1.
Oceanic basin
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In hydrology, an oceanic basin may be anywhere on Earth that is covered by seawater, but geologically ocean basins are large geologic basins that are below sea level. Older references consider the oceanic basins to be the complement to the continents, with dominating the latter. Earth is the known planet in the solar system where hypsography is characterized by different kinds of crust, oceanic crust. Oceans cover 70% of the Earths surface, because oceans lie lower than continents, the former serve as sedimentary basins that collect sediment eroded from the continents, known as clastic sediments, as well as precipitation sediments. Ocean basins also serve as repositories for the skeletons of carbonate- and silica-secreting organisms such as reefs, diatoms, radiolarians. Geologically, a basin may be actively changing size or may be relatively, tectonically inactive. The elements of an active - and growing - oceanic basin include an elevated mid-ocean ridge, the elements of an active oceanic basin often include the oceanic trench associated with a subduction zone. The Atlantic ocean and the Arctic ocean are good examples of active, growing oceanic basins, the Pacific Ocean is also an active, shrinking oceanic basin, even though it has both spreading ridge and oceanic trenches. Perhaps the best example of an oceanic basin is the Gulf of Mexico. The Aleutian Basin is another example of an inactive oceanic basin. The Japan Basin in the Sea of Japan which formed in the Miocene, is still active although recent changes have been relatively mild. List of abyssal plains and oceanic basins List of oceanic landforms Solid Earth Wright, John et al
2.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
3.
Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
4.
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
5.
Oceanic trench
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The oceanic trenches are linear oceanographic features which are topographic depressions of the sea floor, relatively narrow in width, but hemispheric-scale in length. They are the deepest parts of the ocean floor, a trench marks the position at which the flexed, subducting slab begins to descend beneath another lithospheric slab. Trenches are generally parallel to an island arc, and about 200 km from a volcanic arc. Oceanic trenches typically extend 3 to 4 km below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, the greatest ocean depth to be sounded is in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 11,034 m below sea level. Oceanic lithosphere moves into trenches at a rate of about 3 km2/yr. Globally, there are over 50 major ocean trenches covering an area of 1.9 million km2 or about 0. 5% of the oceans and this applies to Cascadia, Makran, southern Lesser Antilles, and Calabrian trenches. Trenches are related to but distinguished from continental collision zones, where continental crust enters the subduction zone, when buoyant continental crust enters a trench, subduction eventually stops and the convergent plate margin becomes a collision zone. Trenches were not clearly defined until the late 1940s and 1950s, the bathymetry of the ocean was of no real interest until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the initial laying of Transatlantic telegraph cables on the seafloor between the continents. Even then the elongated bathymetric expression of trenches was not recognized until well into the 20th century, the term “trench” does not appear in Murray and Hjort’s classic oceanography book. Instead they applied the term “deep“ for the deepest parts of the ocean, the term was first used in a geologic context by Scofield two years after the war ended to describe a structurally controlled depression in the Rocky Mountains. Johnstone, in his 1923 textbook An Introduction to Oceanography, first used the term in its sense for any marked. His measurements revealed that trenches are sites of downwelling in the solid Earth, the concept of downwelling at trenches was characterized by Griggs in 1939 as the tectogene hypothesis, for which he developed an analogue model using a pair of rotating drums. World War II in the Pacific led to improvements of bathymetry in especially the western and northern Pacific. The rapid growth of deep sea research efforts, especially the use of echosounders in the 1950s and 1960s confirmed the morphological utility of the term. The important trenches were identified, sampled, and their greatest depths sonically plumbed, the heroic phase of trench exploration culminated in the 1960 descent of the Bathyscaphe Trieste, which set an unbeatable world record by diving to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. This has been termed trench rollback or hinge retreat and this is one explanation for the existence of back-arc basins. Slab rollback is a process which occurs during the subduction of two tectonic plates resulting in the motion of the trench. Forces acting perpendicular to the slab at depth are responsible for the migration of the slab in the mantle and ultimately the movement of the hinge
6.
Volcanic arc
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A volcanic arc is a chain of volcanoes formed above a subducting plate, positioned in an arc shape as seen from above. Offshore volcanoes form islands, resulting in an island arc. Generally, volcanic arcs result from the subduction of a tectonic plate under another tectonic plate. The oceanic plate is saturated with water, and volatiles such as water drastically lower the point of the mantle. As the oceanic plate is subducted, it is subjected to greater and greater pressures with increasing depth and this pressure squeezes water out of the plate and introduces it to the mantle. Here the mantle melts and forms magma at depth under the overriding plate, the magma ascends to form an arc of volcanoes parallel to the subduction zone. The Hawaiian Islands form a typical hotspot chain, the islands to the northwest are smaller and more lush than the recently created Hawaii island itself. Hotspot volcanoes are known as intra-plate volcanoes, and the islands they create are known as Volcanic Ocean Islands. Volcanic arcs do not generally such a simple age-pattern. There are two types of volcanic arcs, oceanic arcs form when oceanic crust subducts beneath other oceanic crust on an adjacent plate, continental arcs form when oceanic crust subducts beneath continental crust on an adjacent plate, creating an arc-shaped mountain belt. In some situations, a subduction zone may show both aspects along its length, as part of a plate subducts beneath a continent and part beneath adjacent oceanic crust. Volcanoes are present in almost any mountain belt, but this does not make it a volcanic arc, often there are isolated, but impressively huge volcanoes in a mountain belt. For instance, Vesuvius and the Etna volcanoes in Italy are part of separate, the active front of a volcanic arc is the belt where volcanism develops at a given time. Active fronts may move over time, changing their distance from the trench as well as their width. This loss of water is due to the destabilization of the mineral chlorite at approximately 40–60 km depth. On the subducting side of the arc is a deep and narrow oceanic trench. This trench is created by the pull of the relatively dense subducting plate pulling the leading edge of the plate downward. Multiple earthquakes occur along this boundary with the seismic hypocenters located at increasing depth under the island arc
7.
Volcanic belt
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A volcanic belt is a large volcanically active region. Other terms are used for areas of activity, such as volcanic fields. Volcanic belts are found above zones of high temperature where magma is created by partial melting of solid material in the Earths crust. These areas usually form along tectonic plate boundaries at depths of 10–50 km, the deeply deformed and eroded remnants of ancient volcanic belts are found in volcanically inactive regions such as the Canadian Shield. It contains over 150 volcanic belts that range from 600 to 1200 million years old and these are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences with associated sedimentary rocks that form what are known as greenstone belts. They are thought to have formed at ancient oceanic spreading centers, the Abitibi greenstone belt in Ontario and Quebec, Canada is one of the worlds largest greenstone belts. Volcanic belts may be formed by multiple tectonic settings, an oceanic plate ordinarily slides underneath a continental plate, this often creates an orogenic zone with many volcanoes and earthquakes. In a sense, subduction zones are the opposite of divergent boundaries, areas where material rises up from the mantle, Volcanic belts may also be formed by hotspots, which is a location on the Earths surface that has experienced active volcanism for a long period of time. These volcanic belts are called volcanic chains, but more recently some geologists, such as Gillian Foulger view upper-mantle convection as a cause. This in turn has re-raised the antipodal pair impact hypothesis, the idea that pairs of opposite hot spots may result from the impact of a large meteor. Geologists have identified some 40-50 such hotspots around the globe, with Hawaii, Réunion, Yellowstone, Galápagos, and Iceland overlying the most currently active. An example of a volcanic belt is the Anahim Volcanic Belt in British Columbia, Canada. Most hotspot volcanoes are basaltic because they erupt through oceanic lithosphere, as a result, they are less explosive than subduction zone volcanoes, which have high water contents. Where hotspots occur under continental crust, basaltic magma is trapped in the less dense continental crust and these rhyolites can be quite hot and form violent eruptions, despite their low water content. For example, the Yellowstone Caldera was formed by some of the most powerful explosions in geologic history. Andean Volcanic Belt Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Taupo Volcanic Zone Plate tectonics
8.
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
9.
Plate tectonics
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The theoretical model builds on the concept of continental drift developed during the first few decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s, the lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet, is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earths lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates, where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary, convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually, tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle, the material lost is balanced by the formation of new crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the surface of the lithosphere remains the same. This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle, earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking or gradual expansion of the globe. Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earths lithosphere has greater strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the result in convection. Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the ridge and drag, with downward suction. Another explanation lies in the different forces generated by forces of the Sun. The relative importance of each of these factors and their relationship to other is unclear. The outer layers of the Earth are divided into the lithosphere and asthenosphere and this is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter, in terms of heat transfer, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction, whereas the asthenosphere also transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year, to about 160 mm/year. The driving mechanism behind this movement is described below, tectonic lithosphere plates consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either or both of two types of crustal material, oceanic crust and continental crust. Average oceanic lithosphere is typically 100 km thick, its thickness is a function of its age, as passes, it conductively cools
10.
Lithosphere
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A lithosphere is the rigid, outermost shell of a terrestrial-type planet or natural satellite that is defined by its rigid mechanical properties. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or greater. The outermost shell of a planet, the crust, is defined on the basis of its chemistry. Earths lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard, the lithosphere is subdivided into tectonic plates. The uppermost part of the lithosphere that chemically reacts to the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere through the forming process is called the pedosphere. The lithosphere is underlain by the asthenosphere which is the weaker, hotter, the study of past and current formations of landscapes is called geomorphology. The concept of the lithosphere as Earth’s strong outer layer was described by A. E. H, love in his 1911 monograph Some problems of Geodynamics and further developed by Joseph Barrell, who wrote a series of papers about the concept and introduced the term lithosphere. The concept was based on the presence of significant gravity anomalies over continental crust and these ideas were expanded by Reginald Aldworth Daly in 1940 with his seminal work Strength and Structure of the Earth and have been broadly accepted by geologists and geophysicists. The temperature at which olivine begins to deform viscously is often used to set this isotherm because olivine is generally the weakest mineral in the upper mantle, the mantle part of the lithosphere consists largely of peridotite. The crust is distinguished from the mantle by the change in chemical composition that takes place at the Moho discontinuity. Oceanic lithosphere consists mainly of mafic crust and ultramafic mantle and is denser than continental lithosphere, oceanic lithosphere thickens as it ages and moves away from the mid-ocean ridge. This thickening occurs by conductive cooling, which converts hot asthenosphere into lithospheric mantle and causes the oceanic lithosphere to become increasingly thick, the thickness of the mantle part of the oceanic lithosphere can be approximated as a thermal boundary layer that thickens as the square root of time. H ∼2 κ t Here, h is the thickness of the mantle lithosphere, κ is the thermal diffusivity for silicate rocks. The age is equal to L/V, where L is the distance from the spreading centre of mid-oceanic ridge. Oceanic lithosphere is less dense than asthenosphere for a few tens of millions of years and this is because the chemically differentiated oceanic crust is lighter than asthenosphere, but thermal contraction of the mantle lithosphere makes it more dense than the asthenosphere. New oceanic lithosphere is constantly being produced at mid-ocean ridges and is recycled back to the mantle at subduction zones, geoscientists can directly study the nature of the subcontinental mantle by examining mantle xenoliths brought up in kimberlite, lamproite, and other volcanic pipes. The histories of these xenoliths have been investigated by many methods, such studies have confirmed that mantle lithospheres below some cratons have persisted for periods in excess of 3 billion years, despite the mantle flow that accompanies plate tectonics. Cryosphere Geosphere Kola Superdeep Borehole Plate tectonics Solid Earth Chernicoff, Stanley, Whitney, earths Crust, Lithosphere and Asthenosphere Crust and Lithosphere
11.
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
12.
Mariana Islands
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They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of Hawaii, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines, demarcating the Philippine Seas eastern limit. The islands were named after the Spanish queen Mariana of Austria, spaniards, who in the early 16th century were the first Europeans to arrive, eventually annexed and colonized the archipelago. The indigenous inhabitants are the Chamoru and they further reported findings which suggested that Tinian is likely to have been the first island in Oceania to have been settled by humans. The Mariana Islands are the part of a submerged mountain range that extends 1,565 miles from Guam to near Japan. Geographically, the Marianas are the northernmost islands of an island group called Micronesia. The Mariana Islands have a land area of 1,005 km2. They are composed of two units, Guam, a US territory the Northern Mariana Islands, which make up a Commonwealth of the United States. In the northern volcanic group a maximum elevation of about 2,700 feet is reached, there are craters showing signs of activity, coral reefs fringe the coasts of the southern isles, which are of slight elevation. The lowest point on the Earths crust, the Mariana Trench, is near the islands and is named after them. The islands are part of a structure known as the Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc system. This subduction region, just east of the chain, forms the noted Mariana Trench. Owing to the moistness of the soil cryptogams are numerous, as are also most kinds of grasses, on most of the islands there is a plentiful supply of water. The fauna of the Marianas, though inferior in number and variety, is similar in character to that of the Carolines and certain species are indigenous to both island groups. The climate though damp is healthy, while the heat, being tempered by the winds, is milder than that of the Philippines. The majority of islands in the Marianas which still retain their indigenous names end in the letters -an, e. g. Guahan, Agrigan, Agrihan, Aguihan/Aguigan, Pagan, Sarigan, etc. The islands are part of a structure known as the Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc system. This water is heated and boiled as the plate is carried farther downward, archeological studies of human activity on the islands has revealed potteries with red-slipped, circle- and punctate-stamped designs found in the Mariana Islands dating between 1500 and 1400 BC. These artifacts show similar aesthetic with the found in Northern and Central Philippines, the Nagsabaran pottery
13.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
14.
Bougainville Island
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Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. Its land area is 9,300 km2, the population of the province is 175,160, which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets. Mount Balbi at 2,700 m is the highest point, although Bougainville Island is geographically part of the Solomon Islands archipelago, it is not a part of the state of Solomon Islands. Bougainville was first settled some 28,000 years ago, Three to four thousand years ago, Austronesian people arrived, bringing with them domesticated pigs, chickens, dogs and obsidian tools. The first European contact with Bougainville was in 1768, when the French explorer Louis de Bougainville arrived and named the island for himself. Germany laid claim to Bougainville in 1899, annexing it into German New Guinea, Christian missionaries arrived on the island in 1902. During World War I, Australia occupied German New Guinea, including Bougainville and it became part of the Australian Territory of New Guinea under a League of Nations mandate in 1920. In 1942, during World War II, Japan invaded the island, following the war, the Territory of New Guinea, including Bougainville, returned to Australian control. On 9 September 1975, the Parliament of Australia passed the Papua New Guinea Independence Act 1975, the Act set 16 September 1975 as date of independence and terminated all remaining sovereign and legislative powers of Australia over the territory. Bougainville was to part of an independent Papua New Guinea, however, on 11 September 1975, in a failed bid for self-determination. The republic failed to any international recognition, and a settlement was reached in August 1976. Bougainville was then absorbed politically into Papua New Guinea with increased self-governance powers, between 1988 and 1998, civil war on the island claimed over 15,000 lives. The Peace talks brokered by New Zealand began in 1997, leading to autonomy for the island, a multinational Peace Monitoring Group under Australian leadership was deployed. In 2001, a agreement was signed including promise of a referendum on independence from PNG. Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago and it is part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion. Bougainville and the island of Buka are a single landmass separated by a deep 300-metre-wide strait. The island is 9000 square kilometres, and there are several active, mount Bagana in the north central part of Bougainville is conspicuously active, spewing out smoke that is visible many kilometres distant
15.
Tonga
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Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands of which 36 are inhabited. The total surface area is about 750 square kilometres scattered over 700,000 square kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean and it has a population of 103,000 people of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu. Tonga stretches across approximately 800 kilometres in a north-south line and it is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec to the southwest, and New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the farther west. Tonga became known in the West as the Friendly Islands because of the reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga. According to the writer William Mariner, the wanted to kill Cook during the gathering. From 1900 to 1970, Tonga had British protected state status, the country never relinquished its sovereignty to any foreign power. In many Polynesian languages including Tongan, the word tonga means south, the name of Tonga is cognate to the Hawaiian region of Kona. In Malay, the name of Tonga is also cognate to the word Tenggara, an Austronesian-speaking group linked to the archaeological construct known as the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga around 1500–1000 BCE. Scholars have much debated the exact dates of the settlement of Tonga. Not much is known before European contact because of the lack of a writing system, in the 15th century and again in the 17th, civil war erupted. The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire, and in 1643 Abel Tasman. In 1845, the young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a kingdom. He held the title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised by Methodist missionaries with the name Siaosi in 1831. Tonga became a state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain on 18 May 1900. The treaty posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul, under the protection of Britain, Tonga maintained its sovereignty, and remained the only Pacific nation to retain its monarchical government. The Tongan monarchy follows a succession of hereditary rulers from one family. The 1918 flu pandemic, brought to Tonga by a ship from New Zealand, killed 1,800 Tongans, the Treaty of Friendship and Tongas protection status ended in 1970 under arrangements established by Queen Salote Tupou III prior to her death in 1965
16.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
17.
Alpide belt
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Alpide redirects here, not to be confused with Alpine. It includes the Alps, the Carpathians, the Pyrenees, the mountains of Anatolia and Iran, the Hindu Kush, and it is the second most seismically active region in the world, after the circum-Pacific belt, with 17% of the worlds largest earthquakes. The Alpide belt is being created by ongoing plate tectonics such as the Alpine orogeny, the belt is the result of Mesozoic to Cenozoic to recent closure of the Tethys Ocean and process of collision between the northward-moving African, Arabian and Indian plates with the Eurasian plate. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake just off the coast of Sumatra was located within the Alpide belt, historic Earthquakes & Earthquake Statistics – USGS Ring of Fire, Plate Tectonics, Sea-Floor Spreading, Subduction Zones, Hot Spots – USGS
18.
Java
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Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of over 141 million or 145 million as of 2015 Census released in December 2015, the Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is located on western Java. Much of Indonesian history took place on Java and it was the center of powerful Hindu-Buddhist empires, the Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies. Java was also the center of the Indonesian struggle for independence during the 1930s and 1940s, Java dominates Indonesia politically, economically and culturally. Formed mostly as the result of eruptions, Java is the 13th largest island in the world. A chain of mountains forms an east–west spine along the island. Three main languages are spoken on the island, Javanese, Sundanese, of these, Javanese is the dominant, it is the native language of about 60 million people in Indonesia, most of whom live on Java. Furthermore, most residents are bilingual, speaking Indonesian as their first or second language, while the majority of the people of Java are Muslim, Java has a diverse mixture of religious beliefs, ethnicities, and cultures. Java is divided into four provinces, West Java, Central Java, East Java, and Banten, the origins of the name Java are not clear. One possibility is that the island was named after the plant, which was said to be common in the island during the time. There are other sources, the word jaú and its variations mean beyond or distant. And, in Sanskrit yava means barley, a plant for which the island was famous, Yawadvipa is mentioned in Indias earliest epic, the Ramayana. Sugriva, the chief of Ramas army dispatched his men to Yawadvipa and it was hence referred to in India by the Sanskrit name yāvaka dvīpa. Java is mentioned in the ancient Tamil text Manimekalai by Chithalai Chathanar that states that Java had a kingdom with a capital called Nagapuram, another source states that the Java word is derived from a Proto-Austronesian root word, Iawa that meaning home. The great island of Iabadiu or Jabadiu was mentioned in Ptolemys Geographia composed around 150 CE Roman Empire, Iabadiu is said to mean barley island, to be rich in gold, and have a silver town called Argyra at the west end. The name indicate Java, and seems to be derived from Hindu name Java-dvipa, Java lies between Sumatra to the west and Bali to the east. Borneo lies to the north and Christmas Island is to the south and it is the worlds 13th largest island. Java is surrounded by the Java Sea to the north, Sunda Strait to the west, Java is almost entirely of volcanic origin, it contains thirty-eight mountains forming an east–west spine that have at one time or another been active volcanoes
19.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
20.
Himalayas
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The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
21.
San Andreas Fault
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The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 800 miles through California. It forms the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip. The fault was first identified in 1895 by Professor Andrew Lawson of UC Berkeley and it is often described as having been named after San Andreas Lake, a small body of water that was formed in a valley between the two plates. However, according to some of his reports from 1895 and 1908, following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Lawson concluded that the fault extended all the way into southern California. In 1953, geologist Thomas Dibblee astounded the scientific establishment with his conclusion that hundreds of miles of lateral movement could occur along the fault. A project called the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth near Parkfield, Monterey County, is drilling into the fault to improve prediction and this is the approximate location of the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The fault returns onshore at Bolinas Lagoon just north of Stinson Beach in Marin County, from Fort Ross the northern segment continues overland, forming in part a linear valley through which the Gualala River flows. It goes back offshore at Point Arena, after that, it runs underwater along the coast until it nears Cape Mendocino, where it begins to bend to the west, terminating at the Mendocino Triple Junction. The central segment of the San Andreas fault runs in a direction from Parkfield to Hollister. The southern segment begins near Bombay Beach, California, box Canyon, near the Salton Sea, contains upturned strata associated with that section of the fault. The fault then runs along the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, crosses through the Cajon Pass. These mountains are a result of movement along the San Andreas Fault and are called the Transverse Range. In Palmdale, a portion of the fault is easily examined at a roadcut for the Antelope Valley Freeway, the fault continues northwest alongside the Elizabeth Lake Road to the town of Elizabeth Lake. As it passes the towns of Gorman, Tejon Pass and Frazier Park and this restraining bend is thought to be where the fault locks up in Southern California, with an earthquake-recurrence interval of roughly 140–160 years. Northwest of Frazier Park, the runs through the Carrizo Plain. The Elkhorn Scarp defines the fault trace along much of its length within the plain, the southern segment, which stretches from Parkfield in Monterey County all the way to the Salton Sea, is capable of an 8. 1-magnitude earthquake. At its closest, this fault passes about 35 miles to the northeast of Los Angeles. Such a large earthquake on this segment would kill thousands of people in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and surrounding areas
22.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
23.
Transform fault
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A transform fault or transform boundary, is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal, in either a sinistral or dextral direction. Furthermore, transform faults end abruptly and are connected on both ends to other faults, ridges, or subduction zones, Transform faults are the only type of strike-slip fault that can be classified as a plate boundary. The new class of faults, called transform faults, produce slip in the direction from what one would surmise from the standard interpretation of an offset geological feature. Slip along transform faults does not increase the distance between the ridges it separates, the distance remains constant in earthquakes because the ridges are spreading centers. This hypothesis was confirmed in a study of the fault plane solutions that showed the slip on transform faults points in the opposite direction than classical interpretation would suggest, Transform faults are closely related to transcurrent faults, and are commonly confused. In addition, transform faults have equal deformation across the fault line, while transcurrent faults have greater displacement in the middle of the fault zone. Finally, transform faults can form a plate boundary, while transcurrent faults cannot. The effect of a fault is to strain, which can be caused by compression, extension. Transform faults specifically relieve strain by transporting the strain between ridges or subduction zones, Transform faults also act as the plane of weakness allowing for the splitting in rift zones. Transform faults are commonly found linking segments of mid-oceanic ridges or spreading centres and these mid-oceanic ridges are where new seafloor is constantly created through the upwelling of new basaltic magma. With new seafloor being pushed and pulled out, the older seafloor slowly slides away from the mid-oceanic ridges toward the continents, although separated only by tens of kilometers, this separation between segments of the ridges causes portions of the seafloor to push past each other in opposing directions. This lateral movement of seafloors past each other is where transform faults are currently active, Transform faults move differently than a strike-slip fault at the mid-oceanic ridge. Evidence of this can be found in paleomagnetic striping on the seafloor, a paper written by Gerya theorizes that the creation of the transform faults between the ridges of the mid-oceanic ridge is attributed to rotated and stretched sections of the mid-oceanic ridge. This occurs over a period of time with the spreading center or ridge slowly deforming from a straight line to a curved line. Finally, fracturing along these planes forms transform faults, as this takes place, the fault changes from a normal fault with extensional stress to a strike slip fault with lateral stress. In the study done by Bonatti & Crane, peridotite and gabbro rocks were discovered in the edges of the transform ridges and these rocks are created deep inside the Earth’s mantle and then rapidly exhumed to the surface. This evidence helps to prove that new seafloor is being created at the mid-oceanic ridges, as previously stated, active transform faults are between two tectonic structures or faults. Fracture zones represent the active transform fault lines, which have since passed the active transform zone and are being pushed toward the continents
24.
East Pacific Rise
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The East Pacific Rise is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. It separates the Pacific Plate to the west from the North American Plate, the Rivera Plate, the Cocos Plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Antarctic Plate. Much of the lies about 3200 km off the South American coast and rises about 1. The oceanic crust is moving away from the East Pacific Rise to either side, near Easter Island the rate is over 15 cm per year which is the fastest in the world but it is lower at about 6 cm at the north end. On the eastern side of the rise the eastward moving Cocos and Nazca plates meet the westward moving South American Plate, the belt of volcanoes along the Andes and the arc of volcanoes through Central America and Mexico are the direct results of this collision. Due east of the Baja California Peninsula, the Rise is sometimes referred to as the Gulf of California Rift Zone, in this area, newly formed oceanic crust is intermingled with rifted continental crust originating from the North American Plate. The southern extension of the East Pacific Rise merges with the Southeast Indian Ridge at the Macquarie Triple Junction south of New Zealand, along the East Pacific Rise the hydrothermal vents called black smokers were first discovered and have been extensively studied. These vents are forming volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits on the ocean floor, many strange deep-water creatures have been found here. The southern stretch of the East Pacific Rise is one of the sections of the Earths mid-ocean ridge system. East Pacific Rise 2004 – Scripps Institution of Oceanography Columbia University Researchers Find Key to the Formation of New Seafloor Spreading Centers – Columbia University
25.
Queen Charlotte Fault
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The Queen Charlotte Fault is an active transform fault that marks the boundary of the North American and the Pacific Plates. It is Canadas right-lateral strike-slip equivalent to the San Andreas Fault to the south in California, the Queen Charlotte Fault forms a triple junction on its south with the Cascadia subduction zone and the Explorer Ridge. The fault is named for the Queen Charlotte Islands which lie just north of the triple junction, the Queen Charlotte Fault continues northward along the Alaskan coast where it is called the Fairweather Fault. The two segments are called the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather Fault System. The fault has been the source of large, very large, the study of the Queen Charlotte Fault affords further important information applicable to other similar faults throughout the world. The 1970 earthquake did however show a similar strike-slip movement with a small, the 1949 earthquake was larger than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, causing nearly a 500 kilometer long segment of the Queen Charlotte Fault to break. A pair of 6.5 magnitude quakes occurred on January 5,2008 near the triple junction. A7.8 magnitude quake struck off the western coast of Haida Gwaii at around 8 and this was the biggest quake in Canadian territory since 1949. Aftershocks as large as 6.3 have been reported, a 45-cm tsunami was reported locally. Alerts were sent across the Pacific Basin and this earthquake did not have any major impacts, except for the temporary cessation of the hotsprings on Hotspring Island. The spring seems to have returned to borderline nominal functioning as of July 2014, even in some of the locations where water hasnt yet returned, the ground temperature below the surface is warmer than it is on the surface. This quake was remarkable for having been a thrust, and not a strike-slip tremor, recent detailed seafloor mapping has revealed the expression of the Queen Charlotte Fault on the seafloor including the truncation of submarine canyons that occur along the continental slope. List of earthquakes in Canada Queen Charlotte Sound Ring of Fire Queen Charlotte-Fairweather Fault System – Alaska Earthquake Information Center
26.
Haida Gwaii
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Haida Gwaii, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands and the Charlottes, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Approximately half of its population is of the Haida people, the islands are separated from the British Columbia mainland to the east by Hecate Strait. Vancouver Island lies to the south, across Queen Charlotte Sound, while the U. S. state of Alaska is to the north, across the disputed Dixon Entrance. Haida Gwaii consists of two islands, Graham Island in the north and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of 10,180 km2. Other major islands include Anthony, Langara, Louise, Lyell, Burnaby, some of the islands are protected under federal legislation as Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, which is mostly Moresby Island and adjoining islands and islets. Also protected, but under provincial legislation, are provincial parks. The islands are home to an abundance of wildlife, including the largest subspecies of black bear, black-tailed deer and raccoon are introduced species that have become abundant. On June 3,2010, the Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act officially renamed the islands Haida Gwaii as part of a protocol between British Columbia and the Haida people. The primary transportation links between the Islands and mainland British Columbia are through the Sandspit Airport, the Masset Airport and the BC Ferries terminal at Skidegate. The westernmost leg of Highway 16 connects Masset and Skidegate on Graham Island, there is also regular BC Ferries service between Skidegate and Alliford Bay on Moresby Island. Floatplane services connect to such as the Alliford Bay Water Aerodrome. The economy is mixed, including art and natural resources, primarily logging, aboriginal culture tourism has been enhanced with the establishment of the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Ilnygaay. Public education is provided through School District 50 Haida Gwaii, which operates elementary and secondary schools in Masset, Port Clements, Queen Charlotte, Sandspit, publicly funded health services are provided by Northern Health, the regional health authority responsible for the northern half of the province. The existing Queen Charlotte General Hospital was built in 1953 and opened in 1955 and its size is approximately 1670 square metres. In 2013, construction started on the site for a $50 million, two-storey replacement hospital. Construction of the new Queen Charlotte/Haida Gwaii Hospital will be cost-shared by the province, Haida Gwaii has four British Columbia Ambulance Service stations, staffed by 36 part-time paramedics. The issue resulted in a review of services for Haida Gwaii by BC Emergency Health Services. At the time of contact, the population was roughly 10,000 people, residing in several towns
27.
British Columbia
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British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than four million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U. S. states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Port Moody is named after him, in 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colonys capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu, the capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the original European colonies. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, in October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371. British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871, First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, notably, the Tsilhqotin Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. BCs economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the provinces GDP and it is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast 944,735 km2 land is arable and its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the provinces largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies and it also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. The Northern Interior region has a climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, the provinces name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i. e. the Mainland, became a British colony in 1858. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, British Columbias land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbias rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres and it is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbias capital is Victoria, located at the tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of the Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated, much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by thick, tall and sometimes impenetrable temperate rainforest
28.
Richter magnitude scale
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The Richter magnitude scale assigns a magnitude number to quantify the size of an earthquake. As measured with a seismometer, an earthquake that registers 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times greater than an earthquake that registered 4.0 at the same distance. This means that, for instance, an earthquake of magnitude 5 releases 31.6 times as energy as an earthquake of magnitude 4. In the United States, the Richter scale was succeeded in the 1970s by the moment magnitude scale, the moment magnitude scale is now the scale used by the United States Geological Survey to estimate magnitudes for all modern large earthquakes. Richter derived his earthquake-magnitude scale from the apparent magnitude scale used to measure the brightness of stars and that fixed measure was chosen to avoid negative values for magnitude, given that the slightest earthquakes that could be recorded and located at the time were around magnitude 3.0. The Richter magnitude scale itself has no limit, and contemporary seismometers can register, record. M L was not designed to be applied to data with distances to the hypocenter of the earthquake that were greater than 600 km. Later, to express the size of earthquakes around the planet, Gutenberg and Richter developed a surface wave magnitude scale and these are types of waves that are recorded at teleseismic distances. The two scales were adjusted such that they were consistent with the M L scale and that adjustment succeeded better with the M s scale than with the M b scale. Each scale saturates when the earthquake is greater than magnitude 8.0, because of this, researchers in the 1970s developed the moment magnitude scale. The older magnitude-scales were superseded by methods for calculating the seismic moment, about the origins of the Richter magnitude scale, C. F. Richter said, I found a paper by Professor K. Wadati of Japan in which he compared large earthquakes by plotting the maximum ground motion against distance to the epicenter. I tried a similar procedure for our stations, but the range between the largest and smallest magnitudes seemed unmanageably large, dr. Beno Gutenberg then made the natural suggestion to plot the amplitudes logarithmically. I was lucky, because logarithmic plots are a device of the devil, the particular instrument used would become saturated by strong earthquakes and unable to record high values. The scale was replaced in the 1970s by the moment magnitude scale, for earthquakes adequately measured by the Richter scale, anything above 5 is classified as a risk by the USGS. Several scales have historically described as the Richter scale, especially the local magnitude M L. In addition, the body wave magnitude, m b, a couple of new techniques to measure magnitude are in the development stage by seismologists. All magnitude scales have been designed to give similar results
29.
Nazca Plate
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The Nazca Plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America. The ongoing subduction, along the Peru–Chile Trench, of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate is largely responsible for the Andean orogeny. The Nazca Plate is bounded on the west by the Pacific Plate and to the south by the Antarctic Plate through the East Pacific Rise and the Chile Rise respectively. The movement of the Nazca Plate over several hotspots has created some volcanic islands as well as east-west running seamount chains that subduct under South America, the oldest rocks of the plate are about 50 million years old. A triple junction, the Chile Triple Junction, occurs on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean off Taitao, here three tectonic plates meet, the Nazca Plate, the South American Plate, and the Antarctic Plate. The eastern margin is a convergent boundary subduction zone under the South American Plate, the southern side is a divergent boundary with the Antarctic Plate, the Chile Rise, where seafloor spreading permits magma to rise. The western side is a divergent boundary with the Pacific Plate, the northern side is a divergent boundary with the Cocos Plate, the Galapagos Rise. The subduction of the Nazca plate under southern Chile has a history of producing massive earthquakes, including the largest ever recorded on earth, the moment magnitude 9.51960 Valdivia earthquake. A second triple junction occurs at the northwest corner of the plate where the Nazca, Cocos, yet another triple junction occurs at the southwest corner at the intersection of the Nazca, Pacific, and Antarctic Plates off the coast of southern Chile. At each of these triple junctions an anomalous microplate exists, the Galapagos Microplate at the northern junction, the Easter Island Microplate is a third microplate that is located just north of the Juan Fernandez Microplate and lies just west of Easter Island. The Carnegie Ridge is a 1, 350-km-long and up to 300-km-wide feature on the floor of the northern Nazca Plate that includes the Galápagos archipelago at its western end. It is being subducted under South America with the rest of the Nazca Plate, Darwin Gap is the area between the Nazca Plate and the coast of Chile, where Charles Darwin experienced the earthquake of 1835. It is expected that this area will be the epicenter of a quake in the near future. The absolute motion of the Nazca Plate has been calibrated at 3.7 cm/yr east motion, the subducting Nazca Plate, which exhibits unusual flat-slab subduction, is tearing as well as deforming as it is subducted. The subduction has formed, and continues to form, the volcanic Andes Mountain Range, deformation of the Nazca Plate even affects the geography of Bolivia, far to the east. Aside from the Juan Fernández Islands, this area has few other islands that are affected by the earthquakes that are a result of complicated movements at these junctions. The precursor of both the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate was the Farallon Plate, which split in late Oligocene, about 22.8 Mya, a date arrived at by interpreting magnetic anomalies. Subduction under the South American continent began about 140 Mya, although the formation of the parts of the Central Andes
30.
Cocos Plate
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The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created by sea floor spreading along the East Pacific Rise, from the rise the plate is pushed eastward and pushed or dragged under the less dense overriding Caribbean Plate, in the process called subduction. The subducted leading edge heats up and adds its water to the mantle above it, in the mantle layer called the asthenosphere, mantle rock melts to make magma, trapping superheated water under great pressure. The northern boundary of the Cocos Plate is the Middle America Trench, the eastern boundary is a transform fault, the Panama Fracture Zone. The southern boundary is a ridge, the Galapagos Rise. The western boundary is another ridge, the East Pacific Rise. The Cocos and Nazca Plates are the remnants of the former Farallon Plate, a hotspot under the Galapagos Islands lies along the Galapagos Rise. The Rivera Plate north of the Cocos Plate is thought to have separated from the Cocos Plate 5-10 million years ago, the boundary between the two plates appears to lack a definite transform fault, yet they are regarded as distinct. The devastating 1985 Mexico City earthquake was a result of the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the North American Plate, the also devastating 2001 El Salvador earthquakes were generated in the subduction of this plate on the Caribbean Plate. The volcanic arc Martin Meschede and Udo Barckhausen, Plate tectonic evolution of the Cocos-Nazca plate, reconstructing its geological evolution
31.
South American Plate
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The South American Plate is a tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America and also a sizeable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The easterly side is a divergent boundary with the African Plate forming the part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The southerly side is a boundary with the Antarctic Plate. The westerly side is a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca Plate, the northerly side is a boundary with the Caribbean Plate and the oceanic crust of the North American Plate. At the Chile Triple Junction in Taitato-Tres Montes Peninsula, an oceanic ridge — the Chile Rise — is subducting under the South American plate, the South American Plate is in motion. Parts of the plate boundaries consisting of alternations of relatively short transform fault, moving westward away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The eastward-moving and more dense Nazca Plate is subducting under the edge of the South American Plate along the Pacific coast of the continent at a rate of 77 mm per year. This collision of plates is responsible for lifting the massive Andes Mountains and causing the volcanoes which are strewn throughout them
32.
Caribbean Plate
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The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers in area, the Caribbean Plate borders the North American Plate, the South American Plate, the Nazca Plate and these borders are regions of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes, occasional tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Part of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, the Puerto Rico trench is at a complex transition from the subduction boundary to the south and the transform boundary to the west. The eastern boundary is a zone, the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. Subduction forms the islands of the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc from the Virgin Islands in the north to the islands off the coast of Venezuela in the south. Large historical earthquakes in 1839 and 1843 in this region are possibly megathrust earthquakes and this boundary is in part the result of transform faulting along with thrust faulting and some subduction. The rich Venezuelan petroleum fields possibly result from this complex plate interaction, the Caribbean plate is moving eastward about 22 millimeters per year in relation to the South American plate. In Venezuela much of the movement between the Caribbean Plate and the South American plate occurs along the faults of Boconó, El Pilar, the western portion of the plate is occupied by Central America. The Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean is subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate and this subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc. The usual theory as to the origin of the Caribbean Plate was confronted by a theory in 2002. The mainstream theory holds that it is the Caribbean large igneous province formed in the Pacific Ocean tens of millions of years ago. As the Atlantic Ocean widened, North America and South America were pushed westward, the Pacific Ocean floor subducted under this oceanic crust between the continents. With the formation of the Isthmus of Panama 3 million years ago, the more recent theory asserts that the Caribbean Plate came into being from an Atlantic hotspot which no longer exists. The Caribbean Plate began its eastward migration 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous and this migration eventually resulted in a volcanic arc stretching from north-western South America to the Yucatán Peninsula, today represented by the Aves Islands and the Lesser and Greater Antilles
33.
Central America
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Central America is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Central America consists of seven countries, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The combined population of Central America is between 41,739,000 and 42,688,190, Central America is a part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur frequently, these disasters have resulted in the loss of many lives. In the Pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west. Soon after Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish began to colonize the Americas, the seven states finally became independent autonomous states, beginning with Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, followed by El Salvador, then Panama, and finally Belize. Middle America is usually thought to comprise Mexico to the north of the 7 states of Central America as well as Colombia, usually the whole of the Caribbean to the north-east and sometimes the Guyanas are also included. According to one source, the term Central America was used as a synonym for Middle America as recently as 1962, in Brazil, Central America comprises all countries between Mexico and Colombia, including those in the Caribbean. Mexico, in whole or in part, is included by British people. For the people living in the 5 countries formerly part of the Federal Republic of Central America there is a distinction between the Spanish language terms América Central and Centroamérica, in the Pre-Columbian era, the northern areas of Central America were inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Most notable among these were the Mayans, who had built numerous cities throughout the region, and the Aztecs, following Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish sent many expeditions to the region, and they began their conquest of Maya territory in 1523. Soon after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado commenced the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. Beginning with his arrival in Soconusco in 1523, Alvarados forces systematically conquered and subjugated most of the major Maya kingdoms, including the Kiche, Tzutujil, Pipil, and the Kaqchikel. By 1528, the conquest of Guatemala was nearly complete, with only the Petén Basin remaining outside the Spanish sphere of influence, the last independent Maya kingdoms – the Kowoj and the Itza people – were finally defeated in 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. In 1538, Spain established the Real Audiencia of Panama, which had jurisdiction over all land from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. This entity was dissolved in 1543, and most of the territory within Central America then fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. This area included the current territories of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, the president of the Audiencia, which had its seat in Antigua Guatemala, was the governor of the entire area
34.
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
35.
Juan de Fuca Plate
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It is named after the explorer of the same name. One of the smallest of Earths tectonic plates, the Juan de Fuca Plate is a remnant part of the once-vast Farallon Plate, the Juan de Fuca plate system has its origins with Panthalassas oceanic basin and crust. This oceanic crust has primarily been subducted under the North American plate, Panthalassas oceanic plate remnants are understood to be the Juan de Fuca, Gorda, Cocos and the Nazca plates, all four of which were part of the Farallon Plate. The Juan de Fuca plate is bounded on the south by the Blanco Fracture Zone, on the north by the Nootka Fault and along the west by the Pacific Plate. The Juan de Fuca plate itself has since fractured into three pieces, and the name is applied to the plate in some references. The three fragments are differentiated as such, the piece to the south is known as the Gorda Plate, the separate pieces are demarcated by the large offsets of the undersea spreading zone. These in turn are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the last megathrust earthquake at the Cascadia subduction zone was the 1700 Cascadia earthquake, estimated to have a moment magnitude of 8.7 to 9.2. Based on carbon dating of tsunami deposits, it occurred around 1700. As reported in National Geographic on 8 December 2003, Japanese records indicate the quake caused a tsunami in Japan, in 2008, small earthquakes were observed within the plate. The unusual quakes were described as more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The quakes were unlike most quakes in that they did not follow the pattern of a quake, followed by smaller aftershocks, rather. Furthermore, they did not occur on the plate boundary. The subterranean quakes were heard on hydrophones, and scientists described the sounds as similar to thunder, the basaltic formations of this plate could potentially be suitable for long-term CO2 sequestration as part of a carbon capture and storage system. Injection of CO2 would lead to the formation of stable carbonates and it is estimated that 100 years of US carbon emissions could be stored securely, without risk of leakage back into the atmosphere. Geology of the Pacific Northwest Plate tectonics National Geographic on Japanese records verifying an American earthquake Cascadia tectonic history with map
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North American Plate
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The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Russia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia, the plate includes both continental and oceanic crust. The interior of the continental landmass includes an extensive granitic core called a craton. Along most of the edges of this craton are fragments of material called terranes. It is thought that much of North America west of the Rocky Mountains is composed of such terranes, the parallel Septentrional and Enriquillo-Plantain Garden faults, which run through the island of Hispaniola and bound the Gonâve Microplate, are also a part of the boundary. On the northerly boundary is a continuation of the Mid-Atlantic ridge called the Gakkel Ridge, the rest of the boundary in the far northwestern part of the plate extends into Siberia. On its western edge, the Farallon Plate has been subducting under the North American Plate since the Jurassic Period, the Juan de Fuca, Explorer, Gorda, Rivera, Cocos and Nazca plates are remnants of the Farallon Plate. The boundary along the Gulf of California is complex and it is generally accepted that a piece of the North American Plate was broken off and transported north as the East Pacific Rise propagated northward, creating the Gulf of California. A few hotspots are thought to exist below the North American Plate, the most notable hotspots are the Yellowstone, Raton, and Anahim hotspots. The Yellowstone and Anahim hotspots are thought to have first arrived during the Miocene period and are still geologically active, for the most part, the North American Plate moves in roughly a southwest direction away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. One recent study suggests that a convective current is propelling the plate. Geologic timeline of Western North America New Madrid Seismic Zone - an ancient intraplate fault zone within the North American Plate, notable as early as 1699 Notes
37.
Aleutian Islands
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The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones belonging to both the United States and Russia. Crossing longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the westernmost U. S. island in real terms, however, is Attu Island, west of which runs the International Date Line. The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, are in the part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province. These Islands are most known for the battles and skirmishes occurred there during the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II. It was one of two attacks on the United States during that war. The largest islands in the Aleutians are Attu, and Unalaska, Umnak, and Unimak in the Fox Islands. The largest of those is Unimak Island, with an area of 1,571.41 mi², followed by Unalaska Island, the axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a southwest trend, but near 179° its direction changes to the northwest. This change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of fissures that have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kuril Islands, the Japanese chain, and in the Philippines. All these island arcs are at the edge of the Pacific Plate and experience much seismic activity, but are still habitable, the general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands and least in the western. The island chain is a continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn, and the approaches are exceedingly dangerous and these volcanic islands reach heights of 6,200 feet. Makushin Volcano located on Unalaska Island, is not quite visible from within the town of Unalaska, though the steam rising from its cone is visible on a clear day. Residents of Unalaska need only to one of the smaller hills in the area, such as Pyramid Peak or Mt. Newhall. The volcanic Bogoslof and Fire Islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, in 1906 a new volcanic cone rose between the islets of Bogoslof and Grewingk, near Unalaska, followed by another in 1907. These cones were demolished by an explosive eruption on September 1,1907. Newly found information in 2017, the volcanic cone erupted sending ash, the Aleutians seen from space The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall
38.
Kamchatka Peninsula
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The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1, 250-kilometre-long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about 270,000 km2. It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west, immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the 10, 500-metre deep Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and Karaginsky Island constitute the Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation, the vast majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are ethnic Russians, but there are also about 13,000 Koryaks. More than half of the lives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and nearby Yelizovo. The Kamchatka peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Kamchatka receives up to 2,700 mm of precipitation per year. The summers are cool, and the winters tend to be rather stormy though rarely producing lightning. Politically, the forms part of Kamchatka Krai. The southern tip is called Cape Lopatka, the circular bay to the north of this on the Pacific side is Avacha Bay with the capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. North up the Pacific side, the four peninsulas are called Shipunsky Point, Kronotsky Point, Kamchatsky Point, North of Ozernoy is the large Karaginsky Bay, which features Karaginsky Island. Northeast of this lies Korfa Bay with the town of Tilichiki, on the opposite side is the Shelikhov Gulf. The Kamchatka or Central Range forms the spine of the peninsula, along the southeast coast runs the Vostochny or Eastern Range. Between these lies the central valley, the Kamchatka River rises northwest of Avacha and flows north down the central valley, turning east near Klyuchi to enter the Pacific south of Kamchatsky Point at Ust-Kamchatsk. In the nineteenth century a trail led west from near Klychi over the mountains to the Tegil river, North of Tegil is Koryak Okrug. South of the Tegil is the Icha River, just south of the headwaters of the Kamchatka, the Bistraya River curves southwest to enter the Sea of Okhotsk at Bolsheretsk, which once served as a port connecting the peninsula to Okhotsk. South of the Bistraya flows the Golygina River, another highway connects local capital with Bolsheretsk. Bus service is available on both roads, most other roads are gravel-covered or coverless ground, requiring off-road capable vehicles. There is semi-regular passenger transportation with aircraft, the obvious circular area in the central valley is the Klyuchevskaya Sopka, an isolated volcanic group southeast of the curve of the Kamchatka River. West of Kronotsky Point is the Kronotsky Biosphere Reserve with the Valley of Geysers, at the southern tip is the Southern Kamchatka Wildlife Refuge with Kurile Lake
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Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
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Geography of Australia
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The geography of Australia encompasses a wide variety of biogeographic regions being the worlds smallest continent but the sixth-largest country in the world. The population of Australia is concentrated along the eastern and southeastern coasts, the geography of the country is extremely diverse, ranging from the snow-capped mountains of the Australian Alps and Tasmania to large deserts, tropical and temperate forests. Australia is a country, and a continent and it is located in Oceania between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. The Australian mainland has a coastline length of 35,877 km with an additional 23,859 km of island coastlines. There are 758 estuaries around the country with most located in the tropical and sub-tropical zones, Australia claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres. This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory, Australia has the largest area of ocean jurisdiction of any country on earth. The northernmost points of the country are the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, the western half of Australia consists of the Western Plateau, which rises to mountain heights near the west coast and falls to lower elevations near the continental centre. The Western Plateau region is flat, though broken by various mountain ranges such as the Hamersley Range, the MacDonnell Ranges. Surface water is lacking in the Western Plateau, although there are several larger rivers in the west and north, such as the Murchison, Ashburton. The Eastern Highlands, or Great Dividing Range, lie near the eastern coast of Australia and these Eastern Australian temperate forests have the greatest relief, the most rainfall, the most abundant and varied flora and fauna, and the densest human settlement. Off the eastern coast of Australia is the worlds largest coral reef complex, the State of Tasmania, a large and mountainous island, resides in the south-eastern corner of Australia. Australia is the lowest, flattest, and oldest continental landmass on Earth, geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australias early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Its highest peak is Mount Kosciuszko at 2,228 metres, erosion has heavily weathered Australias surface. Australia is situated in the middle of the plate. Minor earthquakes which produce no damage occur regularly, while major earthquakes measuring greater than magnitude 6 occur on average five years. The terrain is mostly low plateau with deserts, rangelands and a plain in the southeast. Tasmania and the Australian Alps do not contain any permanent icefields or glaciers, the Great Barrier Reef, by far the worlds largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast. The Australian continental landmass consists of 6 distinct landform divisions, the headwaters of some waterways are located in tropical regions where summer rains create a high rate of discharge
41.
Indonesia
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the worlds largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At 1,904,569 square kilometres, Indonesia is the worlds 14th-largest country in terms of area and worlds 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea. It has an population of over 260 million people and is the worlds fourth most populous country. The worlds most populous island, Java, contains more than half of the countrys population, Indonesias republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status and its capital and countrys most populous city is Jakarta, which is also the most populous city in Southeast Asia and the second in Asia. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, other neighbouring countries include Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper, agriculture mainly produces rice, palm oil, tea, coffee, cacao, medicinal plants, spices and rubber. Indonesias major trading partners are Japan, United States, China, the Indonesian archipelago has been an important region for trade since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese, a shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesias national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, articulates the diversity that shapes the country, Indonesias economy is the worlds 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP, the largest in Southeast Asia, and is considered an emerging market and newly industrialised country. Indonesia has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, Indonesia is a member of the G20 major economies and World Trade Organization. The name Indonesia derives from the Greek name of the Indós, the name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, in the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia, they preferred Malay Archipelago, the Netherlands East Indies, popularly Indië, the East, and Insulinde
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New Guinea
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New Guinea is a large Island in the South West Pacific region. It is the worlds second-largest island, after Greenland, covering an area of 785,753 km2. The island is divided between two countries, Papua New Guinea to the east, and Indonesia to the west, the island has been known by various names. The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West and its etymology is unclear, one theory states that it is from Tidore, the language used by the Sultanate of Tidore, which controlled parts of the islands coastal region. The name came from papo and ua, which means not united or, ploeg reports that the word papua is often said to derive from the Malay word papua or pua-pua, meaning frizzly-haired, referring to the highly curly hair of the inhabitants of these areas. When the Portuguese and Spanish explorers arrived in the island via the Spice Islands, when the Dutch colonized it as part of Netherlands East Indies, they called it Nieuw Guinea. The name Irian was used in the Indonesian language to refer the island and Indonesian province, the name was promoted in 1945 by Marcus Kaisiepo, brother of the future governor Frans Kaisiepo. It is taken from the Biak language of Biak Island, and means to rise and this name of Irian is the name used in the Biak language and other languages such as Serui, Merauke and Waropen. The name was used until 2001, when the name Papua was again used for the island, the name Irian, which was originally favored by natives, is now considered to be a name imposed by the authority of Jakarta. New Guinea is an island to the north of Australia, and it is isolated by the Arafura Sea to the west and the Torres Strait and Coral Sea to the east. A spine of east–west mountains, the New Guinea Highlands, dominates the geography of New Guinea, stretching over 1,600 km from the head to the tail of the island. The western half of the island of New Guinea contains the highest mountains in Oceania, rising up to 4,884 m high, the tree line is around 4,000 m elevation and the tallest peaks contain permanent equatorial glaciers—which have been retreating since at least 1936. Various other smaller mountain ranges occur both north and west of the central ranges, except in high elevations, most areas possess a warm humid climate throughout the year, with some seasonal variation associated with the northeast monsoon season. At 4,884 metres, Puncak Jaya makes New Guinea the worlds fourth highest landmass, Puncak Mandala, located in Papua, is the second highest peak on the island at 4,760 metres. Puncak Trikora, also in Papua, is 4,750 metres, mount Wilhelm is the highest peak on the PNG side of the border at 4,509 metres. Its granite peak is the highest point of the Bismarck Range, mount Giluwe 4,368 metres is the second highest summit in PNG. It is also the highest volcanic peak in Oceania, another major habitat feature is the vast southern and northern lowlands. Stretching for hundreds of kilometres, these include lowland rainforests, extensive wetlands, savanna grasslands, the southern lowlands are the site of Lorentz National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site
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Bali
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Bali is an island and province of Indonesia. The province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan and it is located at the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. Its capital, Denpasar, is located in the part of the island. With a population of 3,890,757 in the 2010 census, and 4,225,000 as of January 2014, the island is home to most of Indonesias Hindu minority. According to the 2010 Census,83. 5% of Balis population adhered to Balinese Hinduism, followed by 13. 4% Muslim, Christianity at 2. 5%, Bali is a popular tourist destination, which has seen a significant rise in tourists since the 1980s. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of its economy and it is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. The Indonesian International Film Festival is held every year in Bali, in March 2017, Tripadvisor named the island the worlds top destination in its Travelers choice award. Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species, in this area alone over 500 reef building coral species can be found. For comparison, this is about 7 times as many as in the entire Caribbean, most recently, Bali was the host of the 2011 ASEAN Summit,2013 APEC and Miss World 2013. Bali is the home of the Subak Irrigation System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Bali was inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian people who migrated originally from Southeast Asia and Oceania through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are closely related to the people of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the islands west. In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, namely Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Waisnawa, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora, each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead. Inscriptions from 896 and 911 dont mention a king, until 914 and they also reveal an independent Bali, with a distinct dialect, where Buddhism and Sivaism were practiced simultaneously. Mpu Sindoks great-granddaughter, Mahendradatta, married the Bali king Udayana Warmadewa around 989 and this marriage also brought more Hinduism and Javanese culture to Bali. Suradhipa reigned from 1115 to 1119, and Jayasakti from 1146 until 1150, jayapangus appears on inscriptions between 1178 and 1181, while Adikuntiketana and his son Paramesvara in 1204. Balinese culture was influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture. The name Bali dwipa has been discovered from inscriptions, including the Blanjong pillar inscription written by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 914 AD. It was during this time that the people developed their complex irrigation system subak to grow rice in wet-field cultivation, some religious and cultural traditions still practiced today can be traced to this period
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Flores
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Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. The population was 1,831,000 in the 2010 census, the name Flores is derived from the Portuguese for flowers. Flores is located east of Sumbawa and Komodo and west of Lembata, to the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba island and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi. Unlike most islands in the Indonesian archipelago, the name Flores was given by the Portuguese, from Cabo de Flores and this part of the island, originally called Kopondai, was so named by the Portuguese because of the flowering Delonix regia trees found there. The original name of Flores was Nipa, referring to the serpent, Portuguese traders and missionaries came to Flores in the 16th century, mainly to Larantuka and Sikka. Their influence is still discernible in Sikkas language, culture and religion, the first Portuguese visit took place in 1511, through the expedition of António de Abreu and his vice-captain Francisco Serrão, en route through the Sunda islands. The Dominican order was important in this island, as well as in the neighbouring islands of Timor and Solor. When in 1613 the Dutch attacked the Fortress of Solor, the population of this fort, led by the Dominicans, moved to the town of Larantuka. This population was mixed, of Portuguese and local islanders descent and Larantuqueiros, Topasses or, as Dutch knew them, the Larantuqueiros or Topasses became the dominant sandalwood trading people of the region for the next 200 years. This group used Portuguese as the language for worship, Malay as the language of trade and their Language is Portuguese, and the religion they have, is Romish. They seem in Words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for their Sovereign and they speak indifferently the Malayan and their own native Languages, as well as Portuguese. In 1846, Dutch and Portuguese initiated negotiations towards delimiting the territories, lima Lopes did so without the consent of Lisbon and was dismissed in disgrace, but his agreement was not rescinded and in 1854 Portugal ceded all its historical claims on Flores. After this, Flores became part of the territory of Dutch East Indies, during World War II a Japanese invasion force landed at Reo on 14 May 1942 and occupied Flores. After the war Flores became part of independent Indonesia, on 12 December 1992, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale occurred, killing 2,500 people in and around Maumere, including islands off the North coast. Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province, Flores has 39. 1% of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial population as of 2010, and the most Indonesians of all islands in the province. Kelimutu National Park is the national park designated on Flores to protect endangered species. The Flores giant rat is endemic to the island. These giant rodents are considered examples of island gigantism, Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean Stegodon, the most recent disappearing approximately 12,000 years ago and the diminutive Homo floresiensis
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Timor
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Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the states of East Timor, on the eastern part, and Indonesia, on the western part. The Indonesian part, also known as West Timor, constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara, within West Timor lies an exclave of East Timor called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of 30,777 square kilometres, the name is a variant of timur, Malay for east, it is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Anthropologists identify eleven distinct ethno-linguistic groups in Timor, the largest are the Atoni of western Timor, and the Tetum of central and eastern Timor. Most indigenous Timorese languages belong to the Timor–Babar branch of the Austronesian languages spoken throughout the Indonesian archipelago, the non-Austronesian languages are thought to be related to languages spoken on Halmahera and in Western New Guinea. Some are so mixed it is difficult to tell which family they descend from, the official languages of East Timor are Tetum and Portuguese, while in West Timor it is Indonesian. Indonesian is also spoken and understood in East Timor. Islam and Animism make up most of the remainder at about 5% each across the island, Timor is located north of Australia, and is one of the easternmost Sunda Islands. Timor is the island of the Outer Banda Arc, which has been upthrust by collision with the Australian continent. Timor has older geology and lacks the volcanic nature of the northern Lesser Sunda Islands, the orientation of the main axis of the island also differs from its neighbors. These features have been explained as the result of being on the edge of the Indo-Australian Plate as it meets the Eurasian Plate. The climate includes a dry season with hot winds blowing over from Australia. Rivers on the island include the Southern and Northern Laclo Rivers in East Timor, the largest towns on the island are the provincial capital of Kupang in West Timor, Indonesia and the Portuguese colonial towns of Dili the capital, and Baucau in East Timor. Poor roads make transport to inland areas difficult, in East Timor especially, East Timor is a poor country, with health issues including malaria and dengue fever. Sources of revenue include gas and oil in the Timor Sea, coffee growing, the natural vegetation was tropical dry broadleaf forests with an undergrowth of shrubs and grasses supporting a rich wildlife. However much of the original forest has been cleared for farming, especially on the coasts of Timor, apart from one large block in the centre of Timor only patches remain. This ecoregion is part of the Wallacea area with a mixture of plants and animals of Asian and Australasian origin, it lies in the part of Wallacea
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Andean Volcanic Belt
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The Andean Volcanic Belt is a major volcanic belt along the Andean cordillera in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It formed as a result of subduction of the Nazca Plate, the belt is subdivided into four main volcanic zones that are separated from each other by volcanic gaps. The volcanoes of the belt are diverse in terms of activity style, products, while some differences can be explained by which volcanic zone a volcano belongs to, there are significant differences within volcanic zones and even between neighboring volcanoes. Romeral in Colombia is the northernmost member of the Andean Volcanic Belt, South of latitude 49° S within the Austral Volcanic Zone volcanic activity decreases with the southernmost volcano Fueguino in Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Andean Volcanic Belt is segmented into four areas of active volcanism. The Northern Volcanic Zone extends from Colombia to Ecuador and includes all volcanoes on the mainland of these countries. Of the zones volcanoes,55 are located in Ecuador while 19 are in Colombia, in Ecuador the volcanoes are located in the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Real while in Colombia they are located in Cordillera Central. The volcanic arc has formed due to subduction of the Nazca Plate under western South America, some volcanoes of the Northern Volcanic Zone, such as Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz that lie in densely populated highland areas, are major sources of hazards. It has been estimated that crustal thickness beneath this region varies from around 40 to perhaps more than 55 km, sangay is the southernmost volcano of the Northern Volcanic Zone. The Central Volcanic Zone is an arc in western South America. It is one of the four zones of the Andes. The Central Volcanic Zone extends from Peru to Chile and forms the boundary of the Altiplano plateau. The volcanic arc has formed due to subduction of the Nazca Plate under western South America along the Peru–Chile Trench, the CVZ is characterized by a continental crust that reaches a thickness of approximately 70 km. Within this zone there are 44 major and 18 minor volcanic centers that are considered to be active, other silicic systems are Los Frailes ignimbrite plateau in Bolivia, and the caldera complexes of Incapillo and Cerro Galán in Argentina. The South Volcanic Zone extends roughly from Central Chiles Andes at the latitude of Santiago, 33°S, to Cerro Arenales in Aysén Region at ca. 46°S, a distance of well over 870 mi, the arc has formed due to subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate along the Peru–Chile Trench. The southern end of the SVZ is marked by the Chile Triple Junction where the Chile Rise subducts under South America at the Taitao Peninsula giving origin to the Patagonian Volcanic Gap, further south lies the Austral Volcanic Zone. During the Pliocene the SVZ south of 38°S consisted of a volcanic arc
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Cordillera Occidental (Central Andes)
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The border goes through the innominated point located at two thirds of elevation of Licancaburs northeastern slope at the southwestermost point of Bolivia at 22°4941 south and 67°5235 west. The climate of the region is cold and inadequate for animal and its main feature is its ground, in which are large quantities of metallic minerals including gold, silver, copper, and others. The range consists of three sections, The northern section, in which you can find the highest peaks in Bolivia, Sajama is perennially covered in snow. It contains the volcanoes Pomerape and Parinacota the latter being a dormant volcano with a cone of snow similar to Mount Fuji in Japan, the central section, situated between Uyuni and Coipasa. Its most prominent summit is the Ollagüe volcano on the border with Chile, the southern section, characterized by volcanic activity and by having sandstorms and fog, taking into account the most active volcano in the world, Licancabur, which is 5,920 meters high. The lakes Laguna Colorada and Laguna Verde can be found on Licancabur, Cordillera Central Cordillera Oriental Cordillera Occidental Licancabur
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Altiplano
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The Altiplano, Collao, Andean Plateau or Bolivian Plateau, in west-central South America, is the area where the Andes are the widest. It is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside Tibet, the bulk of the Altiplano lies in Bolivia, but its northern parts lie in Peru, and its southern parts lie in Chile and Argentina. The plateau hosts several cities of three nations, including El Alto, La Paz, Oruro, and Puno. The northeastern Altiplano is more humid than the southwestern area, the latter area has several salares, or salt flats, due to its aridity. At the Bolivia–Peru border lies Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America, South of that in Bolivia was Lake Poopó, which was declared dried up and defunct as of December 2015. It is unclear if this second-largest lake in Bolivia can be revitalized, the Altiplano was the site of several pre-Columbian cultures, including the Chiripa, Tiawanaku and the Inca Empire. Spain conquered the region in the 16th century, major economic activities in the Altiplano include mining, llama and vicuña herding, and services in the cities. The Altiplano is an area of inland drainage lying in the central Andes, occupying parts of northern Chile and Argentina, western Bolivia and its height averages about 3,750 meters, slightly less than that of the Tibetan Plateau. The Atacama Desert, one of the driest areas on the planet, lies to the southwest of the Altiplano, the Altiplano is noted for hypoxic air caused by very high elevation. At various times during the Pleistocene epoch, both the southern and northern Altiplano were covered by vast pluvial lakes, remnants are Lake Titicaca, straddling the Peru–Bolivia border, and Poopó, a salt lake that extends south of Oruro, Bolivia. Salar de Uyuni, locally known as Salar de Tunupa, scientists classify the latter as commencing at an elevation of approximately 4,500 meters. Alternate names used in place of altiplano in this context include puna, the diurnal cycle of temperature is very wide, with maximum temperatures in the order of 12 to 24 °C and the minimum in the order of -20 to 10 °C. The coldest temperatures occur in the portion of the Altiplano during the months of June and July. The seasonal cycle of rainfall is marked, with the rainy season concentrated between December and March, the rest of the year tends to be very dry, cool, windy and sunny. Snowfall may happen between April and September, especially to the north, but it is not very common, such weaknesses would cause the partition of tectonic deformation and uplift into the eastern and western cordillera, leaving the necessary space for the formation of the altiplano basin. Altiplano - Where Bolivia meets the sky
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Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
