1.
John Wesley Powell
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John Wesley Wes Powell was a U. S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition, a river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers. Powell served as director of the U. S. Geological Survey and proposed, for development of the arid West. Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York, in 1834 and his father, a poor itinerant preacher, had emigrated to the U. S. from Shrewsbury, England, in 1830. His family moved westward to Jackson, Ohio, then Walworth County, Wisconsin, before settling in rural Boone County, as a young man he undertook a series of adventures through the Mississippi River valley. In 1855, he spent four months walking across Wisconsin, during 1856, he rowed the Mississippi from St. Anthony, Minnesota, to the sea. In 1857, he rowed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River, in 1858 he rowed down the Illinois River, then up the Mississippi and the Des Moines River to central Iowa. At age 25, he was elected in 1859 to the Illinois Natural History Society, Powell studied at Illinois College, Illinois Institute, and Oberlin College, over a period of seven years while teaching, but was unable to attain his degree. During his studies Powell acquired a knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin, Powell had a restless nature and a deep interest in the natural sciences. This desire to learn natural sciences was against the wishes of his father. In 1860 when Powell was on a tour he decided that the Civil War was inevitable, he decided to study military science. Powells loyalties remained with the Union and the cause of abolishing slavery, on May 8,1861, he enlisted at Hennepin, Illinois, as a private in the 20th Illinois Infantry. He was described as age 27, height 5 6-1/2 tall, light complected, gray eyes, auburn hair and he was elected sergeant-major of the regiment, and when the 20th Illinois was mustered into the Federal service a month later, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant. He enlisted in the Union Army as a cartographer, topographer, during the Civil War, he served first with the 20th Illinois Volunteers. While stationed at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, he recruited a company that became Battery F of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery with Powell as captain. On November 28,1861, Powell took a leave to marry the former Emma Dean. At the Battle of Shiloh, he lost most of his arm when struck by a minie ball while in the process of giving the order to fire. The raw nerve endings in his arm would continue to cause him pain for the rest of his life
2.
Reston, Virginia
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Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404 at the 2010 census, the Reston Town Center is home to many businesses, with high-rise and low-rise commercial buildings that are home to shops, restaurants, offices, a cinema, and a hotel. It comprises over 1,000,000 square feet of office space, municipal, government-like services are provided by the nonprofit Reston Association, which is supported by a per-household fee for all residential properties in Reston. In 2012, Reston was ranked 7th in the Best Place to Live in America by CNNMoney Magazine, Reston was conceived as a planned community by Robert E. Simon. Founded on April 10,1964 and named for his initials, it was one of the first modern, post-war planned communities in America, simons family had recently sold Carnegie Hall, and Simon used the funds to create Reston. The first section of the community to be built, Lake Anne Plaza, was designed by James Rossant to emulate the Italian coastal town of Portofino. Lake Anne village was designed with modern architectural themes that extend to an elementary school, a gasoline station. Lake Anne also has an art gallery, several restaurants, the Reston Historic Trust Museum, shops, all are local businesses, as there are no chain stores or chain restaurants allowed in Lake Anne. Close by are the cubist townhouses at Hickory Cluster that were designed by the noted modernist architect, Charles M. Goodman, in the International Style. Other sections of the town, such as Hunters Woods, South Lakes, the land on which Reston sits was initially owned by Lord Fairfax during the 18th century. Wiehle bought the later in the 1880s. He died after construction of several buildings and his sons did not share his vision, and sold the land to A. Smith Bowman, who built a bourbon distillery on the site while maintaining a farm on most of the area, a 7, 300-acre tract. An office retail development and a road are named for him, in 1961, Robert E. Simon bought most of the land, except for 60 acres on which the Bowman distillery continued to operate until 1987. The growth and development of Reston has been monitored by newspaper articles, national magazines, in 1967 the First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, visited Reston to take a walking tour along its pathways as part of her interest in beautification projects. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited Reston elementary schools named for them, the Washington Post featured a road trip to Reston in January 2006, and a relatively new website Beyond DC has a page devoted to Reston with almost 150 photos. Reston experienced increasing traffic congestion as it grew in the late 1970s and this was a time when Restons population was growing but the Dulles Toll Road had not been built. Commuter traffic between Reston and Washington created serious congestion on the roads that connected Reston to Washington DC. In 1984 the toll road opened, and in 1986 the West Falls Church Washington Metro station opened, most recently the Fairfax County Parkway, a major north-south artery, was opened
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
6.
James F. Reilly
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James Francis Reilly, II, Ph. D. is an American geologist and a former NASA astronaut who has flown on three space shuttle missions, STS-89, STS-104 and STS-117. He was born at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, Reilly graduated from Lake Highlands High School, Dallas, Texas, in 1972. Officer in the U. S. Navy Reserve, member, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Naval Reserve Association, Tailhook Association, Reserve Officers Association, Association of Space Explorers. In 1979, he accepted employment as an exploration geologist with Santa Fe Minerals Inc. in Dallas, Texas, as part of this work, Reilly has spent approximately 22 days in deep submergence vehicles operated by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution and the U. S. Navy. In January 2010, Reilly joined American Public University System as the Dean of the School of Science, initially, he was assigned to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office Computer Support Branch. Reilly flew on STS-89 in 1998 and STS-104 in 2001 and he has logged over 517 hours in space, including three spacewalks totaling 16 hours and 30 minutes. He has worked both on the ISS and Mir space stations, Reilly was next assigned as the Astronaut Office lead on Shuttle training. In 2007 was a member of the crew of STS-117, concurrent with his crew assignment he is designated as Payloads and Procedures Operations lead for the Astronaut Office ISS Branch. Spacefacts biography of James F. Reilly
7.
United States Department of the Interior
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The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U. S. About 75% of federal land is managed by the department. The Department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Interior, the current Secretary is Ryan Zinke. The Inspector General position is vacant, with Mary Kendall serving as acting Inspector General. Despite its name, the Department of the Interior has a different role from that of the ministries of other nations. In the United States, national security and immigration functions are performed by the Department of Homeland Security primarily, the Department of the Interior has often been humorously called The Department of Everything Else because of its broad range of responsibilities. A department for domestic concern was first considered by the 1st United States Congress in 1789, the idea of a separate domestic department continued to percolate for a half-century and was supported by Presidents from James Madison to James Polk. The 1846–48 Mexican–American War gave the new steam as the responsibilities of federal government grew. Polks Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, became a champion of creating the new department. In 1849, Walker stated in his report that several federal offices were placed in departments with which they had little to do. Walker argued that these and other bureaus should be together in a new Department of the Interior. A bill authorizing its creation of the Department passed the House of Representatives on February 15,1849, the Department was established on March 3,1849, the eve of President Zachary Taylors inauguration, when the Senate voted 31 to 25 to create the Department. Its passage was delayed by Democrats in Congress who were reluctant to create more patronage posts for the incoming Whig administration to fill, the first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing. Many of the concerns the Department originally dealt with were gradually transferred to other Departments. Other agencies became separate Departments, such as the Bureau of Agriculture, however, land and natural resource management, American Indian affairs, wildlife conservation, and territorial affairs remain the responsibilities of the Department of the Interior. As of mid-2004, the Department managed 507 million acres of surface land, energy projects on federally managed lands and offshore areas supply about 28% of the nations energy production. Within the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs handles some federal relations with Native Americans, the current acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin. Several cases have sought accounting of such funds from the departments of Interior, in addition, some Native American nations have sued the government over water-rights issues and their treaties with the US
8.
Federal government of the United States
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The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D. C. and several territories. The federal government is composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U. S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the courts, including the Supreme Court. The powers and duties of these branches are defined by acts of Congress. The full name of the republic is United States of America, no other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party. The terms Government of the United States of America or United States Government are often used in documents to represent the federal government as distinct from the states collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term Federal Government is often used, the terms Federal and National in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the federal government. Because the seat of government is in Washington, D. C, Washington is commonly used as a metonym for the federal government. The outline of the government of the United States is laid out in the Constitution, the government was formed in 1789, making the United States one of the worlds first, if not the first, modern national constitutional republics. The United States government is based on the principles of federalism and republicanism, some make the case for expansive federal powers while others argue for a more limited role for the central government in relation to individuals, the states or other recognized entities. For example, while the legislative has the power to create law, the President nominates judges to the nations highest judiciary authority, but those nominees must be approved by Congress. The Supreme Court, in its turn, has the power to invalidate as unconstitutional any law passed by the Congress and these and other examples are examined in more detail in the text below. The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate, the House currently consists of 435 voting members, each of whom represents a congressional district. The number of each state has in the House is based on each states population as determined in the most recent United States Census. All 435 representatives serve a two-year term, each state receives a minimum of one representative in the House. There is no limit on the number of terms a representative may serve, in addition to the 435 voting members, there are six non-voting members, consisting of five delegates and one resident commissioner. In contrast, the Senate is made up of two senators from each state, regardless of population, there are currently 100 senators, who each serve six-year terms
9.
Scientist
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A scientist is a person engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge that describes and predicts the natural world. In a more restricted sense, a scientist may refer to an individual who uses the scientific method, the person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. The term scientist was coined by the theologian, philosopher and historian of science William Whewell and this article focuses on the more restricted use of the word. Scientists perform research toward a comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms. Philosophers aim to provide an understanding of fundamental aspects of reality and experience, often pursuing inquiries with conceptual, rather than empirical. When science is done with a goal toward practical utility, it is called applied science, an applied scientist may not be designing something in particular, but rather is conducting research with the aim of developing new technologies and practical methods. When science seeks to answer questions about aspects of reality it is sometimes called natural philosophy. Science and technology have continually modified human existence through the engineering process, as a profession the scientist of today is widely recognized. Jurisprudence and mathematics are often grouped with the sciences, some of the greatest physicists have also been creative mathematicians and lawyers. There is a continuum from the most theoretical to the most empirical scientists with no distinct boundaries, in terms of personality, interests, training and professional activity, there is little difference between applied mathematicians and theoretical physicists. Scientists can be motivated in several ways, many have a desire to understand why the world is as we see it and how it came to be. They exhibit a strong curiosity about reality, other motivations are recognition by their peers and prestige, or the desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of peoples health, the nations, the world, nature or industries. Scientists tend to be motivated by direct financial reward for their work than other careers. As a result, scientific researchers often accept lower average salaries when compared with other professions which require a similar amount of training. The number of scientists is vastly different from country to country, for instance, there are only 4 full-time scientists per 10,000 workers in India while this number is 79 for the United Kingdom and the United States. According to the US National Science Foundation 4.7 million people with science degrees worked in the United States in 2015, across all disciplines, the figure included twice as many men as women. Of that total, 17% worked in academia, that is, at universities and undergraduate institutions, 5% of scientists worked for the federal government and about 3. 5% were self-employed. Of the latter two groups, two-thirds were men, 59% of US scientists were employed in industry or business, and another 6% worked in non-profit positions
10.
Landscape
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A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms and how they integrate with natural or man-made features. The character of a landscape helps define the self-image of the people who inhabit it and it is the dynamic backdrop to people’s lives. Landscape can be as varied as farmland, a landscape park, the activity of modifying the visible features of an area of land is referred to as landscaping. There are several definitions of what constitutes a landscape, depending on context, the term landscape emerged around the turn of the sixteenth century to denote a painting whose primary subject matter was natural scenery. Land may be taken in its sense of something to people belong. The suffix ‑scape is equivalent to the more common English suffix ‑ship, the roots of ‑ship are etymologically akin to Old English sceppan or scyppan, meaning to shape. The suffix ‑schaft is related to the verb schaffen, so that ‑ship, the word landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed from a Dutch painters term. An example of this usage can be found as early as 1662 in the Book of Common Prayer, Could we but climb where Moses stood. Setting, In works of narrative, it includes the moment in time and geographic location in which a story takes place. Picturesque, The word literally means in the manner of a picture, fit to be made into a picture, and used as early as 1703, gilpin’s Essay on Prints defined picturesque as a term expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture. A view, A sight or prospect of some landscape or extended scene, wilderness, An uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. Cityscape, The urban equivalent of a landscape, in the visual arts a cityscape is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. Seascape, A photograph, painting, or other work of art depicts the sea. Geomorphology is the study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical or chemical processes operating at or near Earths surface. Geomorphology is practiced within physical geography, geology, geodesy, engineering geology, archaeology and this broad base of interests contributes to many research styles and interests within the field. The surface of Earth is modified by a combination of processes that sculpt landscapes, and geologic processes that cause tectonic uplift and subsidence. Many of these factors are strongly mediated by climate, the Earth surface and its topography therefore are an intersection of climatic, hydrologic, and biologic action with geologic processes. Desert, Plain, Taiga, Tundra, Wetland, Mountain, Mountain range, Cliff, Coast, Littoral zone, Glacier, Polar regions of Earth, Shrubland, Forest, Rainforest, Woodland, Jungle, Moors
11.
Natural resource
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Natural resources are resources that exist without actions of humankind. This includes all valued characteristics such as magnetic, gravitational, on earth it includes, sunlight, atmosphere, water, land along with all vegetation and animal life that naturally subsists upon or within the heretofore identified characteristics and substances. Particular areas such as the rainforest in Fatu-Hiva are often characterized by the biodiversity and geodiversity existent in their ecosystems, Natural resources may be further classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and components that can be found within the environment, every man-made product is composed of natural resources. Some natural resources such as sunlight and air can be found everywhere, however, most resources only occur in small sporadic areas, and are referred to as localised resources. There are very few resources that are considered inexhaustible – these are solar radiation, geothermal energy, the vast majority of resources are theoretically exhaustible, which means they have a finite quantity and can be depleted if managed improperly. There are various methods of categorizing natural resources, these include source of origin, stage of development, fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum are also included in this category because they are formed from decayed organic matter. Abiotic – Abiotic resources are those that come from non-living, non-organic material, examples of abiotic resources include land, fresh water, air and heavy metals including ores such as gold, iron, copper, silver, etc. For example, petroleum occurs with sedimentary rocks in various regions, Actual resources — Actual resources are those that have been surveyed, their quantity and quality determined and are being used in present times. The development of a resource, such as wood processing depends upon the technology available. Reserve resources — The part of a resource which can be developed profitably in the future is called a reserve resource. Stock resources — Stock resources are those that have been surveyed, renewability is a very popular topic and many natural resources can be categorized as either renewable or non-renewable, Renewable resources — Renewable resources can be replenished naturally. Some of these resources, like sunlight, air, wind, water, etc. are continuously available, though many renewable resources do not have such a rapid recovery rate, these resources are susceptible to depletion by over-use. Non-renewable resources – Non-renewable resources either form slowly or do not naturally form in the environment, minerals are the most common resource included in this category. Some resources actually naturally deplete in amount without human interference, the most notable of these being radio-active elements such as uranium, of these, the metallic minerals can be re-used by recycling them, but coal and petroleum cannot be recycled. Once they are used they take millions of years to replenish. Resource extraction involves any activity that withdraws resources from nature and this can range in scale from the traditional use of preindustrial societies, to global industry. Extractive industries are, along with agriculture, the basis of the sector of the economy
12.
Natural hazard
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A natural hazard is a natural phenomenon that might have a negative effect on people or the environment. Natural hazard events can be grouped into two broad categories, geophysical hazards encompass geological and meteorological phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruption, wildfire, cyclonic storms, flood, drought, and coastal erosion. Biological hazards can refer to an array of disease and infestation. Many geophysical hazards are related, for example, submarine earthquakes can cause tsunamis, floods and wildfires can result from a combination of geological, hydrological, and climatic factors. It is possible that some natural hazards are intertemporally correlated as well, an example of the division between a natural hazard and a natural disaster is that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was a disaster, whereas living on a fault line is a hazard. An avalanche occurs when a large snow mass slides down a mountainside, an avalanche is an example of a gravity current consisting of granular material. In an avalanche, lots of material or mixtures of different types of fall or slide rapidly under the force of gravity. Avalanches are often classified by the size or severity of consequences resulting from the event, an earthquake is the sudden release of energy stored as lithospheric stress that radiates seismic waves. Many earthquakes happen each day, few of which are enough to cause significant damage. Coastal erosion can result from long-term processes as well as from events such as tropical cyclones or other severe storm events. These flows can destroy entire towns in seconds and kill thousands of people and this is based on natural events. A landslide is a displacement of sediment, usually down a slope. A sinkhole is a depression in the surface topography, usually caused by the collapse of a subterranean structure such as a cave. Although rare, large sinkholes that develop suddenly in populated areas can lead to the collapse of buildings, a volcanic eruption is the point in which a volcano is active and releases its power, and the eruptions come in many forms. They range from daily small eruptions occur in places like Kilauea in Hawaii, to megacolossal eruptions from supervolcanoes like Lake Taupo. Some eruptions form pyroclastic flows, which are high-temperature clouds of ash, a blizzard is a severe winter stormer icy and windy conditions characterized by low temperature, strong wind and heavy snow. Scientists warn that global warming and climate change may result in more extensive droughts in coming years and these extensive droughts are likely to occur within the African continent due to its very low precipitation levels and high climate. A hailstorm is a hazard where a thunderstorm produces numerous hailstones which damage the location in which they fall
13.
Science
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Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations, disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences. However, during the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics. In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of physical laws, over the course of the 19th century, the word science became increasingly associated with the scientific method itself as a disciplined way to study the natural world. It was during this time that scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations. Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other, for example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense and they were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature was seen by scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans. A clear-cut distinction between formal and empirical science was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, although his work Peri Physeos is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides ἐὸν may refer to a system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. Physis may be identical to ἐὸν and he criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things merely in terms of motion and matter. The study of things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, however. Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy which was teleological and he rejected many of the conclusions of earlier scientists. For example, in his physics, the sun goes around the earth, each thing has a formal cause and final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, while the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being, they did not argue for any other types of applied science
14.
Biology
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Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification and taxonomy. Modern biology is a vast and eclectic field, composed of branches and subdisciplines. However, despite the broad scope of biology, there are certain unifying concepts within it that consolidate it into single, coherent field. In general, biology recognizes the cell as the unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity. It is also understood today that all organisms survive by consuming and transforming energy and by regulating their internal environment to maintain a stable, the term biology is derived from the Greek word βίος, bios, life and the suffix -λογία, -logia, study of. The Latin-language form of the term first appeared in 1736 when Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus used biologi in his Bibliotheca botanica, the first German use, Biologie, was in a 1771 translation of Linnaeus work. In 1797, Theodor Georg August Roose used the term in the preface of a book, karl Friedrich Burdach used the term in 1800 in a more restricted sense of the study of human beings from a morphological, physiological and psychological perspective. The science that concerns itself with these objects we will indicate by the biology or the doctrine of life. Although modern biology is a recent development, sciences related to. Natural philosophy was studied as early as the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, however, the origins of modern biology and its approach to the study of nature are most often traced back to ancient Greece. While the formal study of medicine back to Hippocrates, it was Aristotle who contributed most extensively to the development of biology. Especially important are his History of Animals and other works where he showed naturalist leanings, and later more empirical works that focused on biological causation and the diversity of life. Aristotles successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany that survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to the plant sciences, even into the Middle Ages. Scholars of the medieval Islamic world who wrote on biology included al-Jahiz, Al-Dīnawarī, who wrote on botany, biology began to quickly develop and grow with Anton van Leeuwenhoeks dramatic improvement of the microscope. It was then that scholars discovered spermatozoa, bacteria, infusoria, investigations by Jan Swammerdam led to new interest in entomology and helped to develop the basic techniques of microscopic dissection and staining. Advances in microscopy also had a impact on biological thinking. In the early 19th century, a number of biologists pointed to the importance of the cell. Thanks to the work of Robert Remak and Rudolf Virchow, however, meanwhile, taxonomy and classification became the focus of natural historians
15.
Geography
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Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes, Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of the Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. It is often defined in terms of the two branches of geography and physical geography. Geography has been called the world discipline and the bridge between the human and the physical sciences, Geography is a systematic study of the Earth and its features. Traditionally, geography has been associated with cartography and place names, although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns. Names of places. are not geography. know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself and this is a description of the world—that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause, just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in space and have a geography. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main fields, human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the environment and how humans create, view, manage. The latter examines the environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water. The difference between these led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines physical and human geography. Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth science and it aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns. Physical geography can be divided into broad categories, including, Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns. It encompasses the human, political, cultural, social, and it requires an understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human geography, as well as the ways that human societies conceptualize the environment. Integrated geography has emerged as a bridge between the human and the geography, as a result of the increasing specialisation of the two sub-fields. Examples of areas of research in the environmental geography include, emergency management, environmental management, sustainability, geomatics is concerned with the application of computers to the traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography
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Geology
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Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
17.
Hydrology
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Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is a hydrologist, working within the fields of earth or environmental science, physical geography, geology or civil, Hydrology subdivides into surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology, and marine hydrology. Domains of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage-basin management and water quality, oceanography and meteorology are not included because water is only one of many important aspects within those fields. Hydrological research can inform environmental engineering, policy and planning, the term hydrology comes from Greek, ὕδωρ, hýdōr, water, and λόγος, lógos, study. Chemical hydrology is the study of the characteristics of water. Ecohydrology is the study of interactions between organisms and the hydrologic cycle, hydrogeology is the study of the presence and movement of groundwater. Hydroinformatics is the adaptation of technology to hydrology and water resources applications. Hydrometeorology is the study of the transfer of water and energy between land and water surfaces and the lower atmosphere. Isotope hydrology is the study of the signatures of water. Surface hydrology is the study of processes that operate at or near Earths surface. Drainage basin management covers water-storage, in the form of reservoirs, water quality includes the chemistry of water in rivers and lakes, both of pollutants and natural solutes. Determining the water balance of a region, mitigating and predicting flood, landslide and drought risk. Real-time flood forecasting and flood warning, designing irrigation schemes and managing agricultural productivity. Part of the module in catastrophe modeling. Designing dams for water supply or hydroelectric power generation, designing sewers and urban drainage system. Analyzing the impacts of antecedent moisture on sanitary sewer systems, predicting geomorphologic changes, such as erosion or sedimentation. Assessing the impacts of natural and anthropogenic environmental change on water resources, assessing contaminant transport risk and establishing environmental policy guidelines. Hydrology has been a subject of investigation and engineering for millennia, for example, about 4000 BC the Nile was dammed to improve agricultural productivity of previously barren lands
18.
Lakewood, Colorado
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The City of Lakewood is a Home Rule Municipality which is the most populous municipality in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Lakewood is the fifth most populous city in the State of Colorado, the city population was 142,980 at the 2010 United States Census. Lakewood is west of Denver and is part of the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, the urban/suburban development of the community known as Lakewood was begun in 1889 by Charles Welch and W. A. H. Loveland, who platted a 13-block area along Colfax Avenue west of Denver in eastern Jefferson County, loveland, the former president of the Colorado Central Railroad, retired to the new community of Lakewood after many years of living in Golden. Until 1969, the known as Lakewood had no municipal government, relying instead on several water districts, several fire districts. Lakewood was a community with policing provided by the Jefferson County Sheriff, several volunteer staffed fire districts, however, the community had already existed for about 80 years. The City of Lakewood was incorporated in 1969 as Jefferson City, soon after, an election was held and the citys name was changed to Lakewood. This was due to a dislike of Jefferson City and the perceived notion it would be confused with existing communities in Colorado. At the time of incorporation the city population was already over 90,000, Lakewood never had a traditional downtown area. West Colfax Avenue served the area as U. S. Route 40. As such, Colfax from Harlan west to Kipling and beyond had mostly commercial establishment, several multi-business shopping centers developed followed by much larger centers at JCRS and Westland. The Villa Italia Mall on West Alameda Avenue, twenty blocks south of Colfax, reflected the southward expansion of Lakewood settlement and housed a larger concentration of retail space. As the mall went into decline, the Lakewood City Council developed a plan to demolish the Villa Italia Mall, in 2011, Lakewood was named an All-America City for the first time. Lakewood is located at 39°42′17″N 105°04′53″W at an elevation of 5,518 feet, located at the junction of U. S. Route 6 and Colorado State Highway 121 in central Colorado, the city lies immediately west of Denver and 62 miles north-northwest of Colorado Springs. Lakewood lies in the Colorado Piedmont on the edge of the Great Plains just east of the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains. Green Mountain, a mesa 6,854 feet tall, is located in the far part of the city. The city is located in the watershed of the South Platte River, from north to south, these include Lakewood Gulch, Weir Gulch, Sanderson Gulch, and Bear Creek. Two tributaries of Lakewood Gulch, Dry Gulch and McIntyre Gulch, Turkey Creek, a tributary of Bear Creek, flows northeast through the far southwestern part of the city
19.
Denver Federal Center
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Denver Federal Center, surrounded by Lakewood, Colorado, is part of the General Services Administration and is home to about 6,200 employees for many Federal government of the United States agencies. The Denver Federal Center encompasses an area of about 670 acres and has 90 buildings comprising over 4,000,000 square feet of office, warehouse, lab and special use space. There are 26 different Federal agencies on-site, making it the largest concentration of Federal agencies outside of Washington, the major employers at the Denver Federal Center include the United States Department of the Interior and the General Services Administration. Special facilities at the Denver Federal Center include the National Ice Core Laboratory, major Jacob Downing, Colorado pioneer and judge, purchased the land in the late 1860s and developed it into a ranch, raising Arabian horses. Downing played a role in settling the West and he introduced new agriculture and wildlife, and helped lay the foundations for the city of Denver. Thomas S. Hayden, a prominent Denver resident, purchased the Downing estate in 1913 and he expanded it into a 20,000 acre cattle ranch. The federal government purchased 2,040.207 acres from the Hayden family in December 1940 for the purpose of building an ordnance plant, to be named The Denver Ordnance Plant. The site was chosen for its setting, because it was far from the nations borders. In late January 1941, the War Department signed a contract with the Remington Arms Company to produce small arms ammunition, construction of the Plant started in early March 1941. Rapidly, the Government built over 200 buildings for the new Denver Ordnance complex, at the height of production in 1943, the Denver Ordnance Plant was the 4th largest “city” in Colorado with a workforce “population” of more than 22,000. These employees worked day and night, producing over six million cartridges a day, when World War II ended, ammunition production ended and the Denver Ordnance Plant became federal surplus property. A portion of the Ordnance Plant facility was converted into office, warehouse and this smaller facility was given a new name, the Denver Federal Center. The Federal Center is bounded on the north by Sixth Avenue, on the East by Kipling Street, the western boundary of the Federal Center is just east of Union Blvd. Building 810, in the southwest corner of the Federal Center was once the largest warehouse west of the Mississippi River and in 1965 was state-of-the-art and it contained all the supplies needed to service all government facilities for the General Services Administration. Today, Building 810 is the home of federal agencies including operations for the U. S. Geological Survey. The distribution facility for all the USGS topographic maps and publications, Building 710 is an underground bunker complex designed to withstand a nuclear blast. The building was constructed by Army Corps of Engineers and completed in 1969 and has a space of 36,000 square feet. It was intended as a base for operations during a nuclear attack and was designed to house 300 people for up to 30 days in the event of a nuclear war
20.
Menlo Park, California
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Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east, East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south, Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City to the west. Menlo Park is one of the most educated cities in the state of California, Menlo Park had 32,026 inhabitants according to the 2010 United States Census. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 17.4 square miles. The total area is 43. 79% water, Menlo Park is long and narrow on a northeast to southwest axis. The northeast portion borders the San Francisco Bay and includes the Dumbarton Bridge that connects Menlo Park to Fremont on the east side of the bay, the city shoreline includes the citys largest park, Bedwell Bayfront Park 160 acres and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. San Francisquito Creek marks much of the southeast border of the city, west Menlo Park along Alameda de las Pulgas nearly separates the southwestern part of the city from the rest. The extreme southwest is clipped by Interstate 280, the Bayshore Freeway traverses Menlo Park northwest to southeast near the shoreline and somewhat parallel to it to the southwest is El Camino Real. The intersection of El Camino Real and Santa Cruz Avenue is considered the heart of the city, nearby, the Menlo Park Civic center is bounded by Ravenswood Avenue, Alma Street, Laurel Street and Burgess Drive. It contains the offices, library, police station and Burgess Park which has various recreational facilities. Other major roads include Sand Hill Road in the Sharon Heights area, the residential areas of Menlo Park are unofficially divided into several neighborhoods. Belle Haven is the neighborhood east of the Bayshore Freeway. Between Middlefield road and Bayshore are the neighborhoods of the Willows, Suburban Park, Lorelei Manor, Flood Triangle, Vintage Oaks, between Middlefield and El Camino Real are Felton Gables, Linfield Oaks, and Park Forest. West of El Camino Real until the hills are the neighborhoods of Downtown Menlo Park, Central Menlo Park, in the hills are Sharon Heights and Stanford Hills. The area of Menlo Park was inhabited by the Ohlone people, in 1795 the Rancho de las Pulgas land grant was made that include the area of the current city. In 1851 two Irish immigrants, Dennis J. Oliver and his brother-in-law D. C, mcGlynn, purchased a 1, 700-acre tract of land on the former Rancho de las Pulgas. In the 1854 they erected a gate with an arch bearing the inscription Menlo Park. The word Menlo derived from the former home of Menlo in County Galway, Ireland
21.
Scioto River
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The Scioto River is a river in central and southern Ohio more than 231 miles in length. It rises in Auglaize County in west central Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olentangy River, too small for modern commercial shipping, its primary economic importance is for recreation and drinking water. The lower Scioto River valley is large compared to the width of the river and is extensively farmed, meltwaters from retreating glaciers carved the valley exceptionally wide. Valley bottoms are smooth, and flood deposits created during and since the most recent Glacial period cause floodplain soils to be very productive, as a result, farms line much of the lower Scioto where it flows through low, rolling hills covered in hardwood trees. The geologic history of the Scioto River is tied to the destruction of the Teays River network during the Ice Ages, the north flowing Teays River was dammed by glaciers, and damming of other rivers led to a series of floods as lakes overflowed into adjacent valleys. Glacial Lake Tight is estimated to have been two-thirds the size of modern Lake Erie, valleys beyond the reach of glaciers were reorganized to create the Ohio River, and the Scioto River replaced the Teays River. The Scioto River flows through segments of the Teays River valley, in the cities of Columbus and Dublin, the river has cut a gorge in fossil-bearing Devonian limestone, and many tributary streams have waterfalls, such as Hayden Falls. The Scioto River valley was home to many Native American cultures, the best known group is the Mound Builders of the Hopewell tradition. Numerous burial mounds can be seen near Chillicothe at the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, the former strength of these cultures is demonstrated in settler accounts from as far east as Virginia. The name Scioto is derived from the Wyandot word skɛnǫ·tǫ’ deer (compare Shenandoah, during the antebellum years, the Scioto River provided a route to freedom for many slaves escaping from the South, as they continued north after crossing the Ohio River. Towns such as Chillicothe became important stops on the Underground Railroad, a traditional fiddle tune in the Appalachian repertoire, “Big Scioty”, takes its name from the river. The melody is attributed to the Hammons family of West Virginia, in 2012, the river dropped to record- or near-record-low water levels as a result of the acute effects of the 2012 North American drought in Ohio. Threats facing the river include agricultural pollutants from upstream and urban-generated pollutants such as contaminated street runoff, rapid residential and commercial development in the watershed is increasing stormwater runoff. There are two dams on the river. Griggs Dam in Columbus was built in 1904–1908 to impound a water supply for the city, farther upstream, at Shawnee Hills, the OShaughnessy Dam was built in 1922–1925 creating a larger reservoir which was billed at the time as the finest inland waterway in the United States. Both dams are operated by the city of Columbus, the removal of the Main Street Dam in downtown Columbus, which was built in 1921, began in November 2013. The removal was proposed in the 2010 Strategic Plan for downtown Columbus. Environmental Protection Agency, Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, Franklin County Board of Commissioners, Metro Parks, The Columbus Foundation, and Battelle
22.
O'Shaughnessy Dam (Ohio)
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The OShaughnessy Dam is located on the Scioto River near Dublin, Ohio, United States. The dam forms OShaughnessy Reservoir, which is a source of drinking water for the city of Columbus. It was completed in 1925 following recommendations of then superintendent Jerry OShaughnessy, at the time, the reservoir was described as the finest inland waterway in the United States. Located 10 miles upstream of the smaller Griggs Dam, it provides an area for various forms of recreation in addition to its water supply duties. The reservoir holds 6.3 billion US gallons over an area of 845 acres. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is located on the east bank of the reservoir, in 1990, the dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The city of Columbus installed a hydroelectric operation on the west side of the dam, the turbines can only be operated when there is sufficient flow, which means the dam cannot continuously produce electricity. With a head of 18 feet, the two turbines together produce 5 megawatts, USGS Real-Time Water Data, Scioto River below OShaughnessy Dam Ohio DNR fishing map of OShaughnessy Reservoir
23.
Dublin, Ohio
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Dublin is a city in Franklin, Delaware, and Union counties in the U. S. state of Ohio. The population was 41,751 at the 2010 census, Dublin is a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. Each year in late May or early June, the city hosts the Memorial Tournament, consequently, numerous golf aficionados choose to make Dublin their home. There are also several golf courses in Dublin. The Riviera Golf Club was home to the American-Italian Golf Association, tartan Fields Golf Club hosted the LPGAs Wendys Championship for Children from 2002 through 2006. Dublin also has a golf course financed by the Muirfield association. Other annual events include the July 4 music event, a St. Patricks Day parade, and the Dublin Irish Festival, which is one of the largest Irish-American festivals. Although its earliest settlements date back to 1802, the village that became Dublin did not begin to take shape until the arrival of the Sells family from Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Brothers Peter and Benjamin Sells purchased 400 acres of land on the west bank of the Scioto River as a gift for their brother John. In 1808, John Sells brought his family to the region, and by 1810 he had begun to survey lots for the new village with his partner, by 1833, Dublin contained several mills and only one store. In 1970, Dublin was still a town with only 681 residents. However, the construction of Interstate 270 facilitated a population boom, spearheaded by the acquisition of corporate headquarters such as Ashland Inc. In addition, the growth of the Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin was officially declared a city in 1987, after reaching a population of 5,000 residents. As part of this boom Dublin significantly expanded its area, annexing parts of Washington, Perry, Concord, Dublin is located at 40°6′33″N 83°8′25″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 24.80 square miles. The Scioto River passes through Dublin, in this area the river and its tributaries cut deep gorges through the limestone bedrock, and the riverbed is stony. Some of these tributaries feature waterfalls, located on the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, Dublin has relatively flat topography. Nevertheless, there are numerous ravines surrounding the tributaries of the Scioto River, elevations range from 780 feet above sea level where the Scioto River leaves the city at Hayden Run Road, while the high point is 1000 feet at Glacier Ridge Metro Park
24.
Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
25.
Golden, Colorado
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Golden is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, founded during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was originally named Golden City in honor of Thomas L. Golden. Golden City served as the capital of the provisional Territory of Jefferson from 1860 to 1861, in 1867, the territorial capital was moved about 12 miles east to Denver City. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 18,867 in 2010, the Colorado School of Mines, offering programs in engineering and science, is located in Golden. It is the birthplace of the Jolly Rancher, a candy bought out by the Hershey Foods Corporation, Buffalo Bill Cody is buried nearby on Lookout Mountain. Golden City was established on 16 June 1859 along Clear Creek west of Denver, important businessmen and prospectors such as William A. H. Loveland and George West were among the first to settle in Golden. By the end of 1860, Golden City had been elected the seat of Jefferson County and was capital of the provisional Jefferson Territory. Golden City was temporarily removed from the status of capital as a result of an act passed on 5 November 1861 by the territorial government. Colorado City, a town to the south of Denver became the new temporary territorial capital. This status was revoked, however, as on 4 August 1862. It was the period between 1862 and the early 1870s that a fierce railroad competition developed between Denver, ten miles to the east, and Golden. By the mid-1860s, Golden held only a status as territorial capital rather than serve as the legitimate source of territorial power. Loveland founded the Colorado Central Railroad on 9 February 1865 to do just this, with Golden beginning talk of creating a railroad, prominent Denver residents raced to do the same. If we defeat those bonds, all hope of a railroad for the two years is gone… Gentlemen of Denver, what will you do. The fate of city is in your own hands. ”The residents of Denver voted for the bonds. By 1869, the race to Cheyenne was becoming less and less of a race. Golden, having then sidetracked into servicing various close-by mountain communities, continued to fall behind the set by the Denver railroad. However, The Colorado Central Railroad connected directly with Cheyenne seven years later, in 1877, but by that point, during the 1870s, it became home to three institutions of higher education, the Colorado University Schools, of which the Colorado School of Mines remains today
26.
Colorado School of Mines
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CSM placed 88th in the 2017 US News & World Report Best National Universities ranking. In the 2016–17 QS World University Rankings by subject, the university was ranked as the top institution in the world for mineral, Golden, Colorado, established in 1859 as Golden City, served as a supply center for miners and settlers in the area. Tuition was originally free to residents of Colorado, the schools logo was designed by prominent architect Jacques Benedict. The first building on the current site of the school was built in 1880 with additions completed in 1882 and 1890, the building, known as Chemistry Hall, stood where Hill Hall is now located. The next building to be added to the campus was Engineering Hall, built in 1894, in 1879, there was some discussion about merging School of Mines and the State University in Boulder. Apparently, because of the focus of School of Mines. During the early years of the institution, the administrator was the Professor in Charge. The designation President was first used in 1880, the M on Mt. Zion, a prominent feature in the Golden area, was constructed in 1908 and lighted in 1932. Early academic departments were drafting, physics, metallurgy, chemistry, in the 1920s, departments formed in geology, petroleum engineering and geophysics. Petroleum refining was added in 1946, the Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies and the Department of Physical Education and Athletics provide nontechnical educational opportunities for Mines students. Other facilities include, Ben Parker Student Center, Arthur Lakes Library, Green Center, the Colorado School of Mines is a public research university devoted to engineering and applied science. In August 2007, a new student recreation center was completed, in 2008, the school finished expanding its main computer center, the Center for Technology and Learning Media. The school operates the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, which displays rock, Mines is the host of the annual Colorado State Science Olympiad, which draws teams from both the northern regional and southern regional competitions. One or two teams advance to the national finals, depending on the number of teams registered to compete. Mines also hosts the Colorado Regional Science Bowl, and shares hosting of the Colorado State MathCounts Competition with University of Denver, since 1964, the Colorado School of Mines has hosted the annual oil shale symposium, one of the most important international oil shale conferences. Although the series of symposia stopped after 1992, the tradition was restored in 2006, roeschlaub, Jacques Benedict, and Temple Hoyne Buell. To date two main buildings are gone, while the present campus includes, Major open-air athletic facilities of the Colorado School of Mines include historic Campbell Field. The honorary named Colorado School of Mines buildings commemorate Dr. Victor C, 38th in U. S. News & World Reports 2015 Top Public Schools
27.
Seismic hazard
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A seismic hazard is the probability that an earthquake will occur in a given geographic area, within a given window of time, and with ground motion intensity exceeding a given threshold. It is important to clarify which MCE is being discussed, calculations for determining seismic hazard were first formulated by C. Allin Cornell in 1968 and, depending on their level of importance and use, zones of similar potential earthquake shaking are thus determined and drawn on maps. The well known San Andreas Fault is illustrated as a long narrow elliptical zone of greater potential motion, each zone is given properties associated with source potential, how many earthquakes per year, the maximum size of earthquakes, etc. Finally, the calculations require formulae that give the required hazard indicators for a given earthquake size, for example, some districts prefer to use peak acceleration, others use peak velocity, and more sophisticated uses require response spectral ordinates. The computer program then integrates over all the zones and produces probability curves for the key ground motion parameter, the final result gives a chance of exceeding a given value over a specified amount of time. Standard building codes for homeowners might be concerned with a 1 in 500 years chance, a longer-term seismic history can be obtained through paleoseismology. The results may be in the form of a response spectrum for use in seismic analysis. More elaborate variations on the theme also look at the soil conditions, higher ground motions are likely to be experienced on a soft swamp compared to a hard rock site. The standard seismic hazard calculations become adjusted upwards when postulating characteristic earthquakes, areas with high ground motion due to soil conditions are also often subject to soil failure due to liquefaction. Soil failure can occur due to earthquake-induced landslides in steep terrain. Large area landsliding can also occur on gentle slopes as was seen in the Good Friday earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska. These MCEs might require determining more than one specific earthquake event, some maps released by the USGS are shown with peak ground acceleration with a 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years, measured in Metre per second squared. For parts of the US, the National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project in 2008 resulted in seismic hazard maps showing peak acceleration with a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years. Temblor, a company founded in 2014, offers a seismic hazard rank for the all of the conterminous US and this service is free and ad-free for the public. The hazard rank is made for the likelihood of experiencing strong shaking in 30 years, based on the 2014 USGS NSHMP hazard model
28.
UCERF3
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The 2015 Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3, or UCERF3, is the latest official earthquake rupture forecast for the state of California, superseding UCERF2. It provides authoritative estimates of the likelihood and severity of potentially damaging earthquake ruptures in the long-, combining this with ground motion models produces estimates of the severity of ground shaking that can be expected during a given period, and of the threat to the built environment. This information is used to engineering design and building codes, planning for disaster. A variety of hazard metrics can be calculated with UCERF3, a metric is the likelihood of a magnitude M6.7 earthquake in the 30 years since 2014. A major achievement of UCERF3 is use of a new methodology that can model multifault ruptures such as have been observed in recent earthquakes and this allows seismicity to be distributed in a more realistic manner, which has corrected a problem with prior studies that overpredicted earthquakes of moderate size. The rate of earthquakes of magnitude 6.7 and greater is now believed to be one in 6.3 years. On the other hand, earthquakes of magnitude 8 and larger are now expected about every 494 years, otherwise the overall expectations of seismicity are generally in line with earlier results. The fault model database has been revised and expanded to cover over 350 fault sections, up from about 200 for UCERF2, various technical improvements have also been made. Of the six main faults evaluated in studies the Southern San Andreas fault remains the most likely to experience an M ≥6.7 earthquake in the next 30 years. The largest increase in such liklihood is on the Calaveras fault, the old value, of 8%, is less than the minimum now expected. The previous under-estimate is believed to be due mostly to not modeling multifault ruptures, the largest probability decrease is on the San Jacinto fault, which went from 32% to 9%. This requires accommodation of 34 to 48 millimeters of slippage per year, with some of that taken up in portions of the Basin and Range Province to the east of California. This slippage is accommodated by ruptures and aseismic creep on the various faults, like its predecessor, UCERF3 determines this based on four layers of modeling, The fault models describe the physical geometry of the larger and more active faults. Deformation models determine the rates and related factors for each fault section, how much strain accumulates before a fault ruptures. Four deformation models are used, reflecting different approaches to handling earthquake dynamics, the earthquake rate model fits together all this data to estimate the long-term rate of rupturing. The probability model estimates how close each segment is to rupturing given how much stress has accumulated since its last rupture. The first three layers of modeling are used to determine the long-term, or Time Independent, estimates of the magnitude, location, and frequency of potentially damaging earthquakes in California. In theory, this should produce some regularity in the earthquakes on a given fault, in practice this is not so clear, in part because slip rates vary, and also because fault segments influence each other, so a rupture on one segment triggers rupturing on adjacent segments
29.
Volcano warning schemes of the United States
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In October 2006, the United States Geological Survey adopted a nationwide alert system for characterizing the level of unrest and eruptive activity at volcanoes. Under this system, the USGS ranks the level of activity at a U. S and these levels reflect conditions at a volcano and the expected or ongoing hazardous volcanic phenomena. When an alert level is assigned by an observatory, accompanying text will give an explanation of the observed phenomena. Prior to October 2006, three parallel Volcano warning schemes were used by the United States Geological Survey and the volcano observatories for different volcano ranges in the United States and they each have a base level for dormant-quiescent states and three grades of alert. Developed in 1997 to replace a previous 5-level system devised in 1991, the Alaska Volcano Observatory used the following color-coded system to rate volcanic activity. It was originally established during the 1989-90 eruption of Redoubt Volcano, all five classifications are spelled as proper nouns, i. e. Level of Concern Color Code Orange not Level of concern color code Orange or any other variation. On its website the AVO spells the alert color in all capitals, introduced following the May 18,1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens. USGS Volcanic Activity Alert-Notification System page AVO information release about new warning scheme
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Magnetic field
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A magnetic field is the magnetic effect of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude, as such it is represented by a vector field. The term is used for two distinct but closely related fields denoted by the symbols B and H, where H is measured in units of amperes per meter in the SI, B is measured in teslas and newtons per meter per ampere in the SI. B is most commonly defined in terms of the Lorentz force it exerts on moving electric charges, Magnetic fields can be produced by moving electric charges and the intrinsic magnetic moments of elementary particles associated with a fundamental quantum property, their spin. In quantum physics, the field is quantized and electromagnetic interactions result from the exchange of photons. Magnetic fields are used throughout modern technology, particularly in electrical engineering. The Earth produces its own field, which is important in navigation. Rotating magnetic fields are used in electric motors and generators. Magnetic forces give information about the carriers in a material through the Hall effect. The interaction of magnetic fields in electric devices such as transformers is studied in the discipline of magnetic circuits, noting that the resulting field lines crossed at two points he named those points poles in analogy to Earths poles. He also clearly articulated the principle that magnets always have both a north and south pole, no matter how finely one slices them, almost three centuries later, William Gilbert of Colchester replicated Petrus Peregrinus work and was the first to state explicitly that Earth is a magnet. Published in 1600, Gilberts work, De Magnete, helped to establish magnetism as a science, in 1750, John Michell stated that magnetic poles attract and repel in accordance with an inverse square law. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb experimentally verified this in 1785 and stated explicitly that the north and south poles cannot be separated, building on this force between poles, Siméon Denis Poisson created the first successful model of the magnetic field, which he presented in 1824. In this model, a magnetic H-field is produced by magnetic poles, three discoveries challenged this foundation of magnetism, though. First, in 1819, Hans Christian Ørsted discovered that an electric current generates a magnetic field encircling it, then in 1820, André-Marie Ampère showed that parallel wires having currents in the same direction attract one another. Finally, Jean-Baptiste Biot and Félix Savart discovered the Biot–Savart law in 1820, extending these experiments, Ampère published his own successful model of magnetism in 1825. This has the benefit of explaining why magnetic charge can not be isolated. Also in this work, Ampère introduced the term electrodynamics to describe the relationship between electricity and magnetism, in 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction when he found that a changing magnetic field generates an encircling electric field
31.
Magnetometer
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A compass is a simple example of a magnetometer, one that measures the direction of an ambient magnetic field. Magnetometers are widely used for measuring the Earths magnetic field and in geophysical surveys to detect anomalies of various types. They are also used in the military to detect submarines, consequently, some countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, classify the more sensitive magnetometers as military technology, and control their distribution. Magnetic fields are vector quantities characterized by strength and direction. The strength of a field is measured in units of tesla in the SI units. 10,000 gauss are equal to one tesla, measurements of the Earths magnetic field are often quoted in units of nanotesla, also called a gamma. Gaussmeters and teslameters are magnetometers that measure in units of gauss or tesla, in some contexts, magnetometer is the term used for an instrument that measures fields of less than 1 millitesla and gaussmeter is used for those measuring greater than 1 mT. There are two types of magnetometer measurement. Vector magnetometers measure the components of a magnetic field. Total field magnetometers or scalar magnetometers measure the magnitude of the magnetic field. Magnetometers used to study the Earths magnetic field may express the components of the field in terms of declination. Absolute magnetometers measure the magnitude or vector magnetic field, using an internal calibration or known physical constants of the magnetic sensor. Relative magnetometers measure magnitude or vector magnetic field relative to a fixed but uncalibrated baseline, also called variometers, relative magnetometers are used to measure variations in magnetic field. Magnetometers may also be classified by their situation or intended use, stationary magnetometers are installed to a fixed position and measurements are taken while the magnetometer is stationary. Portable or mobile magnetometers are meant to be used while in motion, laboratory magnetometers are used to measure the magnetic field of materials placed within them and are typically stationary. The performance and capabilities of magnetometers are described through their technical specifications, major specifications include Sample rate is the amount of readings given per second. The inverse is the time in seconds per reading. Sample rate is important in mobile magnetometers, the sample rate, bandwidth or bandpass characterizes how well a magnetometer tracks rapid changes in magnetic field
32.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
33.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
34.
North American Environmental Atlas
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By mapping North Americas shared environment, the Atlas depicts environmental issues from a continental perspective. Each countrys contributing team works closely with their partner agencies in the countries to ensure seamless. The Atlas provides a foundation to analyze the status of environmental conditions and it contains data on watersheds, terrestrial and marine ecoregions and protected areas, industrial pollution, human impact, and base layers including transportation and waterways. This data is displayed as series of interactive map layers in an easy to use map viewer format, most layers in the North American Environmental Atlas are at a scale of 1,1,10,000,000 or finer. The variety of layers in the Atlas continues to expand in order to support analysis of environmental conditions, increasingly, data are being made compatible with tools such as Google Earth and ArcGis On-line/Arc Explorer. The entire collection of maps, data, and downloadable files is available for online at the CEC website. Remote Sensing North American Environmental Atlas Online Natural Resources Canada - Atlas of Canada Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía US National Atlas
35.
Stream gauge
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A stream gauge, streamgage or gauging station is a location used by hydrologists or environmental scientists to monitor and test terrestrial bodies of water. Hydrometric measurements of water surface elevation and/or volumetric discharge are generally taken and observations of biota. The location of gauging stations are found on topographical maps. Some gauging stations are automated and may include telemetry capability transmitted to a central data logging facility. Automated direct measurement of streamflow discharge is difficult at present, in place of the direct measurement of streamflow discharge, one or more surrogate measurements can be used to produce discharge values. In the majority of cases, a measurement is used as the surrogate. Low gradient streams are influenced by variable downstream channel conditions. For these streams, a stream gauge would be installed. This value would be used along with the measurement to more accurately determine the streamflow discharge. These sensors are mounted in the stream and measure velocity at a particular location in the stream. In those instances where only a stage measurement is used as the surrogate, a rating curve is the functional relation between stage and discharge. Once the rating curve is established, it can be used in conjunction with measurements to determine the volumetric streamflow discharge. This record then serves as an assessment of the volume of water passes by the stream gauge and is useful for many tasks associated with hydrology. In those instances where a velocity measurement is used as a surrogate. This analysis uses a velocity sensor, often either magnetic or acoustic, once again, discrete measurements of streamflow discharge are made by the technician or hydrologist at a variety of stages. For each discrete determination of streamflow discharge, the velocity of the cross section is determined by dividing streamflow discharge by the cross-sectional area. A rating curve, similar to that used for stage-discharge determinations, is constructed using the mean velocity, an additional rating curve is constructed that relates stage of the stream to cross-sectional area. The streamflow discharge is computed as the estimate of the cross section area, electromagnetic gauges Discharge measurements of a stream or canal without an established stream gage can be made using a current meter or Acoustic Doppler current profiler
36.
Astrogeology Research Program
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The Astrogeology Research Program is a program of the United States Geological Survey concerned with the study of planetary geology and planetary cartography. It is housed in the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, the Center was established in 1963 by Eugene Merle Shoemaker to provide lunar geologic mapping and to assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon as part of the Apollo program. Gene Shoemaker founded the Astrogeology Research Program August 25,1960, the research program started out as the Astrogeologic Studies Group at the United States Geological Survey center in Menlo Park, California. The research program was moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, Flagstaff was chosen as the location due to its proximity to Meteor Crater and the volcanic craters and lava flows of the San Francisco volcanic field. Dr. Shoemaker retired from the USGS in 1993 and he remained on Emeritus status with the USGS and maintained an affiliation with Lowell Observatory until his death in a car accident in Australia in 1997. Gene was involved in the Lunar Ranger and Surveyor programs and continued with the manned Apollo programs and he culminated his lunar studies in 1994 with new data on the Moon from Project Clementine, for which he was the science-team leader. Gene collaborated closely with his wife, Carolyn, a planetary astronomer, the discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with colleague David Levy, gained them worldwide fame. This was just one of Genes many great accomplishments, as part of the astronauts training, USGS and NASA geoscientists gave lectures and field trips during the 1960s and early 1970s to teach astronauts the basics of terrestrial and lunar geology. This training was essential to giving astronauts the skills and understanding to make observations about what they would see on the lunar surface, the volcanic fields around Flagstaff have proven particularly useful in testing equipment and training astronauts. Cameras planned for use in the Surveyor project were tested on the Bonito Flow in Sunset Crater National Park because the lava flow appeared to be similar to flows on the lunar surface. A field of impact craters were created in the Cinder Lakes volcanic field near Flagstaff to create a surface similar to the proposed first manned American landing site on the Moon. Jack Schmitt joined the Astrogeology team as a geologist at the Flagstaff Science Center in 1964, in addition to assisting in the geologic mapping of the Moon, he led the Lunar Field Geological Methods project. When NASA announced a special recruitment for scientist-astronauts in late 1964, out of more than 1,000 applicants, six were chosen. Of those six, Joe Kerwin, Owen Garriott, and Edward Gibson would fly in the Skylab missions in 1973 and 1974, robotic Lunar Observatory USGS Astrogeology Science Center USGS Flagstaff Science Center
37.
Exploration of the Moon
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The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made an impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14,1959. Prior to that the available means of exploration had been observation from Earth. The invention of the telescope brought about the first leap in the quality of lunar observations. NASAs Apollo program was the first, and to date only, the first landing took place in 1969, when astronauts placed scientific instruments and returned lunar samples to Earth. The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras reasoned that the Sun and Moon were both giant spherical rocks, and that the reflected the light of the former. His non-religious view of the heavens was one cause for his imprisonment and he also entertained the possibility that the Moon was inhabited. Aristarchus went a further and computed the distance from Earth, together with its size. Although the Chinese of the Han Dynasty believed the Moon to be equated to qi. This was supported by mainstream thinkers such as Jing Fang, who noted the sphericity of the Moon, by 499 AD, the Indian astronomer Aryabhata mentioned in his Aryabhatiya that reflected sunlight is the cause behind the shining of the Moon. Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi, a Persian astronomer, conducted various observations at the Al-Shammisiyyah observatory in Baghdad between 825 and 835 AD. Using these observations, he estimated the Moons diameter as 3,037 km and its distance from the Earth as 215,209 miles, which come close to the currently accepted values. By the Middle Ages, before the invention of the telescope, in 1609, Galileo Galilei drew one of the first telescopic drawings of the Moon in his book Sidereus Nuncius and noted that it was not smooth but had mountains and craters. Later in the 17th century, Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi drew a map of the Moon, on maps, the dark parts of the Moons surface were called maria or seas, and the light parts were called terrae or continents. Thomas Harriot, as well as Galilei, drew the first telescopic representation of the Moon, the first map of the Moon was made by the Belgian cosmographer and astronomer Michael Florent van Langren in 1645. Two years later a more influential effort was published by Johannes Hevelius. In 1647 Hevelius published Selenographia, the first treatise entirely devoted to the Moon, in 1753 the Croatian Jesuit and astronomer Roger Joseph Boscovich discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon. In 1824 Franz von Gruithuisen explained the formation of craters as a result of meteorite strikes, the possibility that the Moon contains vegetation and is inhabited by selenites was seriously considered by major astronomers even into the first decades of the 19th century. The Cold War-inspired space race and Moon race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America accelerated with a focus on the Moon
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Timeline of Solar System exploration
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This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordered by date of spacecraft launch. It includes, All spacecraft that have left Earth orbit for the purposes of Solar System exploration, a small number of pioneering or notable Earth-orbiting craft. It does not include, The great majority of Earth-orbiting satellites, space probes leaving Earth orbit that are not concerned with Solar System exploration. The dates listed are dates, but the achievements noted may have occurred some time later—in some cases. Missions in italics are unfinished, i. e. have not yet designated as successes or failures. Some unitalicised missions are still operational, some in mission extension phases
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Cartography
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Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively, the fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to, Set the maps agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is the concern of map editing, traits may be physical, such as roads or land masses, or may be abstract, such as toponyms or political boundaries. Represent the terrain of the object on flat media. This is the concern of map projections, eliminate characteristics of the mapped object that are not relevant to the maps purpose. This is the concern of generalization, reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped. This is also the concern of generalization, orchestrate the elements of the map to best convey its message to its audience. This is the concern of map design, modern cartography constitutes many theoretical and practical foundations of geographic information systems. The earliest known map is a matter of debate, both because the term map isnt well-defined and because some artifacts that might be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting that might depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE, the oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia. One shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by Assyria, Urartu and several cities, all, in turn, another depicts Babylon as being north of the world center. The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps since Anaximander in the 6th century BCE, in the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy wrote his treatise on cartography, Geographia. This contained Ptolemys world map – the world known to Western society. As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic, in ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE. The oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BCE, in the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection. Early forms of cartography of India included depictions of the pole star and these charts may have been used for navigation. Mappa mundi are the Medieval European maps of the world, approximately 1,100 mappae mundi are known to have survived from the Middle Ages. Of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas Tabula Rogeriana in 1154
40.
Stanford University
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Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Its 8, 180-acre campus is one of the largest in the United States, Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere. The university was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Stanford was a former Governor of California and U. S. Senator, he made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students 125 years ago on October 1,1891, Stanford University struggled financially after Leland Stanfords death in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the country. There are three schools that have both undergraduate and graduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. Stanford faculty and alumni have founded a number of companies that produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires,17 astronauts and it is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress. Sixty Nobel laureates and seven Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanfords previous Palo Alto farm, despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I, the Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which was established in 1962, in 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped. Besides the central campus described below, the university also operates at more remote locations, some elsewhere on the main campus. Stanfords main campus includes a place within unincorporated Santa Clara County. The campus also includes land in unincorporated San Mateo County, as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park, Woodside. The academic central campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard, the United States Postal Service has assigned it two ZIP codes,94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P. O. box mail
41.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1
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Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as A or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. It is enzootic in many populations, especially in Southeast Asia. One strain of HPAI A is spreading globally after first appearing in Asia and it is epizootic and panzootic, killing tens of millions of birds and spurring the culling of hundreds of millions of others to stem its spread. Many references to bird flu and H5N1 in the popular media refer to this strain, eleven outbreaks of H5N1 were reported worldwide in June 2008 in five countries compared to 65 outbreaks in June 2006 and 55 in June 2007. In July 2013 the WHO announced a total of 630 confirmed human cases which resulted in the deaths of 375 people since 2003. Several H5N1 vaccines have been developed and approved, and stockpiled by a number of countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Canada, HPAI A is considered an avian disease, although there is some evidence of limited human-to-human transmission of the virus. A risk factor for contracting the virus is handling of infected poultry and he called for adequate resources to fight what he sees as a major world threat to possibly billions of lives. Experts have identified key events marking the progression of a flu virus towards becoming pandemic. H5N1 may cause more than one influenza pandemic, as it is expected to continue mutating in birds regardless of whether humans develop herd immunity to a pandemic strain. Influenza pandemics from its genetic offspring may include influenza A virus subtypes other than H5N1, the severity of the infection depends in large part on the state of the infected persons immune systems and whether they had been exposed to the strain before. No one knows if these or other symptoms will be the symptoms of a humanized H5N1 flu, the avian influenza hemagglutinin binds alpha 2-3 sialic acid receptors, while human influenza hemagglutinins bind alpha 2-6 sialic acid receptors. This means when the H5N1 strain infects humans, it will replicate in the respiratory tract. There is as yet no human form of H5N1, so all humans who have caught it so far have caught avian H5N1. The reported mortality rate of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in a human is high, WHO data indicate 60% of cases classified as H5N1 resulted in death. However, there is evidence the actual mortality rate of avian flu could be much lower. In one case, a boy with H5N1 experienced diarrhea followed rapidly by a coma without developing respiratory or flu-like symptoms, there have been studies of the levels of cytokines in humans infected by the H5N1 flu virus. Of particular concern is elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, an associated with tissue destruction at sites of infection. Flu virus-induced increases in the level of cytokines is also associated with flu symptoms, including fever, chills, vomiting, tissue damage associated with pathogenic flu virus infection can ultimately result in death
42.
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
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The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center is a biological research center in Maryland. It is one of 17 research centers in the United States run by the U. S. Geological Survey, the center is located on the grounds of the 12, 841-acre Patuxent Research Refuge, managed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is the only National Wildlife Refuge with the purpose of supporting wildlife research, the Center develops and manages national inventory and monitoring programs and is responsible for the North American Bird Banding Program and leadership of other national bird monitoring programs. The Centers scientific and technical publications, wildlife databases, and electronic media are used nationally. The focus of the Centers mission and vision for the future is to continue its dynamic international, national, the Center is a Federal research facility which primarily supports programs in the Department of the Interior. The USGS Biological Resources Division, of which the Center is a part, thus, scientific information needs of partner agencies strongly influence much of the Centers scientific agenda. The Center also receives directly from agencies benefiting from our research and from other partner organizations. Such support provides critical resources that enhance the scope and value of the Centers activities, no research program will succeed unless it flows from the creative energies of its scientists. The research of Center scientists must be engaged at the edge of scientific understanding to assure the long term success of natural resources management. Note, much of material was copied directly from the USGS web page on Patuxent. Please edit to make more encyclopedic, the land that now comprises the 12,841 acres of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center was mostly farmland from the colonial period through at least World War I. Well-known landholders such as the Snowden and Duvall families owned substantial amounts of land during the colonial period, the legacy of the Snowden family can still be found in two historic homes of the area, one of which actually stands on Patuxent Refuge property. Almost all of the 8,100 acres that makes up what is now called the North Tract were transferred in 1991 from the Defense Departments Fort Meade landholdings and it is here that the history of Patuxent Refuge is most apparent to the everyday visitor. Prior to the Department of Defenses ownership of the land in 1917, part of the DODs Trainfire Road, now known as the Wildlife Loop, once linked the railroad town of Woodwardville with Laurel, Maryland. The former still exists as a bridge rebuilt in the 1940s. Perhaps the most historic old road of all, which utilized Duvall Bridge, was the old Telegraph Road and it once linked Baltimore and Washington, and today it is still possible to see century-old telegraph poles along the road in both the Central and South Tracts. In 1946, scientists found that DDT tests was killing wildlife in tree canopies, Fort George G. Meade, an active Army base, is near the research center. In response, the Army said that it is taking steps to limit the damage but that the golf courses are needed for maintaining the quality of life for soldiers
