1.
East Falkland
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East Falkland is the largest island of the Falklands in the South Atlantic having an area of 6,605 km2 or 54% of the total area of the Falklands. The island consists of two land masses, the more southerly of which is known as Lafonia, joined by a narrow isthmus that was the scene of the Battle of Goose Green during the Falklands War. The two main centres of population in the Falklands, Stanley and Mount Pleasant, both of which are in the half of East Falkland are home to three quarters of the islands population. East Falkland, which has an area of 6,605 km2, the islands 1,668.7 km coastline has many smaller bays, inlets and headlands. The principal range of hills, the 600 m Wickham Heights runs from east to west, the highest point of the range, is Mount Usborne which has a height of 705 m. The area away from the range consists chiefly of low undulating ground, a mixture of pasture and morass, with many shallow freshwater tarns. Two inlets, Berkeley Sound and Port William, run far into the land at the extremity of the island. In contrast, Lafonia is underlain by Mesozoic rocks, a rock than the Palaeozoic rock to the north. Other scenery includes stone runs, heathland, and bogs, gypsy Cove is noted as a beauty spot. Stanley, the capital of the islands and the seaport is in East Falkland. The islands Christchurch cathedral is also in Stanley, Port Louis, at the head of Berkeley Sound, was once the seat of government. Other settlements include Port Louis, Darwin, Port San Carlos, San Carlos, Salvador, Johnsons Harbour, Fitzroy, Mare Harbour, East Falkland also has two airports with paved runways, Port Stanley Airport and RAF Mount Pleasant. There is a lighthouse at Cape Pembroke near Stanley, East Falkland contains most of the archipelagos few roads. The main industries on the island are fishing, sheep farming, government, some oats are also grown, but due to high humidity and acidic soil, the land is mainly used for grazing. As Stanley is the capital, and East Falkland is the most populous island, many cruise ships now stop there. A large economic role is played by RAF Mount Pleasant. Although these number a few hundred, their role in a population of under two thousand is significant and disproportionate. Smaller industries include horse and cattle farming, and there is recent evidence to suggest possible valuable mineral deposits on the island
2.
Erosion
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In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that remove soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earths crust, then transport it away to another location. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, the rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Feedbacks are also possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material that is carried by, for example. Processes of erosion that produce sediment or solutes from a place contrast with those of deposition, 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 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 end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads. Intensive agriculture, deforestation, 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, and the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four types of soil erosion, splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion. Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the erosion process. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a crater in the soil. 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 rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil. 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, generally, where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are typically of the order of a few centimetres or less and this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics very different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when water accumulates and rapidly flows in narrow channels during or immediately after heavy rains or melting snow
3.
Periglaciation
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Periglaciation describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and other structures. Periglacial suggests an environment located on the margin of past glaciers, however, freeze and thaw cycles influence landscapes outside areas of past glaciation. Therefore, periglacial environments are anywhere that freezing and thawing modify the landscape in a significant manner, tundra is a common ecological community in periglacial areas. Periglaciation became a subject within the study of geology after Walery Łoziński. Łoziński drew upon the work of Johan Gunnar Andersson. According to Alfred Jahn, his introduction of his work at the 1910 International Geological Congress held in Stockholm caused significant discussion, in the field trip to Svalbard that followed the congress participants were able to observe the phenomena reported by Łoziński, directly. Łoziński published his contribution to the congress in 1912, from 1950 to 1970, periglacial geomorphology developed chiefly as a subdiscipline of climatic geomorphology that was current in Europe at the time. The journal Biuletyn Peryglacjalny, established in 1954 by Jan Dylik, was important for the consolidation of the discipline, albeit the definition of what a periglacial zone is not clear-cut a conservativa estimated is that a quarter of Earths land surface has periglacial conditions. Beyond this quarter an additional quarter or fifth or Earths land surface had periglacial conditions at some time during the Pleistocene, in the northern hemisphere larger swathes of northern Asia and northern North America are periglaciated. In Europe parts of Fennoscandia, Iceland, northern European Russia, in addition Alpine areas in the non-arctic northern hemisphere might also be subject to periglaciation. A major outlier in the northern hemisphere is the Tibetan Plateau that stands out by its size, in the southern hemisphere parts of the Andes, the ice-free areas of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands are periglaciated. Since Carl Troll introduced the concept of climate in 1944 there have various attempts to classify the diversity of periglacial climates. Hugh M. Periglacial environments tend to be found in higher latitudes, since there is more land at these latitudes in the north, most of this effect is seen in the northern hemisphere. However, in latitudes, the direct effect of the suns radiation is greater so the freeze-thaw effect is seen. Altitude – Air temperature drops by approximately 1 °C for every 100 m rise above sea level and this means that on mountain ranges, modern periglacial conditions are found nearer the Equator than they are lower down. Conversely, warm currents from tropical seas increases mean temperatures. The cold conditions are found only in more northerly places. This is apparent in western North America which is affected by the North Pacific current, in the same way but more markedly, the Gulf Stream affects Western Europe
4.
Last glacial period
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The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period, which occurred from c. 110,000 – c. 11,700 years ago. This most recent glacial period is part of a pattern of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation. From this point of view, scientists consider this ice age to be merely the latest glaciation event in a larger ice age. During this last glacial period, there were changes between glacier advance and retreat. The Last Glacial Maximum, the extent of glaciation within the last glacial period, was approximately 22,000 years ago. Approximately 13,000 years ago, the Late Glacial Maximum began, around 11,700 years ago marked the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch, which includes the Holocene glacial retreat. From the point of view of archaeology, it falls in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. When the glaciation event started, Homo sapiens were confined to Africa and used tools comparable to those used by Neanderthals in western and central Eurasia, near the end of the event, Homo sapiens spread into Eurasia and Australia. The retreat of the glaciers allowed groups of Asians to migrate to the Americas, glacials, on the other hand, refer to colder phases within an ice age that separate interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period is not the end of the last ice age, the end of the last glacial period was about 11,700 years ago, while the end of the last ice age has not yet come. Over the past few years the glacial-interglacial cycle has been paced by periodic variations in the Earths orbit via Milankovitch cycles which are thus the cause of ice ages. The glaciations that occurred during this period covered many areas, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. The geochronological Late Pleistocene comprises the late glacial and the immediately preceding penultimate interglacial preiond, the last glaciation centered on the huge ice sheets of North America and Eurasia. Considerable areas in the Alps, the Himalaya and the Andes were ice-covered, Canada was nearly completely covered by ice, as well as the northern part of the United States, both blanketed by the huge Laurentide ice sheet. Alaska remained mostly ice free due to climate conditions. Local glaciations existed in the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleran ice sheet and as ice fields, the maximum extent of western Siberian glaciation was reached by approximately 16, 000–15,000 BCE and thus later than in Europe. Northeastern Siberia was not covered by an ice sheet. Instead, large, but restricted, icefield complexes covered mountain ranges within northeast Siberia, according to the sediment composition retrieved from deep-sea cores there must even have been times of seasonally open waters
5.
Weathering
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Weathering is the breaking down of rocks, soil, and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with the Earths atmosphere, waters, and biological organisms. Two important classifications of weathering processes exist – physical and chemical weathering, mechanical or physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks and soils through direct contact with atmospheric conditions, such as heat, water, ice and pressure. While physical weathering is accentuated in very cold or very dry environments, chemical reactions are most intense where the climate is wet, however, both types of weathering occur together, and each tends to accelerate the other. For example, physical abrasion decreases the size of particles and therefore increases their surface area, the various agents act in concert to convert primary minerals to secondary minerals and release plant nutrient elements in soluble forms. The materials left over after the rock breaks down combined with organic material creates soil, in addition, many of Earths landforms and landscapes are the result of weathering processes combined with erosion and re-deposition. Physical weathering, also recognized as mechanical weathering, is the class of processes that causes the disintegration of rocks without chemical change, the primary process in physical weathering is abrasion. However, chemical and physical weathering often go hand in hand, physical weathering can occur due to temperature, pressure, frost etc. For example, cracks exploited by physical weathering will increase the area exposed to chemical action. Abrasion by water, ice, and wind loaded with sediment can have tremendous cutting power, as is amply demonstrated by the gorges, ravines. In glacial areas, huge moving ice masses embedded with soil and rock fragments grind down rocks in their path, plant roots sometimes enter cracks in rocks and pry them apart, resulting in some disintegration, Burrowing animals may help disintegrate rock through their physical action. However, such influences are usually of importance in producing parent material when compared to the drastic physical effects of water, ice, wind. Physical weathering is called mechanical weathering or disaggregation. Thermal stress weathering results from the expansion and contraction of rock, for example, heating of rocks by sunlight or fires can cause expansion of their constituent minerals. As some minerals expand more than others, temperature changes set up differential stresses that cause the rock to crack apart. Because the outer surface of a rock is often warmer or colder than the more protected inner portions and this process may be sharply accelerated if ice forms in the surface cracks. When water freezes, it expands with a force of about 1465 Mg/m^2, disintegrating huge rock masses, thermal stress weathering comprises two main types, thermal shock and thermal fatigue. Thermal stress weathering is an important mechanism in deserts, where there is a diurnal temperature range, hot in the day. The repeated heating and cooling exerts stress on the layers of rocks
6.
Solifluction
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In geomorphology, solifluction is a gradual mass wasting slope process related to freeze-thaw activity, occurring in periglacial environments. In 1906 Johan Gunnar Andersson interpreted solifluction as a mass wasting process that occurs most commonly in colder climates where periods of freezing and thawing are regular occurrences. A type of process, solifluction describes the slow downslope movement of water-saturated sediment due to recurrent freezing and thawing of the ground. Frost heave due to ice expansion and gelifluction during thaw settlement of the ground, cause gravity-induced shear deformation of sediment. The rates of movement are highly dependent on active layer thaw depths, ice content. Solifluction rates vary dependent on season and can range from centimeters per week to centimeters per year, Solifluction landforms, such as solifluction lobes or sheets, occur over large shallow sloping areas and are one of the most widespread periglacial landforms. Lobes, on average, can be 30–50 m wide, Solifluction lobes move most quickly in the center of the mass, and slower around the edges causing larger amounts of sediment to accumulate around the edges. When many lobes are in sequence, the appearance is like a staircase in profile, over-saturation is caused when an abundant amount of fluid is formed during thaw and cannot filter through the frozen ground underneath. The saturated material then begins to flow, having the consistency of wet concrete, landscapes that have been a product of solifluction have been described as having the consistency of thick porridge. Solifluction is a form of ice-mediated creep, in temperate and tundra region, soil flows occur when the surface layers of frozen ground thaw in spring. Soil and rock debris lubricated by the melt-water flow easily over the underlying frozen subsoil, in areas of peat soils, the peat absorbs much moisture. However, if saturation point is reached the peaty soil may flow downslope, in Ireland such flows are known as bog-bursts. Other factors in solifluction are, sparse vegetation, snow melt, Solifluction should not be confused with earthflow, which is a much more rapid process. It was suggested that solifluction might be active on Mars, even relatively recently, Solifluction, a Component of Subaërial Denudation, The Journal of Geology, Vol.14, No. Easterbrook, Don J. Surface Processes and Landforms, upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall,1999 Solifluction Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web.10 Oct.2013 Stone run Frost weathering
7.
Frost heaving
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Ice growth requires a water supply that delivers water to the freezing front via capillary action in certain soils. The weight of overlying soil restrains vertical growth of the ice, yet the force of one or more growing ice lenses is sufficient to lift a layer of soil, as much as 1 foot or more. The soil through which passes to feed the formation of ice lenses must be sufficiently porous to allow capillary action. Such soil is referred to as frost susceptible, the growth of ice lenses continually consumes the rising water at the freezing front. Differential frost heaving can crack road surfaces—contributing to springtime pothole formation—and damage building foundations, according to Beskow, Urban Hjärne described frost effects in soil in 1694. e. With little contribution from migration of water within the soil, Ice is unusual among compounds because it increases in molar volume from its liquid state, water. Most compounds decrease in volume when changing phase from liquid to solid, taber showed that the vertical displacement of soil in frost heaving can be significantly greater than that due to molar volume expansion. Taber demonstrated that liquid water migrates towards the line within soil. He showed that other liquids, such as benzene, which contracts when it freezes and this excluded molar volume changes as the dominant mechanism for vertical displacement of freezing soil. His experiments further demonstrated the development of ice lenses inside columns of soil that were frozen by cooling the surface only. The dominant cause of displacement in frost heaving is the development of ice lenses. During frost heave, one or more soil-free ice lenses grow and these lenses grow by the continual addition of water from a groundwater source that is lower in the soil and below the freezing line in the soil. The presence of soil with a pore structure that allows capillary flow is essential to supplying water to the ice lenses as they form. Owing to the Gibbs–Thomson effect of the confinement of liquids in pores and this effect allows water to percolate through the soil towards the ice lens, allowing the lens to grow. Another water-transport effect is the preservation of a few layers of liquid water on the surface of the ice lens. Faraday reported in 1860 on the layer of premelted water. Ice premelts against its own vapor, and in contact with silica, the same intermolecular forces that cause premelting at surfaces contribute to frost heaving at the particle scale on the bottom side of the forming ice lens. The thickness of such a film is temperature dependent and is thinner on the side of the particle
8.
Moraine
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A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris previously carried along by a glacier, lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders. The debris is typically sub-angular to rounded in shape, moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into passive and active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking and these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice and these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are often composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may also form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin and these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape. Some moraine types are only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier, the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin until the glacier melts, lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier advances and retreats, ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges, often forming gently rolling hills or plains. They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, in alpine glaciers, ground moraines are often found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice, Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet. The depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs, Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, Sweden, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier and they usually reflect the shape of the glaciers terminus. Glaciers act much like a belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines
9.
Vitosha
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Vitosha, the ancient Scomius or Scombrus, is a volcanic mountain massif, on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Vitosha is one of the symbols of Sofia and the closest site for hiking, alpinism, convenient bus lines and rope ways render the mountain easily accessible. Vitosha has the outlines of an enormous dome, the territory of the mountain includes Vitosha nature park that encompasses the best known and most frequently visited parts. The foothills of Vitosha shelter resort quarters of Sofia, Knyazhevo quarter has mineral springs, Vitosha is the oldest nature park in the Balkans. The mountain emerged as a result of activity and has been subsequently shaped by the slow folding of the granite rock layers. It appears dome shaped at first sight, but the mountain,19 km long by 17 km wide, Vitosha is separated into four main parts whose main ridges gather at a crown known as Cherni Vrah. This is the highest point of the mountain at 2290 m and is one of 10 peaks of Vitosha over 2000 m in height. Bulgarias longest cave – Duhlata, with a length of 18,200 m, is situated in Vitosha in the karstic region near the village of Bosnek. Since the ancient times of the Thracians a large population has existed at the base of Vitosha. For the last four years the economy of this large settlement has always been connected, in one way or another. The name Vitosha comes from the two-peaked, twin ridge mountain, a meteorological station was built at the top in 1935, and is still operating. The station also serves as a rest shelter for hikers and is the headquarters for the rescue team. Historical documents show that several centuries ago Vitosha mountain was covered by the remains of the inaccessible Great Bulgarian Forest. Today, the coniferous forests of Vitosha remain only in the reserve Bistrishko Branishte. The Golden Bridges is a stone river consisting of a ribbon of huge boulders running down the mountainside and this scenic spot is located along the Vladayska River in an area of mixed deciduous and evergreen forest. However, this is one of the stone rivers found in Vitosha. Their further formation occurred due to the erosion of the sienite rocks and their gradual movement to down stream valleys by the forces of gravity. During the following year, some of the early Bulgarian reserves, Bistrishko Branishte, the park boundaries fluctuated over many years and today it encompasses the entire mountain, an area of 266.06 km²
10.
Falkland Islands
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The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 300 miles east of South Americas southern Patagonian coast, the archipelago, with an area of 4,700 square miles, comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, the islands capital is Stanley on East Falkland. Controversy exists over the Falklands discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans, at various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, although Argentina maintains its claim to the islands, in April 1982, Argentine forces temporarily occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War, most Falklanders favour the archipelago remaining a UK overseas territory, but its sovereignty status is part of an ongoing dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The population primarily consists of native-born Falkland Islanders, the majority of British descent, other ethnicities include French, Gibraltarian and Scandinavian. Immigration from the United Kingdom, the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, under the British Nationality Act 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens. The islands lie on the boundary of the oceanic and tundra climate zones. They are home to bird populations, although many no longer breed on the main islands because of competition from introduced species. Major economic activities include fishing, tourism and sheep farming, with an emphasis on high-quality wool exports, oil exploration, licensed by the Falkland Islands Government, remains controversial as a result of maritime disputes with Argentina. The Falkland Islands take their name from the Falkland Sound, a strait separating the two main islands. The name Falkland was applied to the channel by John Strong, Strong named the strait in honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the Treasurer of the Navy who sponsored their journey. The name Falklands was not applied to the islands until 1765, the term Falklands is a standard abbreviation used to refer to the islands. The Spanish name for the archipelago, Islas Malvinas, derives from the French Îles Malouines — the name given to the islands by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1764, Bougainville, who founded the islands first settlement, named the area after the port of Saint-Malo. The port, located in the Brittany region of western France, was in turn named after St. Malo, in Spanish, the territory was designated as Islas Malvinas. The nomenclature used by the United Nations for statistical processing purposes is Falkland Islands, although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times, the islands were uninhabited at the time of their discovery by Europeans. Claims of discovery date back to the 16th century, but no consensus exists on whether these early explorers discovered the Falklands or other islands in the South Atlantic, whether or not the settlements were aware of each others existence is debated by historians
11.
Bulgaria
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Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, with a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, Bulgaria is Europes 16th-largest country. Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on current Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period and its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans and Huns. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State, the following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1946 it became a one-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, in December 1989 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Bulgarias transition into a democracy and a market-based economy. Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies. Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska
12.
Quaternary
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Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ±0.005 million years ago to the present, the Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The informal term Late Quaternary refers to the past 0. 5–1.0 million years, the Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred. The term Quaternary was proposed by Giovanni Arduino in 1759 for alluvial deposits in the Po River valley in northern Italy and it was introduced by Jules Desnoyers in 1829 for sediments of Frances Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present, the Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial time-period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago, Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. From the 1970s, the International Commission on Stratigraphy tried to make a single geologic time scale based on GSSPs, the Quaternary subdivisions were defined based on biostratigraphy instead of paleoclimate. This led to the problem that the base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya. The ICS then proposed to use of the name Quaternary altogether. The Anthropocene has been proposed as an epoch as a mark of the anthropogenic impact on the global environment starting with the Industrial Revolution. The Anthropocene is not officially designated by the ICS, however, the 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Over this short period, there has been relatively little change in the distribution of the continents due to plate tectonics. The Quaternary geological record is preserved in detail than that for earlier periods. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude, there was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, others, including horses, camels and American cheetahs became extinct in North America. Glaciation took place repeatedly during the Quaternary Ice Age – a term coined by Schimper in 1839 that began with the start of the Quaternary about 2.58 Mya and continues to the present-day. In 1821, a Swiss engineer, Ignaz Venetz, presented an article in which he suggested the presence of traces of the passage of a glacier at a distance from the Alps. This idea was initially disputed by another Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, a year later, Agassiz raised the hypothesis of a great glacial period that would have had long-reaching general effects
13.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
14.
Temperate climate
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In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of Earth lie between the tropics and the polar regions. The temperatures in these regions are relatively moderate, rather than extremely hot or cold. The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer to the Arctic Circle, the south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic Circle. In some climate classifications, the zone is often divided into several smaller climate zones. These include Humid subtropical climate, Mediterranean climate, oceanic, subtropical climates are located between 23. 5° and 35. 0° north or south latitude on the eastern or leeward sides of landmasses. This climate has long, generally hot, summers and short, mild winters and these climates may occur in southern Asia, the southeastern United States, parts of eastern Australia, and in eastern coastal South America. Mediterranean climates, occur between 30° and 42° north and south latitude, on the sides of landmasses. This climate has hot summers and short mild winters, however, seasonal rainfall is the opposite of that of the subtropical humid type. These climates occur near the rimlands of the Mediterranean Sea, in western Australia, in California, the oceanic climates occur in the higher middle latitudes, between 45° and 60° north and south latitude. They are created by the flow from the cool high latitude oceans to their west. This causes the climate to have cool summers and cool winters, annual rainfall is spread throughout the entire year. Regions with this climate include Western Europe, northwestern North America, the Continental climates occur in middle latitudes, between 35° or 40° to 55°. These climates are normally inland or on sides of landmasses. They feature warm to hot summers and cold winters, with a large temperature variation. Regions with this climate include northern temperate Asia, the northern United States, southern Canada, the vast majority of the worlds human population resides in temperate zones, especially in the northern hemisphere, due to its greater mass of land. The richest temperate flora in the world is found in southern Africa, geographical zone Habitat Köppen climate classification Middle latitudes Polar circle Subtropics
15.
Subantarctic
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The Subantarctic is a region in the southern hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° – 60° south of the Equator, the subantarctic region includes many islands in the southern parts of the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, especially those situated north of the Antarctic Convergence. Subantarctic glaciers are, by definition, located on islands within the subantarctic region, all glaciers located on the continent of Antarctica are by definition considered to be Antarctic glaciers. The subantarctic region comprises two zones and three distinct fronts. The northernmost boundary of the region is the rather ill-defined Subtropical Front. To the south of the STF is a zone, the Subantarctic Zone. South of the SAZ is the Subantarctic Front, South of the SAF is another marine zone, called the Polar Frontal Zone. The SAZ and the PFZ together form the subantarctic region, the southernmost boundary of the PFZ is the Antarctic Convergence, located approximately 200 kilometers south of the Antarctic Polar Front. The ACC is the most important ocean current in the Southern Ocean, flowing eastward through the southern portions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, the ACC links these three otherwise separate oceanic basins. Extending from the sea surface to depths of 2000–4000 meters, and with a width of as great as 2000 kilometers, the ACC carries up to 150 Sverdrups, equivalent to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all the worlds rivers. The ACC and the global thermohaline circulation strongly influence regional and global climate as well as underwater biodiversity, the halothermal circulation is that portion of the global ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and evaporation. Several distinct water masses converge in the vicinity of the APF or Antarctic Convergence. This convergence creates an environment, noted for its very high marine productivity. Because of this, all lands and waters situated south of the Antarctic Convergence are considered to belong to the Antarctic from a climatological, biological and hydrological standpoint. However, the text of the Antarctic Treaty, article VI states, therefore, Antarctica is defined from a political standpoint as all land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude. Because they are located far to the north of the Antarctic Convergence and have a temperate climate. The geography of islands is characterized by tundra, with some trees on Snares. These islands are all located near the Antarctic Convergence and are considered to be subantarctic islands
16.
Prince Edward Islands
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The Prince Edward Islands are two small islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean that are part of South Africa. The islands are named Marion Island and Prince Edward Island, further protection was granted when the area was declared a Marine Protected Area in 2013. The only human inhabitants of the islands are the staff of a meteorological and biological research station run by the South African National Antarctic Programme on Marion Island. In January 1772, the French frigate Le Mascarin, captained by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, visited the islands and spent five days trying to land, Marion named the islands Terre de lEspérance and Ile de la Caverne. After failing to land, Le Mascarin continued eastward, discovering the Crozet Islands and landing at New Zealand, where Marion du Fresne and some of his crew were killed by natives. Julien Crozet, navigator and second in command of Le Mascarin, survived the disaster, and happened to meet James Cook at Cape Town in 1776, at the onset of Cooks third voyage. Crozet shared the charts of his expedition, and as Cook sailed from Cape Town, he passed the islands on 13 December. The first recorded landing on the islands was in 1799 by a group of French seal hunters of the Sally, another landing in late 1803 by a group of seal hunters led by American captain Henry Fanning of the Catharine found signs of earlier human occupation. The islands were frequented by sealers until about 1810, when the fur seal populations had been nearly eradicated. The first scientific expedition to the islands was led by James Clark Ross, who visited in 1840 during his exploration of the Antarctic, Ross sailed along the islands on 21 April 1840. He made observations on vast numbers of penguins, and other kinds of sea-birds and he also saw fur seals, which he supposed to be of the species Arctocephalus falklandicus. The islands were surveyed during the Challenger Expedition, led by Captain George Nares. The islands have been the location of several shipwrecks, in 1908 the Norwegian vessel Solglimt was shipwrecked on Marion Island, and survivors established a short-lived village at the north coast, before being rescued. The wreck of the Solglimt is the best-known in the islands, in 1908 the British government assumed ownership of the islands. In late 1947 and early 1948, South Africa, with Britains agreement, annexed the islands, the research station was soon enlarged and today studies regional meteorology and the biology of the islands, in particular the birds and seals. A new research base was built from 2001 to 2011 to replace older buildings on the site, the access to the station is either by boat or helicopter. A helipad and storage hangar is located behind the base structure. The island group is about 955 nmi south-east of Port Elizabeth in mainland South Africa, at 46 degrees latitude, the distance to the equator is only slightly longer than to the South Pole
17.
Crozet Islands
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The Crozet Islands are a sub-antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five districts of the French Southern. The Crozet Islands were discovered on 24 January 1772 by the expedition of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and his second-in-command Jules Crozet landed on Île de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France. The expedition continued east and landed at New Zealand, where Captain Marion, Crozet survived the disaster, and successfully led the survivors back to their base at Mauritius. In 1776 Crozet met James Cook at Cape Town, at the onset of Cooks third voyage, Crozet shared the charts of his ill-fated expedition, and as Cook sailed eastward he stopped at the islands, naming the western group Marion and the eastern group Crozet. In the early 19th century, the islands were visited by sealers. Subsequently, whaling was the activity around the islands, especially by the whalers from Massachusetts. In 1841 there were a dozen whaleships around the islands, within a couple of years this had increased to twenty from the United States alone. Such exploitation was short-lived, and the islands were visited for the rest of the century. Shipwrecks occurred frequently at the Crozet Islands, the British sealer, Princess of Wales, sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. The Strathmore was wrecked in 1875, in 1887, the French Tamaris was wrecked and her crew stranded on Île des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of an albatross, which was seven months later in Fremantle. Because shipwrecks around the islands were so common, for some time the Royal Navy dispatched a ship every few years to look for stranded survivors, the steamship Australasian also checked for survivors en route to Australia. Between 1924 and 1955, France administered the islands as a dependency of Madagascar, Crozet Islands became part of the French Southern Territories in 1955. In 1938, the Crozet Islands were declared a nature reserve, in 1961, a first research station was set up, but it was not until 1963 that the permanent station Alfred Faure opened at Port Alfred on Île de la Possession. The station is staffed by 18 to 30 people and does meteorological, biological, and geological research, maintains a seismograph, not including minor islets or rock reefs etc. the Crozet group consists of six islands. From west to east, Group of two islands and about 20 pinnacle rocks. Previous scientific stations included La Grande Manchotière and La Petite Manchotière, analysis of magnetic anomalies on the sea floor indicates that the Crozet Plateau formed some 50 million years ago
18.
Kerguelen Islands
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The Kerguelen Islands, also known as the Desolation Islands, are a group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean constituting one of the two exposed parts of the mostly submerged Kerguelen Plateau. They are among the most isolated places on Earth, located 450 km northwest of the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands and more than 3,300 km from Madagascar, the nearest populated location. The main island, Grande Terre, is 6,675 km2 in area and is surrounded by a further 300 smaller islands and islets, the climate is raw and chilly with frequent high winds throughout the year. The surrounding seas are generally rough and they remain ice-free year-round, there are no indigenous inhabitants, but France maintains a permanent presence of 45 to 100 scientists, engineers and researchers. There are no airports on the islands, so all travel, Kerguelen Islands appear as the Ile de Nachtegal on Philippe Buaches map from 1754 before the island was officially discovered in 1772. It is possible this early name was after Tasmans ship De Zeeuwsche Nachtegaal, on the Buache map, Ile de Nachtegal is located at 43°S, 72°E, about 6 degrees north and 2 degrees east of the accepted location of Grande Terre. The islands were discovered by the French navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec on 12 February 1772. The next day Charles de Boisguehenneuc landed and claimed the island for the French crown, yves de Kerguelen organised a second expedition in 1773 and arrived at the baie de lOiseau by December of the same year. On 6 January 1774 he commanded his lieutenant, Henri Pascal de Rochegude, since the end of the whaling and sealing era, most of the islands species have been able to increase their population again. In 1800, Hillsborough spent eight months sealing and whaling around the islands, during this time Captain Robert Rhodes, her master, prepared a chart of the islands. In 1825, the British sealer John Nunn and three members from Favourite, were shipwrecked on Kerguelen until they were rescued in 1827 by Captain Alexander Distant during his hunting campaign. The islands were not completely surveyed until the Ross expedition of 1840, for the 1874 transit of Venus, George Biddell Airy at the Royal Observatory of the UK organised and equipped five expeditions to different parts of the world. Three of these were sent to the Kerguelen Islands, the Reverend Stephen Joseph Perry led the British expeditions to the Kerguelen Islands. He set up his main station at Observatory Bay and two auxiliary stations, one at Thumb Peak led by Sommerville Goodridge, and the second at Supply Bay led by Cyril Corbet. Observatory Bay was also used by the German Antarctic Expedition led by Erich Dagobert von Drygalski in 1902–03, in January 2007, an archaeological excavation of this site was carried out. In 1874–1875, British, German and U. S. expeditions visited Kerguelen to observe the transit of Venus, in 1877 the French started a coal mining operation, however, this was abandoned soon after. The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis called at Kerguelen during December 1940, during their stay the crew performed maintenance and replenished their water supplies. This ships first fatality of the war occurred when a sailor, Bernhard Herrmann and he is buried in what is sometimes referred to as the most southerly German war grave of World War II
19.
Macquarie Island
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Macquarie Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies in the southwest Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica, at 54°30 S, 158°57 E. Politically a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1900, it became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 and it was a part of Esperance Municipality until 1993 when the municipality was merged with other municipalities to Huon Valley. The island is home to the royal penguin population during their annual nesting season. Ecologically, the island is part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion, since 1948 the Australian Antarctic Division has maintained a permanent base, the Macquarie Island Station, on the isthmus at the northern end of the island at the foot of Wireless Hill. The population of the base, the only human inhabitants. A heliport is located near the base, in September 2016, the Australian Antarctic Division confirmed it will close its research station on the island in 2017. The Australian/Briton Frederick Hasselborough discovered the uninhabited island accidentally on 11 July 1810 when looking for new sealing grounds and he claimed Macquarie Island for Britain and annexed it to the colony of New South Wales in 1810. The island took its name after Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821, Hasselborough reported a wreck of ancient design, which has given rise to speculation that the island may have been visited before by Polynesians or others. Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who explored the area for Alexander I of Russia, Bellingshausen landed on the island on 28 November 1820, defined its geographical position and traded his rum and food for Macquarie Islands fauna with the sealers. Between 1810 and 1919, seals and then penguins were hunted almost to the point of extinction, the conditions on the island and the surrounding seas were considered so harsh that a plan to use it as a penal settlement was rejected. In 1877, the crew of the schooner Bencleugh was shipwrecked on the islands for four months, the ships owner, John Sen Inches Thomson, wrote a book on his sea travels, including his time on the island. The book, written in 1912, was entitled Voyages and Wanderings In Far-off Seas, in 1890, New South Wales transferred the island to Tasmania, which leased it to Joseph Hatch between 1902 and 1920 for his oil industry based on harvesting penguins. Between 1911 and 1914, the became a base for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson. George Ainsworth operated a station between 1911 and 1913, followed by Harold Power and by Arthur Tulloch from 1914 until it was shut down in 1915. The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions established its headquarters on 25 May 1948 on Macquarie Island. The island had status as a reserve under the Man. On 23 December 2004, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale rocked the island, geoscience Australia issued a Tsunami Inundation Advice for Macquarie Island Station. Such a tsunami would likely affect other parts of the coastline, such a significant earthquake at Macquarie Island capable of causing such a tsunami is a high risk according to several papers
20.
Tierra del Fuego
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Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, with an area of 48,100 km2. Tierra del Fuego is divided between Chile and Argentina, with the controlling the eastern half of the main island. The southernmost extent of the archipelago is at about latitude 55 S, the earliest known human settlement in Tierra del Fuego dates to around 8,000 B. C. Europeans first explored the islands during Ferdinand Magellans expedition of 1520, Tierra del Fuego, today, petroleum extraction dominates economic activity in the north of Tierra del Fuego, while tourism, manufacturing, and Antarctic logistics are important in the south. The earliest human settlement occurred around 8,000 B. C, the Yaghan were some of the earliest known humans to settle in Tierra del Fuego. Archeological sites with characteristics of their culture have found at locations such as Navarino Island. The name Tierra del Fuego derives from the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for the Spanish Crown and he believed he was seeing the many fires of the Yaghan, which were visible from the sea, and that the Indians were waiting in the forests to ambush his armada. In 1525 Francisco de Hoces was the first to speculate that Tierra del Fuego was one or more islands rather than part of what was then called Terra Australis, francis Drake in 1578 and a Dutch VOC expedition in 1616 learned more about the geography. The latter expedition named Cape Horn, on his first voyage with the HMS Beagle in 1830, Robert FitzRoy picked up four native Fuegians, including Jemmy Button and brought them to England. The surviving three were taken to London to meet the King and Queen and were, for a time and they returned to Tierra del Fuego in the Beagle with FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, who made extensive notes about his visit to the islands. During the second half of the 19th century, the archipelago began to come under Chilean, both countries sought to claim the whole archipelago based on de jure Spanish colonial titles. Salesian Catholic missions were established in Río Grande and Dawson Island, anglican missions were established by British colonists at Keppel Island in the Falklands in 1855 and in 1870 at Ushuaia on the main island, which continued to operate through the 19th century. Thomas Bridges learned the language and compiled a 30, 000-word Yaghan grammar and it was published in the 20th century and considered an important ethnological work. An 1879 Chilean expedition led by Ramón Serrano Montaner reported large amounts of gold in the streams. This prompted massive immigration to the island between 1883 and 1909. Numerous Argentines, Chileans and Croatians settled in the main island, julius Popper, a Romanian explorer, was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the region. Granted rights by the Argentine government to exploit any gold deposits he found in Tierra del Fuego, despite the missionaries efforts, many natives died
21.
Patagonia
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Patagonia is a sparsely populated region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the section of the Andes mountains as well as the deserts, steppes. Patagonia has two coasts, a western one towards the Pacific Ocean and an eastern one towards the Atlantic Ocean, the Colorado and Barrancas rivers, which run from the Andes to the Atlantic, are commonly considered the northern limit of Argentine Patagonia. The archipelago of Tierra del Fuego is sometimes included as part of Patagonia, most geographers and historians locate the northern limit of Chilean Patagonia at Reloncaví Estuary. The name Patagonia comes from the word used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed that the people he called the Patagons were Tehuelches, the hypothesis was accepted and published in the New Review of Spanish Philology in the 2011 article. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of fresh and brackish water, towards the Andes, the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite, and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant. It is characteristic of the flora of the western coast, and consist principally of southern beech and conifers. Among the depressions by which the plateau is intersected transversely, the ones are the Gualichu, south of the Río Negro, the Maquinchao and Valcheta, the Senguerr. There, erosion which is caused principally by the sudden melting, best in evidence where in contact with folded Cretaceous rocks which are uplifted by the Cenozoic granite. It generally separates the plateau from the first lofty hills, the ridges generally called the pre-Cordillera, to the west of these, a similar longitudinal depression extends all along the foot of the snowy Andean Cordillera. This latter depression contains the richest and most fertile land of Patagonia, Lake basins along the Cordillera were also excavated by ice-streams, including Lake Argentino and Lake Fagnano, as well as coastal bays such as Bahía Inútil. There have been discrepancies among geologists on the origin of the Patagonian landmass, víctor Ramos has proposed that the Patagonian landmass originated as an allochtonous terrane that separated from Antarctica and docked in South America 250 to 270 Ma in the Permian era. A2014 study by Robert John Pankhurst and coworkers reject any idea of a far-travelled Patagonia claiming it is likely of parautochtonous origin, the Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits have revealed a most interesting vertebrate fauna. The Patagonian Myolania belongs to the Upper Chalk, having been associated with remains of Dinosauria. In the Cenozoic marine formation, a number of cetaceans has been discovered. At a state level, Patagonia lies inside two countries, Chile and Argentina, both countries have organised their Patagonian territories into non-equivalent administrative subdivisions, Provinces and departments in Argentina, and regions, provinces and communes in Chile. Being a unitary state Chiles first level administrative divisions—the regions—enjoy far less autonomy than Argentine provinces, Argentine provinces have elected governors and parliaments, while Chilean regions have government-appointed intendants
22.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
23.
Scree
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Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, volcanoes or valley shoulders that has accumulated through periodic rockfall from adjacent cliff faces. Landforms associated with these materials are called talus deposits. Talus deposits typically have a concave form, while the maximum inclination corresponds to the angle of repose of the mean debris size. The term scree comes from the Old Norse term for landslide, skriða, formation of scree or talus deposits the results of physical and chemical weathering and erosion acting on a rock face. During the day, water can flow into joints and discontinuities in the rock wall, if the temperature drops enough, for example in the evening, this water may freeze. Since water expands by 9% when it freezes, it can generate forces that either create new cracks or wedge blocks into an unstable position. Special boundary conditions may be required for this to happen, the efficiency of freeze/thaw processes in scree production is debated by scientists. Many researchers believe that ice formation in large open crack systems cannot generate high pressures, many argue that frost heaving, like that known to act in soil in permafrost areas, may play an important role in cliff degradation in cold places. For example, Lech dl Dragon, in the Sella Group of the Dolomites, derives from the waters of a glacier. The melting process of the glacier is slowed by the protective layer of scree. Eventually a rock slope may be covered by its own scree. The slope is then said to be mantled with debris, fellfield Lava stringer Mass wasting Weathering
24.
Geology of the Falkland Islands
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The geology of the Falkland Islands is described in several publications. The Falkland Islands are located on a projection of the Patagonian continental shelf, in ancient geological time this shelf was part of Gondwana, which around 400 million years ago broke from what is now Africa and drifted westwards relative to Africa. Studies of the surrounding the islands indicated the possibility of oil. Intensive exploration began in 1996, although there had some earlier seismic surveys in the region. The geological history of the Falkland Islands began more than 1000 million years ago, the breakup of Gondwana led to the formation of a large number of minor crustal fragments, including the Falkland Islands. At first, the fragment containing the islands separated from the part of Africa on a section that would become Antarctica. The interior of Gondwana was based on crystalline rocks more than a years old. Sand and mud filled and eventually covered the developing continental rifts, later these sediments covering the rifts hardened into rock. These rock sequences from Gondwanas break-up can be identified in places as far apart as South Africa, western Antarctica, in the Falkland Islands, these sequences are known as the West Falkland Group. Two hundred million years ago, tectonic forces tore Gondwana apart, sheets of liquid basalt intruded into the cracks that formed between the sedimentary layers. The resulting solidified sheets can now be seen in the form of dikes that cut the oldest sedimentary layers, a basin developed and was filled with land-based, or terrigenous, sediments. These layers of sand and mud filled the basin as it sank, as they hardened and these rocks are similar to those in southern Africas Karoo basin. About 290 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period, an ice age engulfed the area as glaciers advanced from the polar region and these rocks were deposited as extensive moraines and glacial till. When the glacial sediments were turned into stone they formed the rocks that now make up the Fitzroy Tillite Formation in the Falklands, identical rocks are found in southern Africa. The oldest rocks in the Falklands are gneiss and granite in the Cape Meredith complex and these types of rocks are visible in cliffs at the south end of West Falkland. The Cape Meredith complex corresponds to the rocks that made up the interior of the Gondwana supercontinent. This type of rock also has a great similarity to rocks currently found in South Africa. On top of the gneiss and granite lie layers of quartzite, sandstone, cross-bedding and ripple marks identify the zone where these rocks were deposited as the shallow waters of a delta environment where currents transported submarine sediments
25.
Antoine-Joseph Pernety
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Antoine-Joseph Pernety, known as Dom Pernety was a French writer. At various times he was a Benedictine, and librarian of Frederic the Great of Prussia, together with the Polish Count Tadeusz Grabianka, also influenced by the Christian mysticism of Swedenborg he founded in 1760 the secret society of ‘Rite hermétique’ or Illuminati of Avignon. In particular, he gave the first description of the Falklands stone runs phenomenon, in 1767 Pernety moved to Berlin. In 1779 he became a member of Illuminés of Avignon, in 1780 the oracle la Sainte Parole began to advise the Illuminés of Avignon to leave Berlin to establish elsewhere the foundations of a new Sion. In 1783 Pernety left Berlin at the command of the oracle, in October 1784 the oracle told the group that it should move to Avignon. In 1793 Illuminés of Avignon were suppressed by law, in 1782 Pernety translated from Latin into French Emanuel Swedenborgs Heaven and Hell and in 1786 Swedenborgs Divine Love and Wisdom. Manuel bénédictin, contenant lImitation de Jésus-Christ, la Règle de saint Benoist, les Exercices tirés de cette règle, dictionnaire portatif de peinture, sculpture et gravure avec un traité pratique des différentes manières de peindre, dont la théorie est développée dans les articles qui en sont susceptibles. Ouvrage utile aux artistes, aux élèves & aux amateurs Online text, les Fables égyptiennes et grecques dévoilées et réduites au même principe, avec une explication des hiéroglyphes et de la guerre de Troye. Réédition, La Table démeraude, Paris,1982, dictionnaire mytho-hermétique, dans lequel on trouve les allégories fabuleuses des poètes, les métaphores, les énigmes et les termes barbares des philosophes hermétiques expliqués. Dissertation sur lAmérique & les Américains, examen des Recherches philosophiques sur lAmérique et les Américains, et de la Défense de cet ouvrage. Les Vertus, le pouvoir, la clémence et la gloire de Marie, Works by or about Antoine-Joseph Pernety at Internet Archive Works by or about Dom Pernety at Internet Archive
26.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
27.
Louis Antoine de Bougainville
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Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years War in North America, Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea was named for him. Bougainville was born in Paris, the son of a notary, in early life, he studied law, but soon abandoned the profession. In 1753 he entered the army in the corps of musketeers, at the age of twenty-five he published a treatise on integral calculus, as a supplement to De lHôpitals treatise, Des infiniment petits. In 1755 he was sent to London as secretary to the French embassy, in 1756 Bougainville was stationed in Canada as captain of dragoons and aide-de-camp to the Marquis de Montcalm. He took a part in the capture of Fort Oswego in 1756. He was wounded in 1758 at the defence of Fort Carillon. He sailed back to France the following winter, under orders from the marquis to obtain additional military resources for the colony, during this crossing, he continued to learn about the ways of the sea, skills that would later serve him well. Having distinguished himself in the war against Britain, Bougainville was rewarded with the Cross of St Louis, when he returned to Canada the following year, he had gained few supplies. The metropolitan officials had decided that, When the house is on fire, during the pivotal year of 1759, Bougainville participated in the defence of fortified Quebec City, the capital of New France. He did not have sufficient time, however, to rally his troops and attack the British rear when they ascended the Plains of Abraham. He attempted to stop the British advance from his entrenchments at Île-aux-Noix and he was among the officers who accompanied Lévis to Saint Helens Island off Montreal for the last French stand in North America before the general capitulation of 1761. Of the war, Bougainville wrote in his journal, It is a kind of war. The very air we breathe is contagious of insensibility and hardness and he spent the remaining years of the Seven Years War as a diplomat, helping to negotiate the Treaty of Paris. Under this France ceded most of New France east of the Mississippi River to the British Empire, after the peace, the French decided to colonise the Isles Malouines. These islands were at that time almost unknown, at his own expense, Bougainville undertook the task of resettling Acadians who had been deported to France by the British because of their refusal to sign loyalty oaths. On 15 September 1763, Bougainville set out from France with the frigate LAigle and this expedition included the naturalist and writer Antoine-Joseph Pernety, the priest and chronicler accompanying the expedition, together with the engineer and geographer Lhuillier de la Serre. The expedition arrived in late January 1764 in French Bay and they landed at Port Louis named after King Louis XV
28.
Puerto Soledad
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Puerto Soledad was a Spanish military outpost and penal colony on the Falkland Islands, situated at an inner cove of Berkeley Sound. After three years of French possession the settlement was ceded to Spain, and all the French settlers left to be replaced by Spaniards. Acting on personal instructions by King Carlos III, the Spanish Government reimbursed the founder of Port St. Louis, Louis Antoine de Bougainville 618,108 French livres. The ceremony took place on April 1,1767, and from Puerto Soledad Bougainville set sail to make the first French circumnavigation of the world. Puerto Soledad had 103 residents in 1781, the governor,2 priests, an official,3 officers, one surgeon,50 soldiers,43 convicts, one mason. They occupied some 20 buildings including dwellings, barracks for officers, seamen, convicts and troops, chapel, hospital, kiln, blacksmith, eventually the number of buildings increased to 30-odd in 1811, with the population dropping to 46. The settlement was protected by three batteries, San Carlos, Santiago, and San Felipe Batteries, supply ships came from Montevideo to Puerto Soledad on an annual basis during the summer, bringing relief and supplies. There were 2,180 heads of cattle and 166 horses in 1778, Spain governed Puerto Soledad through its colonial administration in Buenos Aires. The governors were mainly naval officers with the exception of one drawn from the army, a lead plaque was left at the chapel of Puerto Soledad pleading possession of the island and the settlement for King Fernando VII of Spain. Vernet, aware of British claims to the Falklands, had sought permission for his expedition from the British consulate. That new settlement existed under the name Puerto Luis until 1833 when it was renamed first Ansons Harbour, Port Louis remained the sole settlement and administrative centre of the islands until the capital was moved to the newly established Stanley in 1845. After this, following a 17-year eventful and occasionally turbulent existence the settlement declined in importance, history of the Falkland Islands Port Egmont
29.
Berkeley Sound
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Berkeley Sound is an inlet, or fjord in the north east of East Falkland in the Falkland Islands. The inlet was the site of the first attempts at colonisation of the islands, at Port Louis, by the French. Berkeley Sound has several smaller bays within it - Port Louis harbour and Johnsons Harbour bay, separated by Grave Point and it was enlarged as the result of glacial action. Berkeley Sound was visited by Charles Darwin during his voyage on HMS Beagle in 1834 and he found it an undulating land, with a desolate and wretched aspect. Currently, Berkeley Sound is used by the Falklands fishing industry as a locality for the transshipment of fish. With accidental oil spills having occurred in the process, green Patch Johnsons Harbour Port Louis Port Louis South
30.
Charles Darwin
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Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, by the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. In modified form, Darwins scientific discovery is the theory of the life sciences. Darwins early interest in nature led him to neglect his education at the University of Edinburgh, instead. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science, puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and he was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories. Darwins work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature, in 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his familys home and he was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin. He was the grandson of two prominent abolitionists, Erasmus Darwin on his fathers side, and Josiah Wedgwood on his mothers side, both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder and he found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone, one day, Grant praised Lamarcks evolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grants audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus journals, Darwin was rather bored by Robert Jamesons natural-history course, which covered geology - including the debate between Neptunism and Plutonism. He learned the classification of plants, and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum, as Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He preferred riding and shooting to studying, when his own exams drew near, Darwin focused on his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paleys Evidences of Christianity. In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree. Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831, inspired with a burning zeal to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics
31.
Wickham Heights
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The Wickham Heights are a rugged chain of mountains on East Falkland in the Falkland Islands. They include the groups highest peak, Mount Usborne, Mount Wickham and are partly contiguous with No Mans Land. The slopes of Wickham Heights feature numerous stone runs, some of them extending up to 5 km, the Wickham Heights are in the northern portion of East Falkland, running east and west, and rising in some places to a height of nearly 2000 ft. They form the spine of the East Falkland, north of Lafonia, rivers and streams such as the Malo River and San Carlos River spring in the Wickham Heights. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
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West Falkland
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West Falkland is the second largest of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. It is an island, separated from East Falkland by the Falkland Sound. Its area is 4,532 square kilometres, 37% of the area of the islands. Its coastline is 1,258.7 kilometres long, the island has fewer than 200 people, scattered around the coastline. The largest settlement is Port Howard on the east coast, which has an airstrip. Other settlements include Albemarle, Chartres, Dunnose Head, Fox Bay, Fox Bay West, Hill Cove, Port Stephens, in 1986, the population was 265, in 2001, it had fallen to 144. Because West Falkland is outside Stanley or RAF Mount Pleasant on East Falkland it is considered part of the camp, West Falkland is hillier on the side closest to East Falkland. The principal mountain range, the Hornby Hills, runs parallel with Falkland Sound, Mount Adam, the highest hill in the islands, is 700 metres above sea level. Formerly it was thought that Mount Robinson at 695 metres above sea level was the highest point, however, a later survey found that Mount Adam was higher. At this, the Argentines transferred the name Monte Independencia from Mount Robinson to Mount Adam, the major industry on the island is sheep farming, while it is also known for its penguin and cormorant colonies. Fishing is also popular in the two rivers, the Warrah and the Chartres. In the 19th century as today, indigenous land fauna was very scanty, a small wolf, the warrah, the loup-renard of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, is extinct, the last having been seen about 1875 on West Falkland. It is commemorated in the name of one of the islands rivers — the Warrah River —, some herds of cattle and horses ran wild, but these were introduced by settlers as were the wild hogs, the numerous rabbits and the less common hares. All these have declined in numbers, being profitably replaced by sheep. The southernmost point of West Falkland is Cape Meredith, and the most south-westerly point is Calm Head, on the southerly side lie high cliffs with an abundance of seabirds. To the west are some sandy beaches with beautiful clean water. Set just back from the top of the cliffs is a wooden hut locally referred to as Uncle Toms Cabin. The beaches are a habitat for elephant seals and are unpolluted save for the piece of wreckage
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Edinburgh
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority area. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and it is the largest financial centre in the UK after London. Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The citys historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdoms second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, Edinburghs Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin, the poem names Din Eidyn as a hill fort in the territory of the Gododdin. The Celtic element din was dropped and replaced by the Old English burh, the first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. In modern Gaelic, the city is called Dùn Èideann, the earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c.8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have found on Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat, Craiglockhart Hill. When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, at some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its location has not been identified, it likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria and it thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction. The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, in 1638, King Charles Is attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the 17th century, Edinburghs boundaries were defined by the citys defensive town walls
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Princes Street
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Princes Street is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland, and its main shopping street. It is the southernmost street of Edinburghs New Town, stretching around 1 mile from Lothian Road in the west to Leith Street in the east, the street is mostly closed to private cars, with public transport given priority. The street has no buildings on the south side, allowing panoramic views of the Old Town, Edinburgh Castle. Only the east end of the street is open to all traffic, the bulk of the street is limited to trams, buses and taxis. Princes Street was originally to have been called St Giles Street after the saint of Edinburgh. However, King George III rejected the name, St Giles being also the saint of lepers. The street is named after King Georges two eldest sons, the Prince George, Duke of Rothesay and the Prince Frederick, Duke of York and it was laid out according to formal plans for Edinburghs New Town, now known as the First New Town. These were devised by the architect James Craig and building began around 1770, Princes Street represented a critical part of the plan, being the outer edge, facing Edinburgh Castle and the original city, Edinburgh Old Town. Originally all buildings had the format, set back from the street with stairs down to a basement. Of this original format only one such property remains in its original form, through the 19th century most buildings were redeveloped at a larger scale and the street evolved from residential to mainly retail uses. By the 1930s the architecture of Princes Street had a mixed character. The Abercrombie Plan of 1949 proposed tighter control of design to create a coherent appearance. The plan was put into operation, resulting in the erection of seven buildings before the approach was dropped in the 1970s. Two of the new buildings, British Home Stores at no.64, during the construction of the New Town, the polluted waters of the Nor Loch were drained, and the area was converted into private gardens called Princes Street Gardens. This was taken over by the Edinburgh Council in the late 19th century, by which time most of the street was commercial, the width of Princes Street was greatly increased soon after, onto what was the northern edge of the gardens. Due to the lower position of the gardens this led to the creation of the steep embankment on the north side. The gardens are one of the green spaces in the heart of Edinburgh. Princes Street was the scene of rioting in 2005 related to the 31st G8 summit referred to in the press as The Battle of Princes Street
35.
Cobblestone
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Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. In England, it was commonplace since ancient times for flat stones with a narrow edge to be set on edge to provide an even paved surface. This was known as a surface and was common all over Britain. Pitched surfaces predate the use of regularly-sized granite setts by more than a thousand years, such pitched paving is quite distinct from that formed from rounded stones, although both forms are commonly referred to as cobbled surfaces. Most surviving genuinely old cobbled areas are in reality pitched surfaces, a cobbled area is known as a causey, cassay or cassie in Scots. Cobblestones are typically set in sand or similar material, or are bound together with mortar. Paving with cobblestones allows a road to be used all year long. It prevents the build-up of ruts often found in dirt roads and it has the additional advantage of not getting muddy in wet weather or dusty in dry weather. Shod horses are able to get better traction on stone cobbles, pitches or setts than tarmac/asphalt. In England, the custom was to strew the cobbles outside the house of a sick or dying person with straw to dampen the sound, cobblestones set in sand have the environmental advantage of being permeable paving, and of moving rather than cracking with movements in the ground. Cobblestones were largely replaced by quarried granite setts in the nineteenth century, the word cobblestone is often wrongly used to describe such treatment. Setts were relatively even and roughly rectangular stones that were laid in regular patterns, cobblestoned and setted streets gradually gave way to macadam roads, and later to tarmac, and finally to asphalt concrete at the beginning of the 20th century. However, cobblestones are often retained in areas, even for streets with modern vehicular traffic. Many older villages and cities in Europe are still paved with cobblestones or pitched, in recent decades, cobblestones have become a popular material for paving newly pedestrianised streets in Europe. In this case, the nature of the surface is an advantage as pedestrians can hear approaching vehicles. The visual cues of the cobblestones also clarify that the area is more than just a normal street, the use of cobblestones/setts is also considered to be a more upmarket roadway solution, having been described as unique and artistic compared to the normal asphalt road environment. In some places such as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, as late as the 1990s some busy intersections still showed cobblestones through worn down sections of pavement. In Toronto streets using setts were used by routes and disappeared by the 1980s
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Port Louis, Falkland Islands
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Port Louis is a settlement on northeastern East Falkland. It was established by Louis de Bougainville in 1764 as the first French settlement on the islands, the settlement has seen several name changes. The original French settlers named the settlement Port Saint Louis, which was changed to Puerto Soledad upon the Spanish take over, Vernet reverted to a Spanish version of the original name when he formed his settlement, Puerto Luis. The British renamed the settlement Ansons Harbour for a while before reverting once more to the original French name, for a time, the town became the Spanish capital of the islands, which were claimed by Spain and administered from Montevideo as a naval outpost. The Spanish removed the governor in 1806 abandoned the settlement in 1811, in October 1820, following damage to his ship Heroína in a storm, Colonel David Jewett was forced to put into the islands to shelter in Puerto Soledad. This was the culmination of a disastrous eight-month voyage that saw a mutiny and most of his crew disabled by scurvy, while in harbour, there was another attempt at mutiny by the crew who wished to return to Buenos Aires. With many of his crew disabled by scurvy, Jewett sought the assistance of the British Antarctic explorer James Weddell in preparing his ship for sea once more, on 6 November 1820, Jewett raised the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate at Port Louis. After resting in the islands and repairing his ship, Jewett returned to Buenos Aires, in 1823, the United Provinces of the River Plate granted fishing rights to Jorge Pacheco and Luis Vernet. The partnership of Pacheco and Vernet did not last, with Vernet forming a new company in 1825, in 1828, the United Provinces of the River Plate granted Vernet all of East Falkland together with exclusive fishing and sealing rights. Included in the grant was a clause that provided a colony was established three years, it would be exempt from taxes. Settling in the former Spanish capital of Puerto Soledad, Vernet reverted to the use of its original name Puerto Luis, by 1831, the colony was well established and advertising for new colonists, although the Lexingtons report suggests that the conditions on the islands were quite miserable. The colony was largely archaic, and the Argentine government hoped that Vernets appointment would bolster the economic and political status of the colony, Vernet was well aware of British claims to the islands. Prior to both the 1826 and 1828 expedition, he approached the British consulate with the grant of the United Provinces of the River Plate, while visiting the consulate, he expressed the wish that if the British returned they would take his colony under their protection. Vernet also provided reports on the suitability of the Islands for the British Government. Vernet used Puerto Soledad/Puerto Luis as a hunting base. The United Provinces of the River Plate granted him a monopoly in the islands, Vernet later seized the American ship Harriet for breaking the restrictions on seal hunting. Property on board the ship was seized and the captain was returned to Buenos Aires to stand trial, Vernet also returned for the trial. The American Consul in the United Provinces of the River Plate protested the actions by Vernet, the consul dispatched the warship USS Lexington to Puerto Luis to retake the confiscated property, as well as the Superior and Breakwater which had also been seized
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Stanley, Falkland Islands
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Stanley is the capital of the Falkland Islands. It is located on the island of East Falkland, on a slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands. At the 2012 census, the town had a population of 2,121, Stanley is represented by five members of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands, currently Jan Cheek, Barry Elsby, Michael Poole, Gavin Short and Mike Summers. Stanley is the shopping centre on the islands and the hub of East Falklands road network. The Falkland Islands Company owns several shops and a hotel, Stanley has four pubs, eleven hotels and guesthouses, three restaurants, a fish and chip shop and the main tourist office. There are three churches, including the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, the southernmost Anglican cathedral in the world, a bomb disposal unit in the town is a legacy of the Falklands War. The town hall serves as a post office, philatelic bureau, law court, the police station also contains the islands only prison, with a capacity of thirteen in the cells. The community centre includes a pool, a sports centre, library. A grass football pitch is located by the community centre and hosts regular games, Stanley Racecourse, located on the west side of Stanley, holds a two-day horse racing meeting every year on 26 and 27 December. The Christmas races have been here for over one hundred years. Stanley Golf Course has an 18-hole course and a club house and it is also located to the west of Stanley. King Edward VII Memorial Hospital is the main hospital, with doctors practice and surgery, radiology department, dental surgery. Several bus and taxi companies operate out of Stanley, Stanley is also home to the Falkland Islands Radio Station, the Stanley office of the British Antarctic Survey, and the office of the weekly Penguin News newspaper. A nursery and garden centre is here, in whose greenhouses some of the islands vegetables are grown. The original capital of the islands was at Port Louis to the north of the present site of Stanley, captains Francis Crozier and James Clark Ross were recruited by Governor Richard Moody in his quest to find a new capital for The Falklands. Both Crozier and Ross were among the Royal Navys most distinguished seafarers and they spent 5 months in the islands with their ships Terror and Erebus. Governor Moody however, decided to move the capital to Port Jackson, Stanley Harbour was considered to have a deeper anchorage for visiting ships. Work on the settlement began in 1843 and it became the capital in July 1845 and it was named after Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time
38.
Bulgarian language
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Bulgarian /bʌlˈɡɛəriən/, /bʊlˈ-/ is an Indo-European language, a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, with the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Bulgarian became one of the official languages of the European Union. Development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several periods, prehistoric period – occurred between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s. Old Bulgarian – a literary norm of the southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible, Middle Bulgarian – a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Modern Bulgarian – dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar, present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language attested in writing, as Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, in the oldest manuscripts this language was initially referred to as языкъ словяньскъ, the Slavic language. In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was replaced by the name языкъ блъгарьскъ. In some cases, the name языкъ блъгарьскъ was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот, непонятен, ядро and others. As usual in cases, many other loans from French, English. Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, between 1835–1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and linguistic chaos ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography, the language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel. This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgarias, E. g. млеко – milk, хлеб – bread. This rule obtains in most Eastern dialects, although some have ya, or an open e sound. The literary language norm, which is based on the Eastern dialects
39.
Montane ecosystems
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Montane ecosystems refers to any ecosystem found in mountains. These ecosystems are affected by climate, which gets colder as elevation increases. They are stratified according to elevation, dense forests are common at moderate elevations. However, as the elevation increases, the climate becomes harsher, as elevation increases, the climate becomes cooler, due to a decrease in the greenhouse effect. The characteristic flora and fauna in the mountains tend to depend on elevation. This dependency causes life zones to form, bands of similar ecosystems at similar altitude, one of the typical life zones on mountains is the montane forest, at moderate elevations, the rainfall and temperate climate encourages dense forests to grow. Holdridge defines the climate of montane forest as having a biotemperature of between 6 and 12 °C, where biotemperature is the mean temperature considering temperatures below 0 °C to be 0 °C. Above the elevation of the montane forest, the trees thin out in the zone, become twisted krummholz. Therefore, Montane forests often contain trees with twisted trunks and this phenomenon is observed due to the increase in the wind strength with the elevation. The elevation where trees fail to grow is called the tree line. The biotemperature of the zone is between 3 and 6 °C. Above the tree line the ecosystem is called the zone or alpine tundra, dominated by grasses. The biotemperature of the zone is between 1.5 and 3 °C. Many different plant species live in the environment, including perennial grasses, sedges, forbs, cushion plants, mosses. Alpine plants must adapt to the conditions of the alpine environment, which include low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation. Alpine plants display adaptations such as structures, waxy surfaces. Because of the characteristics of these zones, the World Wildlife Fund groups a set of related ecoregions into the montane grassland and shrubland biome. Climates with biotemperatures below 1.5 °C tend to consist purely of rock, Montane forests occur between the submontane zone and the subalpine zone. The elevation at which one habitat changes to another varies across the globe, the upper limit of montane forests, the forest line or timberline, is often marked by a change to hardier species that occur in less dense stands
40.
Plateau
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Plateaus can be formed by a number of processes, including upwelling of volcanic magma, extrusion of lava, and erosion by water and glaciers. Magma rises from the mantle, causing the ground to swell upward, in way, large, flat areas of rock are uplifted. Plateaus can also be built up by lava spreading outward from cracks, plateaus can also be formed by the erosional processes of glaciers on mountain ranges, leaving them sitting between the mountain ranges. Water can also erode mountains and other landforms down into plateaus, volcanic plateaus are produced by volcanic activity. The Columbia Plateau in the northwestern United States is an example, dissected plateaus are highly eroded plateaus cut by rivers and broken by deep narrow valleys. Plateaus are classified according to their surrounding environment, intermontane plateaus are the highest in the world, bordered by mountains. The Tibetan Plateau is one such plateau, Piedmont plateaus are bordered on one side by mountains and on the other by a plain or a sea. The Piedmont Plateau of the Eastern United States between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Coastal Plain is an example, continental plateaus are bordered on all sides by plains or oceans, forming away from the mountains. The Tibetan plateau covers approximately 2,500,000 km2, the plateau is sufficiently high enough to reverse the Hadley cell convection cycles and to drive the monsoons of India towards the south. The second-highest plateau is the Deosai Plateau of the Deosai National Park at an elevation of 4,114 m. It is located in the Astore and Skardu districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, Deosai means the land of giants. The park protects an area of 3,000 km2 and it is known for its rich flora and fauna of the Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe ecoregion. In spring it is covered by sweeps of wildflowers and a variety of butterflies. The highest point in Deosai is Deosai Lake, or Sheosar Lake from the Shina language meaning Blind lake near the Chilim Valley. The lake lies at an elevation of 4,142 m, one of the highest lakes in the world, and is 2.3 km long,1.8 km wide, and 40 m deep on average. Some other major plateaus in Asia are, Armenian Highlands, Iranian plateau, Anatolian Plateau, Mongolian Plateau, and the Deccan Plateau. This polar ice cap is so massive that the echolocation sound measurements of ice thickness have shown that parts of the Antarctic dry land surface have been pressed below sea level. Thus, if that same ice cap were removed, the large areas of the frozen white continent would be flooded by the surrounding Antarctic Ocean or Southern Ocean
41.
Cherni Vrah
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Cherni Vrah is the summit of Vitosha Mountain in Bulgaria. Rising to 2290 m, the peak is the fourth highest mountain summit in the country after Musala, Vihren, Cherni Vrah is bounded to the northwest by Torfeno Branishte which — like the extensive adjacent territory to the south — is a no-go drinking water catchment area. Several major stone rivers are situated in the vicinity, occupying the upper courses of Vladayska and Boyanska Rivers to the north. Cherni Vrah hosts a station built in 1935, one year after the mountain became the oldest national park on the Balkans. The station provides refuge in bad weather, and has a well supplied cafeteria offering hot meals, a Mountain Rescue Service team is based on the peak too. The nearest mountain chalets are Aleko Chalet situated 3 km to the north-northeast, ski paths link Cherni Vrah to Aleko and Kumata areas in winter, and a ski run on the northern slope of the peak itself is served by a 600-m surface lift. With its annual average wind speed of 9.3 m/s Cherni Vrah is the second most windy peak in Bulgaria after Murgash Peak in the Balkan Range. The legend holds it that Cherni Vrah was climbed as early as 181 B. C. by King Philip V of Macedon. Nowadays, the easiest access to the peak is by a 1. 4-km track from the station of Romanski chair lift situated on Malak Rezen Peak. Cherni Vrah has a place in Bulgarian tourism. Thanks to its proximity to Sofia the peak is by far the most visited mountain summit in the country, the event took place on August 27,1895, and annual tourist rallies are held on Cherni Vrah on that date considered the birthday of Bulgarian tourist movement. The etymology of the name Cherni Vrah is uncertain, popularly, it is attributed to the black colour of the conspicuous rock formations dominating the peaks tip. Nowadays only few isolated mountain pine communities have survived in the vicinity of Cherni Vrah, Torfeno Branishte Vitosha Stone rivers Aleko Konstantinov Subarctic climate, with an average annual temperature of 0, 3C. For the period 1931-1970 the lowest recorded temperature was -27, 4C, while the highest - +22, 7C
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Zlatnite Mostove
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Zlatnite Mostove is the largest stone river on Vitosha Mountain, Bulgaria. The feature is situated in the valley of Vladayska River, extending 2.2 km, the stone river is ‘descending’ from elevation 1800 m above sea level in Boeritsa Chalet area to 1410 m at Zlatnite Mostove site. The lower extremity of the river is known as Zlatnite Mostove site. The name ‘Golden Bridges’ derives from the colour of the lichens growing on the surface of stone run boulders. Златните Мостове is a short film named after the location where the act takes place. In the movie Zlatnite Mostove refers metaphorically to the own self i. e. there are no real bridges made of gold. These Golden Bridges features in the film The Contract starring Morgan Freeman, large Collection of Images from Zlatnite Mostove
