1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
3.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
4.
Great Basin
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The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes/ecoregions, and deserts, the term Great Basin is applied to hydrographic, biological, floristic, physiographic, topographic, and ethnographic geographic areas. The name was coined by John C. Frémont, who, based on information gleaned from Joseph R. Walker as well as his own travels, the hydrographic definition is the most commonly used, and is the only one with a definitive border. The other definitions yield not only different geographical boundaries of Great Basin regions, the Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. The United States Geological Survey adapted Fennemans scheme in their Physiographic division of the United States, the section is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition. The culture area covers approximately 400,000 sq mi, or just less than twice the area of the hydrographic Great Basin, the hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162 square miles area that drains internally. All precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes, as observed by Frémont, creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, the south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California and small areas of Idaho, Wyoming, the term Great Basin is slightly misleading, the region is actually made up of many small basins. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Humboldt Sink are a few of the drains in the Great Basin, the Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin. The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean, the southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada. The Great Basins longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi, Lake Tahoe, North Americas largest alpine lake, is part of the Great Basins central Lahontan subregion. The hydrographic Great Basin contains multiple deserts and ecoregions, each with its own set of flora. The ecological boundaries and divisions in the Great Basin are unclear, the Great Basin overlaps four different deserts, portions of the hot Mojave and Colorado Deserts to the south, and the cold Great Basin and Oregon High Deserts in the north. The deserts can be distinguished by their plants, the Joshua tree and creosote bush occur in the hot deserts, the cold deserts are generally higher than the hot, and have their precipitation spread throughout the year. The climate and flora of the Great Basin is strongly dependent on elevation, as the elevation increases, because of this, forests occur at higher elevations. Utah juniper/single-leaf pinyon and mountain mahogany form open pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges, stands of limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine can be found in some of the higher ranges
5.
Snake Range
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The Snake Range is a mountain range in White Pine County, Nevada, United States. The south-central portion of the range is included within Great Basin National Park, the range reaches a maximum elevation of 13,065 feet at the summit of Wheeler Peak, the tallest independent mountain within Nevada and the second highest point within the state. The range also contains four of the five highest mountain peaks in Nevada, typical of other ranges in the Basin and Range Province, the Snake Range runs in a north-south direction, for approximately 60 miles. To the west are Spring Valley and the Schell Creek Range, and to the east across the Utah border are Snake Valley, Sacramento Pass is where U. S. Route 6-50, the Loneliest Highway in America, crosses the range. It is the means of eastbound access to this part of eastern Nevada. Great Basin National Park is located in the section of the Snake Range. Established in 1986, it protects the unique geologic and habitat features of the range and Great Basin Desert. The southern section includes the natural rock Lexington Arch. Several large groves of ancient Great Basin Bristlecone Pine trees thrive in the Great Basin montane forests of the higher elevations. The higher elevations of the Snake Range in the section are protected by the Mount Moriah Wilderness Area. The Snake Range includes two groups of peaks, the southern section rises quickly from a point near the border with Lincoln County, reaching the summit of Granite Peak just 10 miles to the north. From there northwards the range continues to rise, passing Lincoln Peak, Mt. Washington, Pyramid Peak, Baker Peak and it finally reaching its apex at Wheeler Peak. North of Wheeler Peak the range begins to drop, reaching 7,154 feet at Sacramento Pass, Sacramento Pass is where the more remote northern section of the range begins. In just 12 miles the range rises past Silver Creek Canyon, to the north of this peak is an unusual formation, a flat plateau of sub-alpine tundra called The Table, covering about 2 square miles at an elevation of 11,000 feet. A grove of ancient Great Basin Bristlecone Pines grows on this plateau near the peak, north of The Table is another unusual geologic feature. Deadman Creek and Smith Creek, draining eastward into Snake Valley, the mouth of this canyon lies below 3, 000-foot cliffs,6,000 feet below and 6 miles away from the summit of Mt. Moriah
6.
Deep Creek Mountains
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The Deep Creek Mountains, officially the Deep Creek Range, are a mountain range in the Great Basin located in extreme western Tooele County and Juab County, Utah, in the western United States. The range trends north-south, and is composed of granite in its central highest portion, the valley to the east is Snake Valley and to the west is Deep Creek Valley. Nearby communities include Callao, Utah to the east and the community of Ibapah, the highest point in the Deep Creek Range is Ibapah Peak, an ultra prominent peak, which rises to 12,087 feet. Other peaks include Haystack Peak at 12,020 feet and Red Mountain at 11,588 feet, the range is the source of several perennial streams and supports a diverse coniferous forest, with an island of alpine tundra on the highest summits. The range has a relief of 7,800 feet above the salt flats of the Great Salt Lake Desert lying to the northeast. Deep Creek Range, peakbagger. com, range area, 84%, Utah, 16% Nevada-
7.
Confusion Range
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The Confusion Range is a north-south trending mountain range in west-central Utah, United States. It is bounded by Snake Valley to the west, Tule Valley to the east, the Great Salt Lake Desert to the north, the range trends into the Burbank Hills, Mountain Home Range, and the Wah Wah Mountains to the south. In the central part of the range, an offshoot of the mountains to the west is known as the Conger Range, the Confusion Range is named for its rugged isolation and confusing topography. The geology of the Confusion range is deformed Silurian to Permian limestones, dolomites, and shales
8.
Great Basin National Park
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Great Basin National Park is a United States National Park located in White Pine County in east-central Nevada, near the Utah border. The park was established in 1986 and it is most commonly accessed by way of Nevada State Route 488, which is connected to U. S. Routes 6 and 50 by Nevada State Route 487 via the town of Baker. The park derives its name from the Great Basin, the dry, topographically, this area is known as the Basin and Range Province. The park is located approximately 290 miles north of Las Vegas, the park is notable for its groves of ancient bristlecone pines, the oldest known non-clonal organisms, and for the Lehman Caves at the base of 13, 063-foot Wheeler Peak. The peak is home to Wheeler Peak Glacier, which despite claims is much further north than Mount Everest. President Warren G. Harding created Lehman Caves National Monument by presidential proclamation on January 24,1922 and it was designated a national park on October 27,1986. There are a number of developed campsites within the park, as well as excellent back country camping opportunities, adjacent to Great Basin National Park lies the Highland Ridge Wilderness. These two protected areas provide contiguous wildlife habitat and protection to 227.8 square miles of eastern Nevadas basin lands, there are 11 species of conifer trees and over 800 species of plants in Great Basin National Park and the neighboring valleys. The area around the Visitor Center is dominated by such as sagebrush, saltbush, Single-leaf Pinyon. Higher elevations are home to mountain meadows, White Fir, Quaking Aspen, Englemann Spruce, at treeline is an alpine area of low, delicate plants and rocky outcroppings. The oldest non-clonal organism ever discovered, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree at least 5,000 years old and it was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and U. S. Forest Service personnel for research purposes. It was given the nickname Prometheus, after the figure who stole fire from the gods. There are 61 species of mammals,18 species of reptiles,238 species of birds,2 species of amphibians, and 8 species of fish in Great Basin National Park, mammals An abundance of wildlife has taken advantage of the habitat zones in Great Basin National Park. Jackrabbits, pygmy rabbits, mountain cottontails, ground squirrels, chipmunks, pronghorns, coyotes, kit foxes, and badgers are less common inhabitants. In the more rugged areas on the slopes of mountains and in the areas nearby, cougars, bobcats, marmots, rock squirrels. Other animals that can be found here include elk, mule deer, spotted skunks, shrew, ringtail cats, fish The Bonneville cutthroat trout is the only fish native to Great Basin National Park. It arrived in the mountain waters naturally and was isolated by changing climatic conditions
9.
Civilization
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Historically, a civilization was a so-called advanced culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure, Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The earlier neolithic technology and lifestyle was established first in the Middle East, and later in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China, similar pre-civilized neolithic revolutions also began independently from 7,000 BCE in such places as northwestern South America and Mesoamerica. These were among the six civilizations worldwide that arose independently, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, with civilizations developing from 6,500 years ago. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various cradles from around 3300 BCE. Chalcolithic civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and, despite an early start in Egypt, Axum and Kush, the English word civilization comes from the 16th-century French civilisé, from Latin civilis, related to civis and civitas. The fundamental treatise is Norbert Eliass The Civilizing Process, which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period, in The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions, one purely material and the other material and ethical. Adjectives like civility developed in the mid-16th century, the abstract noun civilization, meaning civilized condition, came in the 1760s, again from French. The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French revolution, civilization was used in the singular, never in the plural and this is still the case in French. The use of civilizations as a noun was in occasional use in the 19th century. Only in this sense does it become possible to speak of a medieval civilization. Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement, one historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, Emile. From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and this sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by conscious, rational, deliberative acts, but a kind of pre-rational folk spirit. Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to vices of social life such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism, Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that civilizations relied on shackled human muscle and it took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, grain farms can result in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization, irrigation and crop rotation
10.
Fremont culture
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In the Navajo culture the pictographs are credited to people who lived before the flood. The Fremont River itself is named for John Charles Frémont, an American explorer and it inhabited sites in what is now Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from AD1 to 1300. It was adjacent to, roughly contemporaneous with, but distinctly different from the Ancestral Pueblo peoples located to their south, Fremont Indian State Park in the Clear Creek Canyon area in south-central Utah contains the biggest Fremont culture site in Utah. Thousand-year-old pit houses, petroglyphs, and other Fremont artifacts were discovered at Range Creek, nearby Nine Mile Canyon has long been known for its large collection of Fremont rock art. Other sites are found in The San Rafael Swell, Capitol Reef National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Zion National Park, first, Fremont culture people foraged wild food sources and grew corn. The culture participated in a continuum of fairly reliable subsistence strategies that no doubt varied from place to place, other unifying characteristics include the manufacture of relatively expedient gray ware pottery and a signature style of basketry and rock art. Most of the Fremont lived in single and extended family units comprising villages ranging from two to a dozen pithouse structures, with only a few having been occupied at any one time. The Fremont are sometimes thought to have begun as a group of the Ancestral Pueblo people. According to archaelogist Dean Snow, Fremont people generally wore moccasins like their Great Basin ancestors rather than sandals like the Ancestral Puebloans and they were part-time farmers who lived in scattered semi-sedentary farmsteads and small villages, never entirely giving up traditional hunting and gathering for more risky full-time farming. Snow notes that Fremont culture declined due to changing climate conditions c.950 CE, the culture moved to the then-marshy areas of northwestern Utah, which sustained them for about 400 years. Traces of Fremont, Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah, text by Steven R. Simms, photographs by Francois Gohier. ISBN 978-1-60781-011-7 Snow, Dean R. Archaeology of Native North America, video on Fremont culture- Scientific American Frontiers
