rivers, the Changbai Mountains are characterized by long and cold winters. Precipitation is low in the winter but higher in the summer, the vegetation of the mountain slopes is divided into several different zones. At the top, above 2000 metres, tundra predominates, from 1700 to 2000 metres, vegetation is dominated by mountain birch and larch. Below this zone, and down to 1100 metres, the dominant trees are spruce, fir, from 600 to 1100 metres, the landscape is dominated by mixed forest, consisting of Amur linden, Korean pine, maple, and elm. Further down, a hardwood forest is found, dominated by second-growth poplar. Longwanqun National Forest Park Baekdu Mountain Changbai Waterfall List of mountains in Korea Baekdu mountain at changbaimountain. com
2.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
3.
Topographic prominence
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It is a measure of the independence of a summit. A peaks key col is a point on this contour line. By convention, the prominence of Mount Everest, the Earths highest mountain, is taken to equal the elevation of its summit above sea level, if the peaks prominence is P metres, to get from the summit to any higher terrain one must descend at least P metres. Together with the convention for Mount Everest, this implies that the prominence of any island or continental highpoint is equal to its elevation above sea level, for every ridge connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the ridge. The key col is defined as the highest of these cols, the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of the key col. The following mental exercise may illustrate the meaning of topographic prominence, imagine you are standing at the top of a peak and imagine that an imaginary sea level rises to your feet. Now slowly lower the sea level and an imaginary island appears beneath your feet. Your island will grow and will merge with other islands that emerge, the parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua at a distance of 17,755 km, the key col may also be close or far from the subject peak. The key col for Aconcagua is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km, the key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest is about 100 m distant. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it is a measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominences are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits, peaks with high prominences tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains, for example, the worlds second-highest mountain is K2. While Mount Everests South Summit is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a subsummit of the main summit, many lists of mountains take topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion, or cutoff. John and Anne Nuttalls The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m, in the contiguous United States, the famous list of fourteeners uses a cutoff of 300 ft /91 m. Also in the U. S.2000 feet of prominence has become a threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence, which are different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points, one advantage of a prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff, since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak
4.
Ultra-prominent peak
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An ultra-prominent peak, or Ultra for short, is defined as a mountain summit with a topographic prominence of 1,500 metres or more. There are approximately 1,524 such peaks on Earth, some peaks, such as the Matterhorn and Eiger, are not Ultras because they are connected to higher mountains by high cols and therefore do not achieve enough topographic prominence. The term Ultra is due to earth scientist Stephen Fry, from his studies of the prominence of peaks in Washington in the 1980s and his original term was ultra major mountain, referring to peaks with at least 5,000 ft of prominence. Currently,1,515 Ultras have been identified worldwide,637 in Asia,355 in North America,209 in South America,119 in Europe,84 in Africa,69 in Australasia and 39 in Antarctica. Many of the worlds largest mountains are Ultras, including Mount Everest, K2, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc, on the other hand, others such as the Eiger and the Matterhorn are not Ultras because they do not have sufficient prominence. In British Columbia, some of the mountains listed do not even have generally recognized names, a number of Ultras have yet to be climbed, with Sauyr Zhotasy, Mount Siple, and Gangkar Puensum being the most likely candidates for the most prominent unclimbed mountain in the world. All of the Seven Summits are Ultras by virtue of the fact that they are the points of large landmasses. Each has its key col at or near sea level, resulting in a value almost equal to its elevation. List of peaks by prominence gives the 125 most prominent peaks worldwide
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Ryanggang Province
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Ryanggang Province is a province in North Korea. The province is bordered by China on the north, North Hamgyong on the east, South Hamgyong on the south, Ryanggang was formed in 1954, when it was separated from South Hamgyŏng. In South Korean usage, Ryanggang is spelled and pronounced as Yanggang, along the northern border with China runs the Yalu River and the Tumen River. In between the rivers, and the source of both, is Paektu Mountain, revered by both the Koreans and Manchurians as the origin of each people. The North Korean government claims that Kim Jong-il was born there when his parents were at a Communist resistance camp at the mountain, the worst hunger of the 1990s famine years occurred in these three provinces, and most refugees into China come from the Rust Belt region. An explosion and mushroom cloud was detected in Kimhyŏngjik-gun on 9 September 2004. This was reported a few days later on 12 September, in recent years, power supply problems have become prevalent in Ryanggang. Ryanggang is divided into 1 city and 11 counties
7.
Jilin
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Jilin is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, in ancient times, Jilin was inhabited the Xianbei, Sushen, the Mohe, Jurchens, and the Wùjí. The Korean kingdoms of Buyeo, Goguryeo and Balhae, ruled parts of this area, the region then fell successively under the domination of the Xiongnu, Xianbei state, Khitan Liao Dynasty, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, and the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, much of the area was under the control of the General of Jilin, after the Primorsky Krai area was ceded to Russia in 1860, the Qing government began to open the area up to Han Chinese migrants, most of whom came from Shandong. By the beginning of the 20th century, Han Chinese had become the dominant ethnic group of the region, in 1932, the area was incorporated into Manchukuo, a puppet state set up by Japan. Changchun, capital of Jilin today, was made the capital of Manchukuo, after the defeat of Japan in 1945, the Soviet Army captured Jilin after Operation August Storm. The region, with the rest of northeastern China, was ceded to the Communists by the Soviet Union, manchuria was the staging ground from which the communists eventually conquered the rest of China in the Chinese Civil War. In 1949, Jilin province was smaller, encompassing only the environs of Changchun and Jilin City, in the 1950s, Jilin was expanded to its present borders. During the Cultural Revolution, Jilin was expanded again to include a part of Inner Mongolia, giving it a border with the independent state of Mongolia, in recent times Jilin has, with the rest of heavy industry-based Northeast China, been facing economic difficulties with privatization. This prompted the government to undertake a campaign called Revitalize the Northeast. Jilin lies in the part of northeastern China, bordering Russia. Jilin has an area of 190,000 km2 and a population of 27.3 million and its capital is Changchun, which lies 113 km west of Jilin City. Jilin is rich in mineral deposits with 136 types of minerals. Jilin has an abundance of Traditional Chinese medicine resources, with approximately 27,000 kinds of plants and 9,000 kinds of medicinal herbs. Jilin is highest in altitude in the southeast and drops gently towards the northwest, the Changbai Mountains run through its southeastern regions and contains the highest peak of the province, Paektu Mountain at 2744 m. Other ranges include the Jilinhada Mountains, Zhang Guangcai Mountains, Jilin has a northerly continental monsoon climate, with long, cold winters and short, warm summers. Average January temperatures range from -20 to -14°C, rainfall averages at 350 to 1000 mm. Major cities in this province include Changchun, Jilin City, Baishan, Baicheng, Siping, Yanji, Songyuan, Tonghua and these administrative divisions are explained in greater detail at Administrative divisions of the Peoples Republic of China
8.
Stratovolcano
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A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a profile and periodic explosive eruptions and effusive eruptions. The lava flowing from stratovolcanoes typically cools and hardens before spreading far due to high viscosity, the magma forming this lava is often felsic, having high-to-intermediate levels of silica, with lesser amounts of less-viscous mafic magma. Extensive felsic lava flows are uncommon, but have travelled as far as 15 km, stratovolcanoes are sometimes called composite volcanoes because of their composite layered structure built up from sequential outpourings of eruptive materials. They are among the most common types of volcanoes, in contrast to the less common shield volcanoes, two famous stratovolcanoes are Krakatoa, best known for its catastrophic eruption in 1883 and Vesuvius, famous for its destruction of the towns Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 CE. Both eruptions claimed thousands of lives, in modern times, Mount Saint Helens and Mount Pinatubo have erupted catastrophically. Existence of stratovolcanoes has not been proved on other bodies of the solar system with one exception. Their existence was suggested for some isolated massifs on Mars, e. g. Zephyria Tholus, stratovolcanoes are common at subduction zones, forming chains along plate tectonic boundaries where oceanic crust is drawn under continental crust or another oceanic plate. The release of water from hydrated minerals is termed dewatering, and occurs at pressures and temperatures for each mineral. The magma then rises through the crust, incorporating silica-rich crustal rock, when the magma nears the top surface, it pools in a magma chamber under or within the volcano. There, the low pressure allows water and other volatiles dissolved in the magma to escape from solution, as occurs when a bottle of carbonated water is opened. Once a critical volume of magma and gas accumulates, the obstacle of the cone is overcome. In recorded history, explosive eruptions at subduction zone volcanoes have posed the greatest hazard to civilizations. Subduction-zone stratovolcanoes, such as Mount St. Helens, Mount Etna and Mount Pinatubo, typically erupt with explosive force, as a consequence, the tremendous internal pressures of the trapped volcanic gases remain in the pasty magma. Following the breaching of the chamber, the magma degasses explosively. The gases and water out with speed and force. Since 1600 CE, nearly 300,000 people have killed by volcanic eruptions. Most deaths were caused by flows and mudflows, deadly hazards that often accompany explosive eruptions of subduction-zone stratovolcanoes
9.
Types of volcanic eruptions
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Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which lava, tephra, and assorted gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior has been observed, some volcanoes may exhibit only one characteristic type of eruption during a period of activity, while others may display an entire sequence of types all in one eruptive series. There are three different types of eruptions, the most well-observed are magmatic eruptions, which involve the decompression of gas within magma that propels it forward. Phreatomagmatic eruptions are another type of eruption, driven by the compression of gas within magma. Within these wide-defining eruptive types are several subtypes, the weakest are Hawaiian and submarine, then Strombolian, followed by Vulcanian and Surtseyan. The stronger eruptive types are Pelean eruptions, followed by Plinian eruptions, subglacial and phreatic eruptions are defined by their eruptive mechanism, and vary in strength. An important measure of strength is Volcanic Explosivity Index, an order of magnitude scale ranging from 0 to 8 that often correlates to eruptive types. Explosive eruptions are characterized by gas-driven explosions that propels magma and tephra, effusive eruptions, meanwhile, are characterized by the outpouring of lava without significant explosive eruption. Volcanic eruptions vary widely in strength, on the one extreme there are effusive Hawaiian eruptions, which are characterized by lava fountains and fluid lava flows, which are typically not very dangerous. On the other extreme, Plinian eruptions are large, violent, volcanoes are not bound to one eruptive style, and frequently display many different types, both passive and explosive, even the span of a single eruptive cycle. Volcanoes do not always erupt vertically from a crater near their peak. Some volcanoes exhibit lateral and fissure eruptions, notably, many Hawaiian eruptions start from rift zones, and some of the strongest Surtseyan eruptions develop along fracture zones. Scientists believed that pulses of magma mixed together in the chamber before climbing upward—a process estimated to several thousands of years. But Columbia University volcanologists found that the eruption of Costa Rica’s Irazú Volcano in 1963 was likely triggered by magma that took a route from the mantle over just a few months. The volcanic explosivity index is a scale, from 0 to 8 and it is used by the Smithsonian Institutions Global Volcanism Program in assessing the impact of historic and prehistoric lava flows. It operates in a way similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, the vast majority of volcanic eruptions are of VEIs between 0 and 2. Volcanic eruptions by VEI index Magmatic eruptions produce juvenile clasts during explosive decompression from gas release, Hawaiian eruptions are a type of volcanic eruption, named after the Hawaiian volcanoes with which this eruptive type is hallmark. Hawaiian eruptions are the calmest types of events, characterized by the effusive eruption of very fluid basalt-type lavas with low gaseous content
10.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
11.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
12.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
13.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
14.
Hangul
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The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea and as Chosŏngŭl/Chosŏn Muntcha in North Korea is the alphabet that has been used to write the Korean language since the 15th century. It was created during the Joseon Dynasty in 1443 by King Sejong the Great, in South Korea, Hangul is used primarily to write the Korean language as using Hanja in typical Korean writing had fallen out of common usage during the late 1990s. In its classical and modern forms, the alphabet has 19 consonant and 21 vowel letters, however, instead of being written sequentially like the letters of the Latin alphabet, Hangul letters are grouped into blocks, such as 한 han, each of which transcribes a syllable. That is, although the syllable 한 han may look like a single character, each syllabic block consists of two to six letters, including at least one consonant and one vowel. These blocks are arranged horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom. Each Korean word consists of one or more syllables, hence one or more blocks, of the 11,172 possible Hangul syllables, the most frequent 256 have a cumulative frequency of 88. 2%, with the top 512, it reaches 99. 9%. The modern name Hangul was coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912, han meant great in archaic Korean, and geul is the native Korean word for script. Taken together, then, the meaning is great script, as the word han had also become one way of indicating Korea as a whole the name could also potentially be interpreted as Korean script. Korean 한글 is pronounced, and in English as /ˈhɑːn. ɡʊl/ or /ˈhɑːŋɡʊl/, when used as an English word, it is often rendered without the diacritics, hangul, and it is often capitalized as Hangul, as it appears in many English dictionaries. Hankul in the Yale romanization, a system recommended for technical linguistic studies, North Koreans call it Chosŏngŭl, after Chosŏn, the North Korean name for Korea. Because of objections to the names Hangeul, Chosŏngŭl, and urigeul by Koreans in China, until the early 20th century, Hangul was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite, who preferred the traditional hanja writing system. They gave it such names as these, Achimgeul, in the original Hanja, it is rendered as 故智者不終朝而會，愚者可浹旬而學。 Gugmun Eonmun Amgeul. Am is a prefix that signifies a noun is feminine Ahaetgeul or Ahaegeul Hangul was promulgated by Sejong the Great, the Hall of Worthies, a group of scholars who worked with Sejong to develop and refine the new alphabet, is often credited for the work. The project was completed in late December 1443 or January 1444, the publication date of the Hunmin Jeong-eum, October 9, became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent, Chosongul Day, is on January 15, various speculations about the creation process were put to rest by the discovery in 1940 of the 1446 Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye. This document explains the design of the consonant letters according to articulatory phonetics, to assuage this problem, King Sejong created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people. However, it entered popular culture as Sejong had intended, being used especially by women, the late 16th century, however, saw a revival of Hangul, with gasa literature and later sijo flourishing. In the 17th century, Hangul novels became a major genre, by this point spelling had become quite irregular
15.
Hanja
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Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. Borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation, hanja-mal or hanja-eo refers to words that can be written with hanja, and hanmun refers to Classical Chinese writing, although hanja is sometimes used loosely to encompass these other concepts. Because hanja never underwent major reform, they are almost entirely identical to traditional Chinese, only a small number of hanja characters are modified or unique to Korean. By contrast, many of the Chinese characters currently in use in Japan and Mainland China have been simplified, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding hanja characters. Today, a working knowledge of Chinese characters is still important for anyone who wishes to study older texts. Learning a certain number of hanja is very helpful for understanding the etymology of Sino-Korean words, hanja are not used to write native Korean words, which are always rendered in hangul, and even words of Chinese origin—hanja-eo —are written with the hangul alphabet most of the time. A major motivation for the introduction of Chinese characters into Korea was the spread of Buddhism, the major Chinese text that introduced hanja to Koreans, however, was not a religious text but the Chinese text, Cheonjamun. One way of adapting hanja to write Korean in such systems was to represent native Korean grammatical particles, for example, Gugyeol uses the characters 爲尼 to transcribe the Korean word hăni, in modern Korean, that means does, and so. However, in Chinese, the characters are read as the expression wéi ní. This is an example of Gugyeol words where the radical is read in Korean for its meaning. Hanja was the means of writing Korean until King Sejong the Great promoted the invention of hangul in the 15th century. However, even after the invention of hangul, most Korean scholars continued to write in hanmun and it was not until the 20th century that hangul truly replaced hanja. Officially, hanja has not been used in North Korea since June 1949, additionally, many words borrowed from Chinese have been replaced in the North with native Korean words. However, there are a number of Chinese-borrowed words in widespread usage in the North. The replacement has been less total in South Korea where, although usage has declined over time, some remains in common usage in some contexts. Each hanja is composed of one of 214 radicals plus in most cases one or more additional elements, the vast majority of hanja use the additional elements to indicate the sound of the character, but a few hanja are purely pictographic, and some were formed in other ways. This dual meaning-sound reading of a character is called eumhun, the word or words used to denote the meaning are often—though hardly always—words of native Korean origin, and are sometimes archaic words no longer commonly used. South Korean primary schools abandoned the teaching of hanja in 1971 and it is taught in separate courses in South Korean high schools, separately from the normal Korean-language curriculum
16.
Manchu alphabet
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It is written vertically from top to bottom, with columns proceeding from left to right. According to the Veritable Records, in 1599 the Manchu leader Nurhaci decided to convert the Mongolian alphabet to make it suitable for the Manchu people, overriding the objections of two advisors named Erdeni and Gagai, he is credited with adapting the Mongolian script to Manchu. The resulting script was known as tongki fuka akū hergen and this revision created the Standard script, known as tongki fuka sindaha hergen. As a result, the Manchu alphabet contains little ambiguity, recently discovered manuscripts from the 1620s make clear, however, that the addition of dots and circles to Manchu script began before their supposed introduction by Dahai. Dahai also added ten graphemes, to allow Manchu to be used to write Chinese, Sanskrit, previously, these words contained sounds that did not have corresponding letters in Manchu. Sounds that were transliterated included the aspirated sounds k, k, x, ts, ts, sy, dz, cy, jy, and ž. By the middle of the century, there were three styles of writing Manchu in use, standard script, semi-cursive script, and cursive script. Semicursive script had less spacing between the letters, and cursive script had rounded tails, the Manchu alphabet was also used to write Chinese. Manchu, a textbook for reading documents, by Gertraude Roth Li, contains a list comparing a romanization of Chinese syllables written in Manchu compared to pinyin, using the Manchu script to transliterate Chinese words is a source of loanwords for the Xibe language. Also existing as a transliteration was the Manchu version of the Hong Loumeng, in the Imperial Liao-Jin-Yuan Three Histories National Language Explanation commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor, the Manchu alphabet is used to write Evenki words. In the Pentaglot Dictionary, also commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor, despite the alphabetic nature of its script, Manchu was traditionally taught as a syllabary. When learning the language, Manchus were taught at once to say la, lo, etc. instead of saying I, a---la, I, o---lo, etc. As a result, the contained in their syllabary do not contain all possible combinations that can be formed with their letters. Today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts, in China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner, while in the West it is treated like an alphabet. The alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language, the Manchu alphabet has two kinds of punctuation, two dots, analogous to a period, and one dot, analogous to a comma. However, with the exception of lists of nouns being reliably punctuated by single dots, punctuation in Manchu is inconsistent, the equivalent of the question mark in Manchu script consists of some special particles, written at the end of the question. The Jurchens of a millennium ago became the ancestors of the Manchus when Nurhaci united the Jianzhou Jurchens, throughout this period, the Jurchen language evolved into what we know as the Manchu language. Its script has no relation to the Manchu alphabet, however, as their script was derived from the Khitan script, transliterations of Manchu Abkai — Unicode Manchu/Sibe/Daur Fonts and Keyboards Manchu alphabet Manchu script generator ManchuFont — an OpenType font for Manchu writing Jurchen Script
17.
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
18.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
19.
Korean Peninsula
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The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula in East Asia. Until the end of World War II, Korea was a political entity whose territory roughly coincided with the Korean Peninsula. The northern boundaries for the Korean Peninsula are commonly taken to coincide with political borders between North Korea and its northern neighbors, China and Russia. These borders are formed naturally by the rivers Yalu/Amnok and Tumen/Tuman/Duman, taking this definition, the Korean Peninsula has an area of 220,847 km2. The peninsulas names in Korean, Chinese and Japanese all have the origin, that being Joseon. In North Koreas Chosonmal, the peninsula is called Chosŏn Pando, while in China, in Japan, it is either Chōsenhantō or Kanhantō. Meanwhile, in South Korea, it is called Hanbando, referring to the Samhan and they both use Korea as part of their official English names, which is a name that comes from the Goryeo dynasty. Korea Geography of Korea Geography of North Korea Geography of South Korea List of Korea-related topics KOIS, location of the Korean Peninsula — The official Korean Tourism guide website
20.
Northeast China
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Northeast China or Dongbei is a geographical region of China. It also historically corresponds with the term Manchuria in the English language, the heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain. Due to the shrinking of its industrial sector and decline of its economic growth. The region is congruent with some definitions of Manchuria in historical foreign usage. Another term for the area is Guandong, meaning east of the Pass, Northeast China was the homeland of several ethnic groups, including the Manchus, Ulchs, Hezhen. Various ethnic groups and their kingdoms, including the Sushen, Xianbei. Many Korean kingdoms have risen to power in Manchuria, including Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo. Yan State once occupied the Liaodong Peninsula, Han Chinese dynasties in China loosely controlled the southern parts of the region, during the Song dynasty, the Khitan set up the Liao Dynasty in Northeast China. Later, the Jurchen overthrew the Liao and formed the Jin dynasty, in AD1234, the Jin dynasty fell to the Mongols, whose Yuan Dynasty was later replaced by the Ming Dynasty in 1368. In 1644, the Manchu conquered the entirety of China and established the Qing dynasty, Northeast China came under influence of the Russian Empire with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok. The Empire of Japan replaced Russian influence in the region as a result of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, during the Warlord Era in China, Zhang Zuolin established himself in Northeast China, but was murdered by the Japanese for being too independent. The last Qing dynasty emperor, Puyi, was placed on the throne to lead a Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. After the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the region as part of its declaration of war against Japan, from 1945 to 1948, Northeast China was a base area for the Communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. Northeast China has a population of about 107,400,000 people. The overwhelming majority of the population in the Northeast is Han Chinese, people from the Northeast would first identify themselves as Northeasterners before affiliating to individual provinces and cities/towns. The Northeast was one of the earliest regions to industrialize in China during the era of Manchukuo, after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, Northeast China continued to be a major industrial base of the country. The region is, on the whole, more urbanised than most parts of China. Major cities include Shenyang, Dalian, Harbin, Changchun and Anshan, other cities include the steel making centres of Fushun and Anshan in Liaoning, Jilin City in Jilin, and Qiqihar and Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang
21.
Crater lake
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Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not made. Crater lakes covering active volcanic vents are known as volcanic lakes, and the water within them is often acidic, saturated with volcanic gases. For example, the lake of Kawah Ijen in Indonesia has a pH of under 0.5. Lakes located in dormant or extinct volcanoes tend to have water. Crater lakes form as the depression, within the crater rim, is filled by water. The water may come from precipitation, groundwater circulation or melted ice and its level rises until an equilibrium is reached between the rates of incoming and outgoing water. Sources of water loss singly or together may include evaporation, subsurface seepage, if the volcanic dam portion erodes rapidly or fails catastrophically, the occurrence produces a breakout or outburst flood. With changes in environmental conditions over time, the occurrence of floods is common to all natural dam types. A well-known crater lake, which bears the name as the geological feature, is Crater Lake in Oregon. It is located in the caldera of Mount Mazama and it is the deepest lake in the United States with a depth of 594 m. Crater Lake is fed solely by falling rain and snow, with no inflow or outflow at the surface, and hence is one of the clearest lakes in the world. The highest volcano in the world,6, 893-m Ojos del Salado in Chile, has a permanent crater lake about 100 m in diameter at an elevation of 6,390 m on its eastern side. This is most likely the highest lake of any kind in the world, due to their unstable environments, some crater lakes exist only intermittently. Hence, making Lake Toba the largest crater lake in the world, while many crater lakes are picturesque, they can also be deadly. Gas discharges from Lake Nyos suffocated 1,800 people in 1986, example of such impact crater lakes include Manicouagan in Canada, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana and Siljan in Sweden. More rarely they can also fill craters caused by artificial explosions, lava lake Volcanic crater Caldera Types of volcanic eruptions Maar Atoll Impact crater Delmelle, Pierre, Bernard, Alain. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, kusakabe, Minoru, ed. Geochemistry of Crater Lakes. California Davis Crater Lake National Park documentation in Building Oregon, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest archive World Volcanic Lakes Map
22.
Heaven Lake
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Heaven Lake is a crater lake on the border between China and North Korea. It lies within a caldera atop the volcanic Paektu Mountain, a part of the Baekdudaegan mountain range and the Changbai mountain range. It is located partly in Ryanggang Province, North Korea, at 42. 006°N128. 057°E /42.006,128.057, the caldera which contains Heaven Lake was created by a major eruption in 969 AD. The lake has an elevation of 2,189.1 m. The lake covers an area of 9.82 km2 with a length of 4.85 km. The average depth of the lake is 213 m and maximum depth of 384 m, from mid-October to mid-June, it is typically covered with ice. In ancient Chinese literature, Tianchi also refers to Nanming, some other well-known lakes named Tianchi include those in Xinjiang and Taiwan. North Korean propaganda claims that Kim Jong-il was born near the lake on the mountain, in accordance with this, North Korean news agencies reported that on his death, the ice on the lake cracked so loud, it seemed to shake the heavens and the Earth. Heaven Lake is also alleged to be home to the Lake Tianchi Monster, on September 6,2007, Zhuo Yongsheng, shot a 20-minute video of 6 seal-like, finned Lake Tianchi Monsters, near the border with the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. He sent pictures of the Loch Ness Monster-type creatures to Xinhuas Jilin provincial bureau, one of them showed the creatures swimming in 3 pairs, in parallel. Another showed them together, leaving ripples on the volcanic lake, Korean Peninsula Baekdudaegan Tourism in North Korea
23.
Caldera
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A caldera is a large cauldron-like depression that forms following the evacuation of a magma chamber/reservoir. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a time period. The ground surface then collapses downward into the emptied magma chamber. Although sometimes described as a crater, the feature is actually a type of sinkhole, as it is formed through subsidence, only seven known caldera-forming collapses have occurred since the start of the 20th century, most recently at Bárðarbunga volcano in Iceland. The word comes from Spanish caldera, and this from Latin caldaria, in some texts the English term cauldron is also used. If enough magma is ejected, the chamber is unable to support the weight of the volcanic edifice above it. A roughly circular fracture, the fault, develops around the edge of the chamber. Ring fractures serve as feeders for fault intrusions which are known as ring dykes. Secondary volcanic vents may form above the ring fracture, as the magma chamber empties, the center of the volcano within the ring fracture begins to collapse. The collapse may occur as the result of a cataclysmic eruption. The total area that collapses may be hundreds or thousands of square kilometers, some calderas are known to host rich ore deposits. One of the worlds best-preserved mineralized calderas is the Sturgeon Lake Caldera in northwestern Ontario, Canada, if the magma is rich in silica, the caldera is often filled in with ignimbrite, tuff, rhyolite, and other igneous rocks. Silica-rich magma has a high viscosity, and therefore does not flow easily like basalt, as a result, gases tend to become trapped at high pressure within the magma. Further lava flows may be erupted, if volcanic activity continues, the center of the caldera may be uplifted in the form of a resurgent dome such as is seen at Cerro Galán, Lake Toba, Yellowstone, etc. by subsequent intrusion of magma. A silicic or rhyolitic caldera may erupt hundreds or even thousands of kilometers of material in a single event. Even small caldera-forming eruptions, such as Krakatoa in 1883 or Mount Pinatubo in 1991, may result in significant local destruction, large calderas may have even greater effects. When Yellowstone Caldera last erupted some 650,000 years ago, it released about 1,000 km3 of material, by comparison, when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it released ~1.2 km3 of ejecta. The ecological effects of the eruption of a large caldera can be seen in the record of the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia, more recently several geneticists, including Lynn Jorde and Henry Harpending have proposed that the human species was reduced to approximately five to ten thousand people
24.
Volcanic explosivity index
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The Volcanic Explosivity Index is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions. It was devised by Chris Newhall of the United States Geological Survey, volume of products, eruption cloud height, and qualitative observations are used to determine the explosivity value. The scale is open-ended with the largest volcanoes in history given magnitude 8, the scale is logarithmic, with each interval on the scale representing a tenfold increase in observed ejecta criteria, with the exception of between VEI0, VEI1 and VEI2. With indices running from 0 to 8, the VEI associated with an eruption is dependent on how much material is thrown out, to what height. The scale is logarithmic from VEI2 and up, an increase of 1 index indicates an eruption that is 10 times as powerful, as such there is a discontinuity in the definition of the VEI between indices 1 and 2. The lower border of the volume of ejecta jumps by a factor of 100 from 10,000 to 1,000,000 m3 while the factor is 10 between all higher indices. In the following table, the frequency of each VEI indicates the frequency of new eruptions of that VEI or higher. A total of 47 eruptions of VEI8 magnitude or above, ranging in age from Ordovician to Pleistocene, have been identified, of which 42 occurred in the past 36 million years. The most recent is Lake Taupos Oruanui eruption,25,360 years ago, there have been at least five identified Holocene eruptions with a VEI of 7. There are also 58 plinian eruptions, and 13 caldera-forming eruptions, of large, there are likely many other eruptions that are not identified. About 90% of these 7,742 eruptions have a VEI of 3 or less, about 49% of these 7,742 eruptions have a VEI of 2. Under the VEI, ash, lava, lava bombs and ignimbrite are all treated alike, density and vesicularity of the volcanic products in question is not taken into account. In contrast, the DRE is sometimes calculated to give the amount of magma erupted. Another weakness of the VEI is that it does not take account the power output of an eruption. Tephra, or fallout sediment analysis, can provide an estimate of the explosiveness of a known eruption event and it is, however, not obviously related to the amount of SO2 emitted by the eruption. The VEI itself is inadequate for describing the effects of volcanic eruptions. This is clearly demonstrated by two eruptions, Agung and El Chichón
25.
Tephra
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Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts, once clasts have fallen to the ground they remain as tephra unless hot enough to fuse together into pyroclastic rock or tuff. Tephra mixed in with precipitation can also be acidic and cause acid rain, the use of tephra layers, which bear their own unique chemistry and character, as temporal marker horizons in archaeological and geological sites is known as tephrochronology. The word tephra and pyroclast both derive from Greek, τέφρα tephra means ash, while the word pyroclast is derived from the Greek πῦρ, meaning fire, media related to Tephra at Wikimedia Commons How Volcanoes Work Volcanic Materials Identification
26.
Minoan eruption
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It devastated the island of Thera, including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri and communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with a related earthquake or tsunami. There are no clear ancient records of the eruption, which may have inspired certain Greek myths, caused turmoil in Egypt, geological evidence shows the Thera volcano erupted numerous times over several hundred thousand years before the Minoan eruption. In a repeating process, the volcano would erupt, then eventually collapse into a roughly circular seawater-filled caldera. The caldera would slowly refill with magma, building a new volcano, immediately prior to the Minoan eruption, the walls of the caldera formed a nearly continuous ring of islands with the only entrance lying between Thera and the tiny island of Aspronisi. This cataclysmic eruption was centered on an island just north of the existing island of Nea Kameni in the centre of the then-existing caldera. The northern part of the caldera was refilled by the ash and lava. With an estimated DRE in excess of 60 km3, the volume of ejecta was approximately 100 km3, if so, the eruptions Volcanic Explosivity Index was 7. The volcano ejected up to four times as much as the eruption by Krakatoa in 1883. The Thera volcanic events and subsequent ashfall probably sterilized the island, on Santorini, there is a 60 m thick layer of white tephra that overlies the soil clearly delineating the ground level prior to the eruption. This layer has three bands that indicate the different phases of the eruption. Studies have identified four major phases, and one minor precursory tephra fall. Since no human remains have been found at the Akrotiri site and it is also suggested that several months before the eruption, Santorini experienced one or more earthquakes, which damaged the local settlements. Intense magmatic activity of the first major phase of the eruption deposited up to 7 m of pumice and ash, with a minor lithic component, archaeological evidence indicated burial of man-made structures with limited damage. The second and third eruption phases involved pyroclastic flow and lava fountain activity, man-made structures not buried during Minoan A were completely destroyed. The third phase was characterized by the initiation of caldera collapse. The fourth, and last, major phase was marked by varied activity, lithic-rich base surge deposits, lahars, debris flows and this phase was characterized by the completion of caldera collapse, which produced megatsunamis. Although the fracturing process is not yet known, the statistical analysis indicates that the caldera had formed just before the eruption. The area of the island was smaller, and the southern and eastern coastlines appeared regressed, during the eruption, the landscape was covered by the pumice sediments
27.
Hatepe eruption
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The Hatepe eruption, named for the Hatepe Plinian pumice tephra layer, sometimes referred to as the Taupo eruption and dated to around 180 AD, was Lake Taupos most recent major eruption. It is considered New Zealands largest eruption during the last 20,000 years, the eruption ejected some 120 km3, a VEI7 eruption, of which 30 km3 was ejected in the space of a few minutes. The resulting ash turned the sky red over Rome and China, the eruption went through several stages, with six distinct marker horizons identified. Despite the uniform composition of the magma, a wide variety of eruptive styles were displayed, including weak phreatomagmatism, Plinian eruptions. Rhyolitic lava domes were extruded some years or decades later, forming the Horomatangi reefs, the main pyroclastic flow devastated the surrounding area, climbing over 1,500 m to overtop the nearby Kaimanawa Ranges and Mount Tongariro, and covering the land within 80 km with ignimbrite. Since New Zealand was not settled by the Māori until more than a years later. Tsunami deposits of the age have been found on the central New Zealand coast, evidence that the eruption caused local tsunamis. The Hatepe eruption further expanded the lake that had formed after the much larger Oruanui eruption around 26,500 years ago, the Taupo eruption was at one time dated to approximately 130 AD based on 14C from carbonized vegetation enclosed in the eruption products. However, the 22 selected samples used to obtain a date of 1,819 ±17 years BP had much larger standard deviations than the average date itself. Most if not all geologists now accept that the tephra or pumice fall from the eruption was far greater than previously thought and this means the event would have been visible from China and Rome. However, recent radiocarbon dating by R. Sparks has put the date at 233 AD ±13, humans had not settled in New Zealand at the time, and would not for another thousand years. The nearest humans at the time were in Australia, more than 2,000 kilometres to the west, lake-floor relief map, from Dave Rowe Gavin, James Gavin Macaulay, Ude Shankar. Volume 10, High-tech Tools for Tackling Fisheries Problems in Lakes, summary, the main Hatepe eruption vents are marked by submarine peaks on the far side of Lake Taupo
28.
Lake Taupo
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Lake Taupo is a lake in the North Island of New Zealand. It is in the caldera of the Taupo Volcano, with a surface area of 616 square kilometres, it is the largest lake by surface area in New Zealand, and the second largest freshwater lake by surface area in geopolitical Oceania after Lake Murray. Motutaiko Island lies in the south east area of the lake, Lake Taupo has a perimeter of approximately 193 kilometres and a deepest point of 186 metres. It is drained by the Waikato River, and its tributaries are the Waitahanui River, the Tongariro River. It is a trout fishery with stocks of introduced brown. Lake Taupo is in a created by a supervolcanic eruption which occurred approximately 26,500 years ago. According to geological records, the volcano has erupted 28 times in the last 27,000 years and it has ejected mostly rhyolitic lava, although Mount Tauhara formed from dacitic lava. The initial event 26,500 years ago is known as the Oruanui eruption, the caldera later filled with water, eventually overflowing to cause a huge outwash flood. It is possible that the Lake Taupo event contributed to starting the Last Glacial Maximum, several later eruptions occurred over the millennia before the most recent major eruption, which is traditionally dated as about 180 CE from Greenland ice-core records. Tree ring data from two studies suggests a date of 232 CE ±5. Known as the Hatepe eruption, it is believed to have ejected 100 cubic kilometres of material, the eruption devastated much of the North Island and further expanded the lake. The area was uninhabited by humans at the time of the eruption, possible climatic effects of the eruption would have been concentrated on the southern hemisphere due to the southerly position of Lake Taupo. Taupos last known eruption occurred around 30 years later, with lava dome forming the Horomatangi Reefs. These springs are the site of occurrence of certain extremophile micro-organisms, the volcano is currently considered to be dormant rather than extinct because of moderate fumarole activity and hot springs along the shores of the lake. Native faunal species in the lake include northern koura or crayfish, the lake is noted for stocks of brown trout and rainbow trout, introduced from Europe and California respectively in the late nineteenth century. There has also been a subsequent introduction of smelt as a food for the trout, a community of sponges and associated invertebrates live around the underwater geothermal vents. Tourism is a component of Taupos commercial sector, and the city attracts over 2 million visitors per year. The busiest time for the industry is the summer season around Christmas
29.
Mount Rinjani
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Mount Rinjani or Gunung Rinjani is an active volcano in Indonesia on the island of Lombok. Administratively the mountain is in the Regency of North Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara and it rises to 3,726 metres, making it the second highest volcano in Indonesia. On the top of the volcano is a 6-by-8. 5-kilometre caldera and this lake is approximately 2,000 metres above sea level and estimated to be about 200 metres deep, the caldera also contains hot springs. Sasak tribe and Hindu people assume the lake and the mount are sacred, on 27 September 201614,45 WITA Rinjani erupted. Volcanoes in the area are formed due to the action of oceanic crusts, the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa lie in the central portion of the Sunda Arc. The Sunda Arc is home to some of the worlds most dangerous, the eruption of nearby Mount Tambora on Sumbawa is known for the most violent eruption in recorded history on 15 April 1815, with a scale 7 on the VEI. The highlands are forest clad and mostly undeveloped, rice, soybeans, coffee, tobacco, cotton, cinnamon, cacao, cloves, cassava, corn, coconuts, copra, bananas and vanilla are the major crops grown in the fertile soils of the island. The slopes are populated by the indigenous Sasak population, there are also some basic tourist related activities established on Rinjani primarily in or about the village of Senaru. Rinjani volcano on the island of Lombok rises to 3,726 metres, Rinjani has a steep-sided conical profile when viewed from the east, but the western side of the compound volcano is truncated by the 6 x 8.5 km, oval-shaped Segara Anak caldera. The western half of the caldera contains a 230-metre-deep lake whose crescentic form results from growth of the post-caldera cone Barujari at the end of the caldera. The geology and tectonic setting of Lombok are described as being in the portion of the Sunda Arc. The islands are located on the edge of the Sunda shelf, in a zone where crustal thickness is apparently rapidly diminishing. These factors tend to suggest that there has been limited opportunity for crustal contamination of magmas erupted on the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa. In addition, these islands lie to the west of those parts of the eastern-most Sunda, the volcano of Rinjani is 165 to 190 kilometres above the Benioff Zone. There is an offset in the line of active volcanoes between the most easterly Sumbawa volcano and the line of active volcanoes in Flores. This suggests that a major transcurrent fault cut across the arc between Sumbawa Island and Flores and this is considered to be a feature representing a major tectonic discontinuity between the east and west Sunda Arcs. Further, an absence of shallow and intermediate earthquake activity in the region to the south of Lombok. Faulting and folding caused strong deformation in the part of Lombok Basin and is characterized by block faulting, shale diapirs
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1815 eruption of Mount Tambora
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The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was one of the most powerful eruptions in recorded history and is the most recent known VEI-7 event. The eruption column lowered global temperatures, and some believe this led to global cooling. The eruption resulted in a period of significant climate change that led to various cases of extreme weather. Several climate forcings coincided and interacted in a manner that has not been observed since. Although the link between the climate changes and the Tambora event has been established by various scientists, the understanding of the processes involved is incomplete. Mount Tambora experienced several centuries of dormancy before 1815, as the result of the cooling of hydrous magma in a closed magma chamber. Inside the chamber at depths between 1.5 and 4.5 km, the exsolution of a high-pressure fluid magma formed during cooling, overpressure of the chamber of about 4, 000–5,000 bar was generated, and the temperature ranged from 700 to 850 °C. In 1812, the volcano began to rumble and generated a dark cloud, on the morning of 6 April, volcanic ash began to fall in East Java with faint detonation sounds lasting until 10 April. What was first thought to be the sound of firing guns was heard on 10 April on Sumatra more than 2,600 km away, at about 7 pm on 10 April, the eruptions intensified. Three columns of flame rose up and merged, the whole mountain was turned into a flowing mass of liquid fire. Pumice stones of up to 20 cm in diameter started to rain down around 8 pm, pyroclastic flows cascaded down the mountain to the sea on all sides of the peninsula, wiping out the village of Tambora. Loud explosions were heard until the evening,11 April. The ash veil had spread as far as West Java and South Sulawesi, a nitrous odour was noticeable in Batavia and heavy tephra-tinged rain fell, finally receding between 11 and 17 April. The first explosions were heard on this Island in the evening of 5 April, they were noticed in every quarter, the explosion is estimated to have been a VEI-7. An estimated 41 km3 of pyroclastic trachyandesite were ejected, weighing about 10 billion tonnes and this has left a caldera measuring 6–7 km across and 600–700 m deep. The density of ash in Makassar was 636 kg/m³. Before the explosion, Mount Tambora was about 4,300 m high, after the explosion, it measured only 2,851 m. The 1815 Tambora eruption is the largest observed eruption in recorded history, the explosion was heard 2,600 km away, and ash fell at least 1,300 km away
31.
Mount Tambora
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Mount Tambora is an active stratovolcano which is a peninsula of and the highest peak on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. Sumbawa is flanked both to the north and south by oceanic crust, and Tambora was formed by the subduction zone beneath it. This raised Mount Tambora as high as 4,300 m, after a large magma chamber inside the mountain filled over the course of several decades, volcanic activity reached a historic climax in the eruption of 10 April 1815. This eruption had a volcanic explosivity index of 7, the only unambiguously confirmed VEI-7 eruption since the Lake Taupo eruption in about AD180, Tamboras last eruption was in 1967. With an estimated volume of 160 km3, Tamboras 1815 outburst is the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. The explosion was heard on Sumatra, more than 2,000 km away, heavy volcanic ash falls were observed as far away as Borneo, Sulawesi, Java, and the Maluku Islands. Most of the deaths from the eruption were from starvation and disease, as the eruptive fallout ruined agricultural productivity in the local region. The death toll was at least 71,000 people, of whom 11, 000–12,000 were killed directly by the eruption, crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century. During an excavation in 2004, a team of archaeologists discovered cultural remains buried by the 1815 eruption and they were kept intact beneath the 3-metre-deep pyroclastic deposits. At the site, dubbed the Pompeii of the East, the artifacts were preserved in the positions they had occupied in 1815, Mount Tambora is on Sumbawa Island, part of the Lesser Sunda Islands. It is a segment of the Sunda Arc, a string of islands that forms the southern chain of the Indonesian archipelago. Tambora forms the Sanggar peninsula on Sumbawa, at the north of the peninsula is the Flores Sea, and at the south is Saleh Bay,86 km long and 36 km wide. At the mouth of Saleh Bay is a 30, 000-hectare islet called Moyo which has a guest shelter or luxurious resort where celebrities such as Princess Diana once stayed. Besides its interest for seismologists and volcanologists, who monitor the mountains activity and it also attracts tourists for hiking and wildlife activities. The two nearest cities are Dompu and Bima, three concentrations of villages are around the mountain slope. At the east is Sanggar village, to the northwest are Doro Peti and Pesanggrahan villages, three ascent routes are used to reach the caldera. The first route starts from Doro Mboha village south of the mountain, the end of this route is the southern part of the caldera at 1,950 m, reachable by a hiking track. This location is used as a base camp to monitor the volcanic activity
32.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
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Manchu language
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Manchu is a severely endangered Tungusic language spoken in Manchuria, it was the native language of the Manchus and one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty of China. Most Manchus now speak Mandarin Chinese, according to data from UNESCO, there are 10 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. Manchu language enjoys high historical value for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty and they supply information that is unavailable in Chinese and, when both Manchu and Chinese versions of a given text exist, they provide controls for understanding the Chinese. Like most Siberian languages, Manchu is a language that demonstrates limited vowel harmony. It has been demonstrated that it is derived mainly from the Jurchen language though there are many words from Mongolian. Its script is written and taken from the Mongolian alphabet. The Manchu language uses the Manchu script, which was derived from the traditional Mongol script, Manchu is usually romanized according to the system devised by Paul Georg von Möllendorff in his Manchu grammar. Its ancestor, Jurchen, used the Jurchen script, which is derived from the Khitan script, there is no relation between the Jurchen script and the Manchu script Chinese Characters can also be used to transliterate Manchu. Mongols learnt their script as a syllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts. In China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner, the alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language. Studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes a longer time, Manchus when learning, instead of saying I, a---la, I, o---lo, &c. were taught at once to say la, lo, &c. Many more syllables than are contained in their syllabary might have formed with their letters. The Qing dynasty referred to the Manchu language in various Chinese titles such as Qingwen 清文, or Qingyu 清語 and Guoyu 國語, the national was also applied to the Manchu writing as in Guowen 國文 in addition to Guoyu 國語. In the Manchu language version of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the term Chinese language referred to all three Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, not just one language, Guoyu now refers to Standard Chinese. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen people and Jurchen language as Manchu, Manchu began as a primary language of the Qing dynasty Imperial court, but as Manchu officials became increasingly sinicized, many started losing the language. Trying to preserve the Manchu identity, the government instituted Manchu language classes and examinations for the bannermen. Chinese classics and fiction were translated into Manchu, and a body of Manchu literature accumulated, as the Yongzheng Emperor explained, If some special encouragement … is not offered, the ancestral language will not be passed on and learned
34.
Volcanic ash
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Volcanic ash consists of fragments of pulverized rock, minerals and volcanic glass, created during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm in diameter. The term volcanic ash is often loosely used to refer to all explosive eruption products. Volcanic ash is formed during volcanic eruptions when dissolved gases in magma expand. The force of the escaping gas shatters the magma and propels it into the atmosphere where it solidifies into fragments of volcanic rock and glass. Ash is also produced when magma comes into contact with water during phreatomagmatic eruptions, once in the air, ash is transported by wind up to thousands of kilometers away. Volcanic ash is formed during volcanic eruptions, phreatomagmatic eruptions. Explosive eruptions occur when magma decompresses as it rises, allowing dissolved volatiles to exsolve into gas bubbles, as more bubbles nucleate a foam is produced, which decreases the density of the magma, accelerating it up the conduit. Fragmentation occurs when bubbles occupy ~70-80 vol% of the erupting mixture, when fragmentation occurs, violently expanding bubbles tear the magma apart into fragments which are ejected into the atmosphere where they solidify into ash particles. Fragmentation is an efficient process of ash formation and is capable of generating very fine ash even without the addition of water. Volcanic ash is produced during phreatomagmatic eruptions. During these eruptions fragmentation occurs when magma comes into contact with bodies of water groundwater, as the magma, which is significantly hotter than the boiling point of water, comes into contact with water an insulating vapor film forms. Eventually this vapor film will collapse leading to direct coupling of the cold water and this increases the heat transfer which leads to the rapid expansion of water and fragmentation of the magma into small particles which are subsequently ejected from the volcanic vent. Fragmentation causes an increase in area between magma and water creating a feedback mechanism, leading to further fragmentation and production of fine ash particles. Pyroclastic density currents can also produce ash particles and these are typically produced by lava dome collapse or collapse of the eruption column. Within pyroclastic density currents particle abrasion occurs as particles interact with each resulting in a reduction in grain size. In addition, ash can be produced during secondary fragmentation of pumice fragments and these processes produce large quantities of very fine grained ash which is removed from pyroclastic density currents in co-ignimbrite ash plumes. Physical and chemical characteristics of volcanic ash are primarily controlled by the style of volcanic eruption, another parameter controlling the amount of ash produced is the duration of the eruption, the longer the eruption is sustained, the more ash will be produced. The types of minerals present in volcanic ash are dependent on the chemistry of the magma from which it erupted, low energy eruptions of basalt produce a characteristically dark coloured ash containing ~45 - 55% silica that is generally rich in iron and magnesium
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Hokkaido
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Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is the second largest island of Japan, and the largest and northernmost prefecture. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel. The largest city on Hokkaido is its capital, Sapporo, which is also its only ordinance-designated city, about 43 km north of Hokkaido lies Sakhalin island, Russia, whereas to its east and north-east are the disputed Kuril Islands. Hokkaido was settled by the Ainu, Nivkh, and Orok before recorded history, the Nihon Shoki, finished in 720 AD, is often said to be the first mention of Hokkaido in recorded history. According to the text, Abe no Hirafu led a navy and army to northern areas from 658 to 660 and came into contact with the Mishihase. One of the places Hirafu went to was called Watarishima, which is believed to be present-day Hokkaido. During the Nara and Heian periods, people in Hokkaido conducted trade with Dewa Province, from the Middle Ages, the people in Hokkaido began to be called Ezo. Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezochi Ezochi or Ezogashima, the Ezo mainly relied upon hunting and fishing and obtained rice and iron through trade with the Japanese. During the Muromachi period, the Japanese created a settlement at the south of the Oshima Peninsula, as more people moved to the settlement to avoid battles, disputes arose between the Japanese and the Ainu. The disputes eventually developed into a war, takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain, and defeated the opposition in 1457. Nobuhiros descendants became the rulers of the Matsumae-han, which was granted trading rights with the Ainu in the Azuchi-Momoyama. The Matsumae familys economy relied upon trade with the Ainu and they held authority over the south of Ezochi until the end of the Edo period in 1868. The Matsumae clan rule over the Ainu must be understood in the context of the expansion of the Japanese feudal state, medieval military leaders in northern Honshū maintained only tenuous political and cultural ties to the imperial court and its proxies, the Kamakura Shogunate and Ashikaga Shogunate. Feudal strongmen sometimes located themselves within medieval institutional order, taking shogunal titles, in fact many of the feudal strongmen were descended from Emishi military leaders who had been assimilated into Japanese society. The Matsumae clan were of Yamato descent like other ethnic Japanese people, the Emishi were conquered and integrated into the Japanese state dating back as far as the 8th century, and as result began to lose their distinctive culture and ethnicity as they became minorities. By the time the Matsumae clan ruled over the Ainu most of the Emishi were ethnically mixed, there were numerous revolts by the Ainu against feudal rule. The last large-scale resistance was Shakushains Revolt in 1669–1672, in 1789, a smaller movement, the Menashi-Kunashir Rebellion, was also crushed. After that rebellion the terms Japanese and Ainu referred to clearly distinguished groups, in 1799–1821 and 1855–1858 the Edo Shogunate took direct control over Hokkaido in response to a perceived threat from Russia
36.
South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
37.
Hotspot (geology)
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In geology, the places known as hotspots or hot spots are volcanic regions thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the surrounding mantle. They may be on, near to, or far from plate boundaries. Currently, there are two hypotheses that attempt to explain their origins, one suggests that hotspots are due to mantle plumes that rise as thermal diapirs from the core–mantle boundary. The other hypothesis is that lithospheric extension permits the passive rising of melt from shallow depths and this hypothesis considers the term hotspot to be a misnomer, asserting that the mantle source beneath them is, in fact, not anomalously hot at all. Well known examples include Hawaii, Iceland and Yellowstone and it was later postulated that hotspots are fed by narrow streams of hot mantle rising from the Earths core–mantle boundary in a structure called a mantle plume. Whether or not such mantle plumes exist is currently the subject of a controversy in Earth science. Estimates for the number of hotspots postulated to be fed by mantle plumes has ranged from about 20 to several thousands, over the years, Hawaii, Réunion, Yellowstone, Galápagos, and Iceland are some of the currently most active volcanic regions to which the hypothesis is applied. As a result, they are less explosive than subduction zone volcanoes, where hotspots occur in continental regions, basaltic magma rises through the continental crust, which melts to form rhyolites. These rhyolites can form violent eruptions, for example, the Yellowstone Caldera was formed by some of the most powerful volcanic explosions in geologic history. However, when the rhyolite is completely erupted, it may be followed by eruptions of basaltic magma rising through the same lithospheric fissures, the hotspot hypothesis is now closely linked to the mantle plume hypothesis. Hotspot volcanoes are considered to have a different origin from island arc volcanoes. The latter form over subduction zones, at converging plate boundaries, when one oceanic plate meets another, the denser plate is forced downward into a deep ocean trench. This plate, as it is subducted, releases water into the base of the plate. It is this that fuels a chain of volcanoes, such as the Aleutian Islands, the joint mantle plume/hotspot hypothesis envisages the feeder structures to be fixed relative to one another, with the continents and seafloor drifting overhead. The hypothesis thus predicts that time-progressive chains of volcanoes are developed on the surface, examples are Yellowstone, which lies at the end of a chain of extinct calderas, which become progressively older to the west. Another example is the Hawaiian archipelago, where islands become progressively older, boschi, L. Becker, T. W. Steinberger, B. Mantle plumes, Dynamic models and seismic images, break-up spots, Could the Pacific open as a consequence of plate kinematics. Towards A Better Understanding Of Hot Spot Volcanism, formation of Hotspots Raising Hot Spots Large Igneous Provinces Maria Antretter, PhD Thesis, Moving hotspots – Evidence from paleomagnetism and modeling Do Plumes Exist
38.
Pacific Plate
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The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate, the Pacific Plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands. Hillis and Müller are reported to consider the Birds Head Plate to be moving in unison with the Pacific Plate, bird considers them to be unconnected. The north-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Explorer Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate and the Gorda Plate forming respectively the Explorer Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge. In the middle of the side is a transform boundary with the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault. The south-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Nazca Plate forming the East Pacific Rise, the southern side is a divergent boundary with the Antarctic Plate forming the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. The Alpine Fault marks a boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Pacific Plate forming the Puysegur Trench. The southern part of Zealandia, which is to the east of this boundary, is the plates largest block of continental crust, the northern side is a convergent boundary subducting under the North American Plate forming the Aleutian Trench and the corresponding Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic crust, but it contains some continental crust in New Zealand, Baja California, the Pacific Plate has the distinction of showing one of the largest areal sections of the oldest members of seabed geology being entrenched into eastern Asian oceanic trenches. The oldest member disappearing by way of the Plate Tectonics cycle is early-Cretaceous, all maps of the Earths ocean floor geology show ages younger than 145 million years, only about 1/30 of the Earths 4.55 billion year history
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Subduction
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Subduction is a geological process that takes place at convergent boundaries of tectonic plates where one plate moves under another and is forced or sinks due to gravity into the mantle. Regions where this occurs are known as subduction zones. Rates of subduction are typically in centimeters per year, with the rate of convergence being approximately two to eight centimeters per year along most plate boundaries. Plates include both oceanic crust and continental crust, stable subduction zones involve the oceanic lithosphere of one plate sliding beneath the continental or oceanic lithosphere of another plate due to the higher density of the oceanic lithosphere. That is, the lithosphere is always oceanic while the overriding lithosphere may or may not be oceanic. Subduction zones are sites that have a rate of volcanism, earthquakes. Subduction zones are sites of convective downwelling of Earths lithosphere, subduction zones exist at convergent plate boundaries where one plate of oceanic lithosphere converges with another plate. The descending slab, the plate, is over-ridden by the leading edge of the other plate. The slab sinks at an angle of approximately twenty-five to forty-five degrees to Earths surface and this sinking is driven by the temperature difference between the subducting oceanic lithosphere and the surrounding mantle asthenosphere, as the colder oceanic lithosphere is, on average, denser. At a depth of approximately 80–120 kilometers, the basalt of the oceanic crust is converted to a rock called eclogite. At that point, the density of the oceanic crust increases and provides additional negative buoyancy and it is at subduction zones that Earths lithosphere, oceanic crust, sedimentary layers and some trapped water are recycled into the deep mantle. Earth is so far the only planet where subduction is known to occur, subduction is the driving force behind plate tectonics, and without it, plate tectonics could not occur. Subduction zones dive down into the mantle beneath 55,000 kilometers of convergent plate margins, subduction zones burrow deeply but are imperfectly camouflaged, and geophysics and geochemistry can be used to study them. Not surprisingly, the shallowest portions of subduction zones are known best, subduction zones are strongly asymmetric for the first several hundred kilometers of their descent. They start to go down at oceanic trenches and their descents are marked by inclined zones of earthquakes that dip away from the trench beneath the volcanoes and extend down to the 660-kilometer discontinuity. Subduction zones are defined by the array of earthquakes known as the Wadati–Benioff zone after the two scientists who first identified this distinctive aspect. Subduction zone earthquakes occur at greater depths than elsewhere on Earth, such deep earthquakes may be driven by deep phase transformations, thermal runaway, the subducting basalt and sediment are normally rich in hydrous minerals and clays. Additionally, large quantities of water are introduced into cracks and fractures created as the slab bends downward
