Mountain range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills ranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form and alignment that have arisen from the same cause an orogeny. Mountain ranges are formed by a variety of geological processes, but most of the significant ones on Earth are the result of plate tectonics. Mountain ranges are found on many planetary mass objects in the Solar System and are a feature of most terrestrial planets. Mountain ranges are segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not have the same geologic structure or petrology, they may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, volcanic landforms resulting in a variety of rock types. Most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earth's land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt.
The Pacific Ring of Fire includes the Andes of South America, extends through the North American Cordillera along the Pacific Coast, the Aleutian Range, on through Kamchatka, Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, to New Zealand. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the world's longest mountain system; the Alpide belt includes Indonesia and Southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, Caucasus Mountains, Balkan Mountains fold mountain range, the Alps, ends in the Spanish mountains and the Atlas Mountains. The belt includes other European and Asian mountain ranges; the Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, 8,848 metres high and traverses the border between China and Nepal. Mountain ranges outside these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Great Dividing Range, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a mountain range is stretched to include underwater mountains the Ocean Ridges form the longest continuous mountain system on Earth, with a length of 65,000 kilometres.
The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, where mountain ranges can contain sub-ranges. The sub-range relationship is expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains. Equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians; the parent-child expression extends to the sub-ranges themselves: the Sandwich Range and the Presidential Range are children of the White Mountains, while the Presidential Range is parent to the Northern Presidential Range and Southern Presidential Range. The position of mountains influences climate, such as snow; when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the leeward side, it warms again and is drier, having been stripped of much of its moisture.
A rain shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are subjected to erosional forces which work to tear them down; the basins adjacent to an eroding mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted until the mountains are reduced to low hills and plains; the early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example. As the uplift was occurring some 10,000 feet of Mesozoic sedimentary strata were removed by erosion over the core of the mountain range and spread as sand and clays across the Great Plains to the east; this mass of rock was removed as the range was undergoing uplift. The removal of such a mass from the core of the range most caused further uplift as the region adjusted isostatically in response to the removed weight. Rivers are traditionally believed to be the principal cause of mountain range erosion, by cutting into bedrock and transporting sediment.
Computer simulation has shown that as mountain belts change from tectonically active to inactive, the rate of erosion drops because there are fewer abrasive particles in the water and fewer landslides. Mountains on other planets and natural satellites of the Solar System are isolated and formed by processes such as impacts, though there are examples of mountain ranges somewhat similar to those on Earth. Saturn's moon Titan and Pluto, in particular exhibit large mountain ranges in chains composed of ices rather than rock. Examples include the Mithrim Montes and Doom Mons on Titan, Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes on Pluto; some terrestrial planets other than Earth exhibit rocky mountain ranges, such as Maxwell Montes on Venus taller than any on Earth and Tartarus Montes on Mars, Jupiter's moon Io has mountain ranges formed from tectonic processes including Boösaule Montes, Dorian Montes, Hi'iaka Montes and Euboea Montes. Peakbagger Ranges Home Page Bivouac.com
Erosion
In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, transports it to another location. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, ice, air, plants and humans. In accordance with these agents, erosion is sometimes divided into water erosion, glacial erosion, snow erosion, wind erosion, zoogenic erosion, anthropogenic erosion; the particulate breakdown of rock or soil into clastic sediment is referred to as physical or mechanical erosion. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Natural rates of erosion are controlled by the action of geological weathering geomorphic drivers, such as rainfall; the rates at which such processes act control. Physical erosion proceeds fastest on steeply sloping surfaces, rates may be sensitive to some climatically-controlled properties including amounts of water supplied, wind speed, wave fetch, or atmospheric temperature.
Feedbacks are possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material, carried by, for example, a river or glacier. Processes of erosion that produce sediment or solutes from a place contrast with those of deposition, which control the arrival and emplacement of material at a new location. While erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10-40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. At well-known agriculture sites such as the Appalachian Mountains, intensive farming practices have caused erosion up to 100x the speed of the natural rate of erosion in the region. Excessive erosion causes both "on-site" and "off-site" problems. On-site impacts include decreases in agricultural productivity and ecological collapse, both because of loss of the nutrient-rich upper soil layers. In some cases, the eventual end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of water bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads and houses.
Water and wind erosion are the two primary causes of land degradation. Intensive agriculture, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion. However, there are many prevention and remediation practices that can curtail or limit erosion of vulnerable soils. Rainfall, the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four main types of soil erosion: splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion, gully erosion. Splash erosion is seen as the first and least severe stage in the soil erosion process, followed by sheet erosion rill erosion and gully erosion. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a small crater in the soil, ejecting soil particles; the distance these soil particles travel can be as much as 0.6 m vertically and 1.5 m horizontally on level ground. If the soil is saturated, or if the rainfall rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil, surface runoff occurs.
If the runoff has sufficient flow energy, it will transport loosened soil particles down the slope. Sheet erosion is the transport of loosened soil particles by overland flow. Rill erosion refers to the development of small, ephemeral concentrated flow paths which function as both sediment source and sediment delivery systems for erosion on hillslopes. Where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are of the order of a few centimetres or less and along-channel slopes may be quite steep; this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when runoff water accumulates and flows in narrow channels during or after heavy rains or melting snow, removing soil to a considerable depth. Valley or stream erosion occurs with continued water flow along a linear feature; the erosion is both downward, deepening the valley, headward, extending the valley into the hillside, creating head cuts and steep banks.
In the earliest stage of stream erosion, the erosive activity is dominantly vertical, the valleys have a typical V cross-section and the stream gradient is steep. When some base level is reached, the erosive activity switches to lateral erosion, which widens the valley floor and creates a narrow floodplain; the stream gradient becomes nearly flat, lateral deposition of sediments becomes important as the stream meanders across the valley floor. In all stages of stream erosion, by far the most erosion occurs during times of flood when more and faster-moving water is available to carry a larger sediment load. In such processes, it is not the water alone
Arctic
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, parts of Alaska, Greenland, Northern Canada, Norway and Sweden. Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost -containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places; the Arctic region is a unique area among Earth's ecosystems. For example, the cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold and extreme conditions. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, land animals and human societies. Arctic land is bordered by the subarctic; the word Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός, "near the Bear, northern" and that from the word ἄρκτος, meaning bear. The name refers either to the constellation Ursa Major, the "Great Bear", prominent in the northern portion of the celestial sphere, or to the constellation Ursa Minor, the "Little Bear", which contains Polaris, the Pole star known as the North Star.
There are a number of definitions of. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle, the approximate southern limit of the midnight sun and the polar night. Another definition of the Arctic is the region where the average temperature for the warmest month is below 10 °C; the Arctic's climate is characterized by cool summers. Its precipitation comes in the form of snow and is low, with most of the area receiving less than 50 cm. High winds stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall. Average winter temperatures can go as low as −40 °C, the coldest recorded temperature is −68 °C. Coastal Arctic climates are moderated by oceanic influences, having warmer temperatures and heavier snowfalls than the colder and drier interior areas; the Arctic is affected by current global warming, leading to Arctic sea ice shrinkage, diminished ice in the Greenland ice sheet, Arctic methane release as the permafrost thaws. Due to the poleward migration of the planet's isotherms, the Arctic region is shrinking.
The most alarming result of this is Arctic sea ice shrinkage. There is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the analyzed models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100. Arctic life is characterized by adaptation to short growing seasons with long periods of sunlight, to cold, snow-covered winter conditions. Arctic vegetation is composed of plants such as dwarf shrubs, herbs and mosses, which all grow close to the ground, forming tundra. An example of a dwarf shrub is the Bearberry; as one moves northward, the amount of warmth available for plant growth decreases considerably. In the northernmost areas, plants are at their metabolic limits, small differences in the total amount of summer warmth make large differences in the amount of energy available for maintenance and reproduction. Colder summer temperatures cause the size, abundance and variety of plants to decrease.
Trees cannot grow in the Arctic, but in its warmest parts, shrubs are common and can reach 2 m in height. In the coldest parts of the Arctic, much of the ground is bare. Herbivores on the tundra include the Arctic hare, lemming and caribou, they are preyed on by the snowy owl, Arctic fox, Grizzly bear, Arctic wolf. The polar bear is a predator, though it prefers to hunt for marine life from the ice. There are many birds and marine species endemic to the colder regions. Other terrestrial animals include wolverines, Dall sheep and Arctic ground squirrels. Marine mammals include seals and several species of cetacean—baleen whales and narwhals, killer whales, belugas. An excellent and famous example of a ring species exists and has been described around the Arctic Circle in the form of the Larus gulls; the Arctic includes sizable natural resources to which modern technology and the economic opening up of Russia have given significant new opportunities. The interest of the tourism industry is on the increase.
The Arctic contains some of the last and most extensive continuous wilderness areas in the world, its significance in preserving biodiversity and genotypes is considerable. The increasing presence of humans fragments vital habitats; the Arctic is susceptible to the abrasion of groundcover and to the disturbance of the rare breeding grounds of the animals that are characteristic to the region. The Arctic holds 1/5 of the Earth's water supply. During the Cretaceous time period, the Arctic still had seasonal snows, though only a light dusting and not enough to permanently hinder plant growth. Animals such as the Chasmosaurus, Hypacrosaurus and Edmontosaurus may have all migrated north to take advantage of the summer growing season, migrated south to warmer climes when the winter ca
Polar climate
The polar climate regions are characterized by a lack of warm summers. Every month in a polar climate has an average temperature of less than 10 °C. Regions with polar climate cover more than 20% of the Earth. Most of these regions are far from the equator, in this case, winter days are short and summer days are long. A polar climate consists of cool summers and cold winters, which results in treeless tundra, glaciers, or a permanent or semi-permanent layer of ice. There are two types of polar climate: tundra climate. A tundra climate is characterized by having at least one month whose average temperature is above 0 °C, while an ice cap climate has no months above 0 °C. In a tundra climate, trees can not grow. In an ice cap climate, no plants can grow, ice accumulates until it flows elsewhere. Many high altitude locations on Earth have a climate where no month has an average temperature of 10 °C or higher, but as this is due to elevation, this climate is referred to as Alpine climate. Alpine climate can mimic either ice cap climate.
On Earth, the only continent where the ice cap polar climate is predominant is Antarctica. All but a few isolated coastal areas on the island of Greenland have the ice cap climate. Coastal regions of Greenland that do not have permanent ice sheets have the less extreme tundra climates; the northernmost part of the Eurasian land mass, from the extreme northeastern coast of Scandinavia and eastwards to the Bering Strait, large areas of northern Siberia and northern Iceland have tundra climate as well. Large areas in northern Canada and northern Alaska have tundra climate, changing to ice cap climate in the most northern parts of Canada. Southernmost South America and such subantarctic islands such as the South Shetland Islands and the Falkland Islands have tundra climates of slight thermal range in which no month is as warm as 10 °C; these subantarctic lowlands are found closer to the equator than the coastal tundras of the Arctic basin. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice year-round, nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface.
Average January temperatures range from about −40 to 0 °C, winter temperatures can drop below −50 °C over large parts of the Arctic. Average July temperatures range from about −10 to 10 °C, with some land areas exceeding 30 °C in summer; the Arctic consists of ocean, surrounded by land. As such, the climate of much of the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below −2 °C. In winter, this warm water though covered by the polar ice pack, keeps the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, it is part of the reason that Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic. In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they might otherwise, just as it does in temperate regions with maritime climates; the climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. Antarctica has the lowest occurring temperature recorded: −89.2 °C at Vostok Station. It is extremely dry, averaging 166 millimetres of precipitation per year, as weather fronts penetrate far into the continent.
There have been several attempts at quantifying. Climatologist Wladimir Köppen demonstrated a relationship between the Arctic and Antarctic tree lines and the 10 °C summer isotherm. See Köppen climate classification for more information. Otto Nordenskjöld theorized that winter conditions play a role: His formula is W = 9 − 0.1 C, where W is the average temperature in the warmest month and C the average of the coldest month, both in degrees Celsius. For example, if a particular location had an average temperature of −20 °C in its coldest month, the warmest month would need to average 11 °C or higher for trees to be able to survive there as 9 − 0.1 = 11. Nordenskiöld's line tends to run to the north of Köppen's near the west coasts of the Northern Hemisphere continents, south of it in the interior sections, at about the same latitude along the east coasts of both Asia and North America. In the Southern Hemisphere, all of Tierra del Fuego lies outside the polar region in Nordenskiöld's system, but part of the island is reckoned as being within the Antarctic under Köppen's.
In 1947, Holdridge improved on these schemes, by defining biotemperature: the mean annual temperature, where all temperatures below 0 °C or 32 °F are treated as 0 °C. If the mean biotemperature is between 1.5 and 3 °C, Holdridge quantifies the climate as subpolar. Arctic oscillation Köppen climate classification NOAA State of the Arctic Report 2006
Guido Monzino
Count Guido Monzino was a twentieth-century Italian mountain climber and explorer. In 1973 he led the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest. He's the son of Franco Monzino. Monzino was born on 2 March 1928 in Milan. In his early twenties he climbed the Matterhorn. Subsequently he made a total of 21 expeditions to places including Patagonia, Equatorial Africa, the North Pole and the Himalaya, sometimes following in the footsteps of the famous explorer and mountaineer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi. Monzino died of lung cancer on 11 October 1988, he was interred at the Villa del Balbianello on the banks of Lake Como, which he bought in 1974 from the heirs of Butler Ames. Monzino willed Villa del Balbianello to the Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano; the villa today contains a museum devoted to Monzino which includes artifacts acquired on his expeditions including Inuit sculpture, as well as memorabilia including one of the dog sleds from his 1971 expedition to the North Pole, Monzino’s extensive collections of maps and books.
1955 West Africa – Senegal, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire 1956 Western Alps in Italy and Switzerland – Grandes Murailles 1957–1958 Patagonian Andes – Torres del Paine, including the first ascent of the North Tower of Paine 1959 Karakoram mountain range, Pakistan – including the first ascent of Kanjut Sar I 1959–1960 Equatorial Africa – Kilimanjaro 1960 Western Greenland – 66th parallel north 1960–1961 Equatorial Africa – Mount Kenya 1961 Western Greenland – 74th parallel north 1961–1962 Equatorial Africa – Mountains of the Moon and Ruwenzori 1962 Western Greenland – 72nd parallel north by sled 1962 Western Greenland – 77th parallel north 1963 Eastern Greenland – Stauning Alps 1963–1964 Saharan Africa – Tibesti 1968 Western Greenland – a nautical expedition 1969 Western Greenland – Ilulissat to Qaanaaq by sled 1969 71st Italian expedition to the North Pole 1970 Qaanaaq to Cape Columbia 1970 Western Greenland, a nautical expedition 1971 Cape Columbia to the North Pole by sled 1973 Himalaya, Nepal – leader of the first Italian expedition to ascend Everest "CIRCOLOPOLARE – l'esploratore Guido Monzino".
Archived from the original on 2007-10-05. "CIRCOLOPOLARE – l'esploratore Guido Monzino". Archived from the original on 2007-10-07. "Villa del Balbianello". Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano
Switzerland
Switzerland the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in western and southern Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities; the sovereign state is a federal republic bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2. While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of 8.5 million people is concentrated on the plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the late medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; the country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation.
It pursues an active foreign policy and is involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to numerous international organisations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association, but notably not part of the European Union, the European Economic Area or the Eurozone. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties. Spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French and Romansh. Although the majority of the population are German-speaking, Swiss national identity is rooted in a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy, Alpine symbolism. Due to its linguistic diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names: Schweiz. On coins and stamps, the Latin name – shortened to "Helvetia" – is used instead of the four national languages.
Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Switzerland ranks at or near the top globally in several metrics of national performance, including government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic competitiveness and human development. Zürich and Basel have all three been ranked among the top ten cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the first ranked second globally, according to Mercer in 2018; the English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, an obsolete term for the Swiss, in use during the 16th to 19th centuries. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse in use since the 16th century; the name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätten cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", used since the 14th century.
The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes perhaps related to swedan ‘to burn’, referring to the area of forest, burned and cleared to build; the name was extended to the area dominated by the canton, after the Swabian War of 1499 came to be used for the entire Confederation. The Swiss German name of the country, Schwiiz, is homophonous to that of the canton and the settlement, but distinguished by the use of the definite article; the Latin name Confoederatio Helvetica was neologized and introduced after the formation of the federal state in 1848, harking back to the Napoleonic Helvetic Republic, appearing on coins from 1879, inscribed on the Federal Palace in 1902 and after 1948 used in the official seal.. Helvetica is derived from the Helvetii, a Gaulish tribe living on the Swiss plateau before the Roman era. Helvetia appears as a national personification of the Swiss confederacy in the 17th century with a 1672 play by Johann Caspar Weissenbach.
Switzerland has existed as a state in its present form since the adoption of the Swiss Federal Constitution in 1848. The precursors of Switzerland established a protective alliance at the end of the 13th century, forming a loose confederation of states which persisted for centuries; the oldest traces of hominid existence in Switzerland date back about 150,000 years. The oldest known farming settlements in Switzerland, which were found at Gächlingen, have been dated to around 5300 BC; the earliest known cultural tribes of the area were members of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel. La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age from around 450 BC under some influence from the Gree
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is the UK's learned society and professional body for geography, founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences. Today, it is the leading centre for geographers and geographical learning; the Society has over 16,500 members and its work reaches millions of people each year through publications, research groups and lectures. The Society was founded in 1830 under the name Geographical Society of London as an institution to promote the'advancement of geographical science', it absorbed the older African Association, founded by Sir Joseph Banks in 1788, as well as the Raleigh Club and the Palestine Association. Like many learned societies, it had started as a dining club in London, where select members held informal dinner debates on current scientific issues and ideas. Founding members of the Society included Sir John Barrow, Sir John Franklin and Sir Francis Beaufort. Under the patronage of King William IV it became known as The Royal Geographical Society and was granted its Royal Charter under Queen Victoria in 1859.
From 1830 to 1840 the RGS met in the rooms of the Horticultural Society in Regent Street and from 1854 -1870 at 15 Whitehall Place, London. In 1870, the Society found a home when it moved to 1 Savile Row, London – an address that became associated with adventure and travel; the Society used a lecture theatre in Burlington Gardens, London, lent to it by the Civil Service Commission. However, the arrangements were thought to be rather squalid. A new impetus was given to the Society's affairs in 1911, with the election of Earl Curzon, the former Viceroy of India, as the Society's President; the premises in Savile Row were sold and the present site, Lowther Lodge in Kensington Gore, was purchased for £100,000 and opened for use in April 1913. In the same year the Society's ban on women was lifted. Lowther Lodge was built in 1874 for the Hon William Lowther by Norman Shaw, one of the most outstanding domestic architects of his day. Extensions to the east wing were added in 1929, included the New Map Room and the 750 seat Lecture Theatre.
The extension was formally opened by HRH the Duke of York at the Centenary Celebrations on 21 October 1930. The history of the Society was allied for many of its earlier years with'colonial' exploration in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the polar regions, central Asia especially, it has been a key associate and supporter of many notable explorers and expeditions, including those of Darwin, Stanley, Shackleton and Hillary. The early history of the Society is inter-linked with the history of British Geography and discovery. Information, maps and knowledge gathered on expeditions was sent to the RGS, making up its now unique geographical collections; the Society published its first journal in 1831 and from 1855, accounts of meetings and other matters were published in the Society Proceedings. In 1893, this was replaced by The Geographical Journal, still published today; the Society was pivotal in establishing Geography as a teaching and research discipline in British universities, funded the first Geography positions in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
With the advent of a more systematic study of geography, the Institute of British Geographers was formed in 1933, by some academic Society fellows, including Andrew Charles O'Dell, as a sister body to the Society. Its activities included organising conferences, field trips and specialist research groups and publishing the journal, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; the RGS and IBG co-existed for 60 years until 1992. In 1994, members were balloted and the merger agreed. In January 1995, the new Royal Geographical Society was formed; the Society works together with other existing bodies serving the geographical community, in particular the Geographical Association and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In 2004, The Society's historical Collections relating to scientific exploration and research, which are of national and international importance, were opened to the public for the first time. In the same year, a new category of membership was introduced to widen access for people with a general interest in geography.
The new Foyle Reading Room and glass Pavilion exhibition space were opened to the public in 2004 – unlocking the Society intellectually and physically for the 21st century. For example, in 2012 the RGS held an exhibition, in the glass Pavilion, of photographs taken by Herbert Ponting on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole in 1912; the society is governed by its board of trustees called the council, chaired by its president. The members of council and the president are elected from its fellowship; the council consists of 36 members, 22 of which are elected by fellows and serve for a three-year term. In addition to the elected trustees, there are honorary members; the society has five specialist committees that it derives advice from Education Committee Research Committee Expedition and Fieldwork Committee Information Resources Committee Finance Committee Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich The Earl of Ripon Sir George Murray Sir Roderick Murchison Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson Sir Clements Robert Markham Sir George Taubman Goldie Major Leonard Darwin Earl Curzon of Kedleston Douglas Freshfield (1914–1917
1.jpg)
