1.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
2.
North Africa
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of Africa. The United Nationss definition of Northern Africa is, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, the countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are often collectively referred to as the Maghreb, which is the Arabic word for sunset. Egypt lies to the northeast and encompasses part of West Asia, while Sudan is situated on the edge of the Sahel, Egypt is a transcontinental country because of the Sinai Peninsula, which geographically lies in Western Asia. North Africa also includes a number of Spanish possessions, the Canary Islands and Madeira in the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of the African mainland are included in considerations of the region. From 3500 BC, following the abrupt desertification of the Sahara due to changes in the Earths orbit. The Islamic influence in the area is significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world. Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather than East Africa served as the point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in the Out of Africa migration. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia, are part of the mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, the sediments of the Sahara overlie an ancient plateau of crystalline rock, some of which is more than four billion years old. Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley and Delta, a wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such as cedar and cork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, the Nile Valley is particularly fertile, and most of the population in Egypt and Sudan live close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve yields on the desert margins. The inhabitants of Saharan Africa are generally divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa, the Maghreb, the Nile valley. The edge of the Sahel, to the south of Egypt has mainly been inhabited by Nubians, Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber, as well as Nubians from the south. They have contributed to the Arabized Berber populations, the official language or one of the official languages in all of the countries in North Africa is Arabic. The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak Berber languages and several varieties of Arabic, the Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afroasiatic language family. The Tuareg Berber languages are more conservative than those of the coastal cities. Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with cultures, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Europeans
3.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
4.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
5.
Valley
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A valley is a low area between hills, often with a river running through it. In geology, a valley or dale is a depression that is longer than it is wide, the terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys. Most valleys belong to one of two main types or a mixture of them, with respect to the cross section of the slopes or hillsides. A valley in its broadest geographic sense is known as a dale. A valley through which a river runs may also be referred to as a vale, a small, secluded, and often wooded valley is known as a dell or in Scotland as a glen. A wide, flat valley through which a river runs is known in Scotland as a strath, a mountain cove is a small valley, closed at one or both ends, in the central or southern Appalachian Mountains which sometimes results from the erosion of a geologic window. A small valley surrounded by mountains or ridges is sometimes known as a hollow, a deep, narrow valley is known as a cwm. Similar geological structures, such as canyons, ravines, gorges, gullies, chines, a valley formed by erosion is called an erosional valley, a valley formed by geologic events such as drop faults or the rise of highlands is called a structural valley. A valley formed by flowing water, or river valley, is usually V-shaped, the exact shape will depend on the characteristics of the stream flowing through it. Rivers with steep gradients, as in mountain ranges, produce steep walls, shallower slopes may produce broader and gentler valleys. However, in the lowest stretch of a river, where it approaches its base level, it begins to deposit sediment, in prehistory, the rivers were used as a source of fresh water and food, as well as a place to wash and a sewer. The proximity of water moderated temperature extremes and provided a source for irrigation, most of the first civilizations developed from these river valley communities. In geography, a vale is a river valley, usually with a particularly wide flood plain or flat valley bottom. In Southern England, vales commonly occur between the escarpment slopes of pairs of chalk formations, where the dome has been eroded, exposing less resistant underlying rock. Rift valleys, such as the Albertine Rift, are formed by the expansion of the Earths crust due to tectonic activity beneath the Earths surface, there are various forms of valley associated with glaciation that may be referred to as glacial valleys. A valley carved by glaciers is normally U-shaped, the valley becomes visible upon the recession of the glacier that forms it. When the ice recedes or thaws, the remains, often littered with small boulders that were transported within the ice. Floor gradient does not affect the shape, it is the glaciers size that does
6.
Ephemerality
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Ephemerality is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Because different people may value the passage of time differently, the concept of ephemerality is a relative one, an ephemeral waterbody is a wetland, spring, stream, river, pond or lake that only exists for a short period following precipitation or snowmelt. They are not the same as intermittent or seasonal waterbodies, which exist for longer periods, examples of ephemeral streams are the Luni river in Rajasthan, India, Ugab River in Southern Africa, and a number of small ephemeral watercourses that drain Talak in northern Niger. Other notable ephemeral rivers include the Todd River and Sandover River in Central Australia as well as the Son River, Batha River, any endorheic basin, or closed basin, that contains a playa or dry lake at its drainage lowpoint can become an ephemeral lake. Examples include Lake Carnegie in Western Australia, Lake Cowal in New South Wales, Mystic Lake and Rogers Lake in California, even the driest and lowest place in North America, Death Valley, became flooded with a short-lived ephemeral lake in the spring of 2005. There are also ephemeral islands such as Banua Wuhu and Home Reef and these islands appear when volcanic activity increases their height above sea level, but disappear over several years due to wave erosion. Bassas da India, on the hand, is a near-sea level island that appears only at low tide. Many plants are adapted to a lifestyle, in which they spend most of the year or longer as seeds before conditions are right for a brief period of growth. The spring ephemeral plant mouse-ear cress is a well-known example, animals can be ephemeral, with brine shrimp and the mayfly being examples. The placenta is considered an ephemeral organ present during gestation and pregnancy, ephemeral can also be used as an adjective to refer to a fast-deteriorating importance or temporary nature of an object to a person. Brands are notoriously ephemeral assets, and magazine publishing was once much more ephemeral than it is today, a number of art forms can be considered ephemeral because of their temporary nature. Early land art and all sand sculptures, ice sculptures and chalk drawings on footpaths are examples of ephemeral art, G. Augustine Lynas and Duthain Dealbh create ephemeral sculptures. Ephemeroptera Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Esthetique De Lephemere, Galilee, ISBN 2-7186-0622-3
7.
Stream bed
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A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream, river or creek, the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins are known as the banks or river banks, during all. Under certain conditions a river can branch from one bed to multiple stream beds. A flood occurs when a stream overflows its banks and flows onto its flood plain, as a general rule, the bed is the part of the channel up to the normal water line, and the banks are that part above the normal water line. However, because water flow varies, this differentiation is subject to local interpretation, the nature of any stream bed is always a function of the flow dynamics and the local geologic materials, influenced by that flow. With small streams in mesophytic regions, the nature of the bed is strongly responsive to conditions of precipitation runoff. Where natural conditions of either grassland or forest ameliorate peak flows, stream beds are stable, possibly rich, with organic matter and these streams support a rich biota. Where conditions produce unnatural levels of runoff, such as occurs below roads and this process greatly increases watershed erosion and results in thinner soils, upslope from the stream bed, as the channel adjusts to the increase in flow. The stream bed is very complex in terms of erosion, sediment is transported, eroded and deposited on the stream bed. With global warming there is a fear that the size and shape of riverbeds will change due to increased flood magnitude and this shows that the stream bed is left mostly unchanged in size and shape. Dry stream beds are also subject to becoming underground water pockets and flooding by heavy rains and water rising from the ground and may sometimes be part of the rejuvenation of the stream
8.
Rain
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Rain is liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity. Rain is a component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems, as well as water for power plants. The major cause of production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convective clouds such as cumulonimbus which can organize into narrow rainbands. On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by downslope flow which causes heating and drying of the air mass, the movement of the monsoon trough, or intertropical convergence zone, brings rainy seasons to savannah climes. The urban heat island effect leads to increased rainfall, both in amounts and intensity, downwind of cities, global warming is also causing changes in the precipitation pattern globally, including wetter conditions across eastern North America and drier conditions in the tropics. The globally averaged annual precipitation over land is 715 mm, climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Rainfall is measured using rain gauges, rainfall amounts can be estimated by weather radar. Rain is also known or suspected on other planets, where it may be composed of methane, neon, sulfuric acid, or even iron rather than water. Air contains water vapor, and the amount of water in a mass of dry air. The amount of moisture in air is commonly reported as relative humidity. How much water vapor a parcel of air can contain before it becomes saturated, warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air before becoming saturated. Therefore, one way to saturate a parcel of air is to cool it, the dew point is the temperature to which a parcel must be cooled in order to become saturated. There are four mechanisms for cooling the air to its dew point, adiabatic cooling, conductive cooling, radiational cooling. Adiabatic cooling occurs when air rises and expands, the air can rise due to convection, large-scale atmospheric motions, or a physical barrier such as a mountain. Conductive cooling occurs when the air comes into contact with a surface, usually by being blown from one surface to another. Radiational cooling occurs due to the emission of infrared radiation, either by the air or by the surface underneath, evaporative cooling occurs when moisture is added to the air through evaporation, which forces the air temperature to cool to its wet-bulb temperature, or until it reaches saturation
9.
Andalusian Arabic
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It became an extinct language in Iberia after the expulsion of the Moriscos, which took place over a century after the Conquest of Granada by Christian Spain. Andalusi Arabic is still used in Andalusi music and has influenced the dialects of such towns as Sfax in Tunisia, Fez, Rabat, Nedroma, Tlemcen, Blida. It is still used by communities of the descendants of Moriscos in cities like Tangiers and Tetouan in Morocco and Testour, Ghar al Milh and Sfax in Tunisia which welcomed Moriscos refugees. It also exerted influence on Mozarabic, Spanish, Ladino, Catalan, Portuguese, Classical Arabic. Andalusian Arabic appears to have spread rapidly and been in general use in most parts of Al-Andalus between the 9th and 15th centuries. In 1502, the Muslims of Granada were forced to choose between conversion and exile, those who converted became known as the Moriscos, in 1526, this requirement was extended to the Muslims elsewhere in Spain. In 1567, Philip II of Spain issued a decree in Spain forbidding Moriscos from the use of Arabic on all occasions, formal and informal. Using Arabic in any sense of the word would be regarded as a crime and they were given three years to learn a Christian language, after which they would have to get rid of all Arabic written material. This triggered one of the largest Morisco Revolts, still, Andalusian Arabic remained in use in certain areas of Spain until the final expulsion of the Moriscos at the beginning of the 17th century. The phoneme represented by the letter ق in texts is a point of contention, contact with native Romance speakers led to the introduction of the phonemes /p/, /ɡ/ and, possibly, the affricate /tʃ/ from borrowed words. There was an amount of compensatory lengthening involved where a loss of consonantal gemination lengthened the preceding vowel. The -an which, in Classical Arabic, marked a noun as indefinite accusative, became an indeclinable conjunctive particle, the unconjugated prepositive negative particle lis developed out of the classical verb lays-a. The derivational morphology of the system was substantially altered. Whence the initial n- on verbs in the first person singular, likewise the form V pattern of tafaʻʻal-a was altered by epenthesis to atfaal. 317–323, doi,10. 2307/1580571, JSTOR1580571 Corriente, Frederico, Los fonemas /p/ /č/ y /g/ en árabe hispánico, Vox Romanica,37, pp. 214–18
10.
Guadalcanal, Seville
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Guadalcanal is a village in the province of Seville, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. The name was given to the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1568, the name was chosen by Pedro de Ortega Valencia who had been born in the village. He was a subordinate of Spanish explorer and navigator, Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, in 2006 there were 2,970 inhabitants. It has an area of 275 square kilometres and a density of 10,6 people per square-km. It is at an altitude of 662 metres, in a valley between the Sierra del Agua and the Sierra del Viento, in the region of the North Mountains of Seville, but it is more likely to be a mixture of Arabic Wad and Spanish del Canal. Other names were Tereses or Tereja or Canani with the Iberians and it was reconquered by the Order of Santiago in 1241 from the Moors, then Guadalcanal belonged to the Leóns province as well as other parts of Extremadura. In the ecclesiastical matter, it belonged to the Santa María de Tendudia vicary, Guadalcanal was fortified by means of a now-ruined wall which was demolished because the village took part in the Guerra de las Comunidades de Castilla. In the mid-16th century, the area had some silver mines financed by the Fugger family, the village suffered a crisis in the 19th century, which caused the four nunneries in the village to close. As other rural communities in Spain, it faced an exodus of its inhabitants to the cities in the 20th century. Página web del pintor Fernando Díaz Mirón Mirador La Capitana en el término municipal de Guadalcanal Vídeos de Guadalcanal
11.
Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha
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Guadalajara is a city and municipality in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, Spain, and in the natural region of La Alcarria. It is the capital of the province of Guadalajara and it is located roughly 60 kilometres northeast of Madrid on the Henares River, and has a population of 84,803. A Roman town called Arriaca, possibly founded by a culture, is known to have been located in that region. There is however no proof of its existence, only references in texts such as the Ruta Antonina. The city, as Caracca, was incorporated into the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis, the city was on the high road from Emerita to Caesaraugusta,22 M. P. northeast of Complutum. The town of Guadalajara was founded by the Andalusians in the 8th century and they named it Wādī-al-Ḥajāra, meaning Valley of Stones, in theory the literal translation of the Iberian name, meaning Stony River. The history of the town during the Al-Andalus period was significant and they built monuments including the Moorish Bridge over the Henares River, the now ruined old Alcázar, and a mosque which later became the former Cathedral of St. Mary. In 1085, Guadalajara was taken by the Christian forces of Alfonso VI, the chronicles say that the Christian army was led by Alvar Fanez de Minaya, one of the lieutenants of El Cid. From 1085 until the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the city suffered wars against the Almoravid, in 1219, the king Fernando III gave a new fuero to the city. During the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, the protection of the king allowed the city to develop its economy by protecting merchants, during the 14th century, the Mendoza family was prominent in Guadalajara. This family included Íñigo López de Mendoza, also known as Marqués de Santillana, the Mendoza family held the title of Dukes and Duchesses of El Infantado from 1475. In 1460, King Henry IV gave Guadalajara the title of City, Guadalajara was the birthplace of conquistador Nuño de Guzmán, who commissioned in 1542 the foundation of Guadalajara, Mexico. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Guadalajara was sacked, King Philip V ordered the establishment of the Real Fábrica de Paños which was situated in the Alcazar till the early 19th century. In this period, the Mendoza Family ordered the building of El Palacio del Infantado as their main residence and it was completed in the early 1480s and it is considered by many the oldest surviving building built in a pure Renaissance style outside Italy. The 19th century started with two setbacks, the damages caused by the Peninsular War and the closing of the Real Fábrica de Paños in 1822. In 1808, Guadalajara was taken by the French Army led by General Hugo, in 1840 Guadalajara was established as the capital of the province with the same name by the Plan de Burgos. The Academy of Military Engineers was brought to the city, Guadalajara was the scene of many actions during the Spanish Civil War. On 24 July 1936, during the phase after the revolt of 19 July
12.
Guadalquivir
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The Guadalquivir is the fifth longest river in the Iberian Peninsula and the second longest river with its entire length in Spain. The Guadalquivir river is the only navigable river in Spain. Currently it is navigable to Seville, but in Roman times it was navigable to Córdoba, the Guadalquivir is 657 km long and drains an area of about 58,000 km2. The marshy lowlands at the end are known as Las Marismas. The river borders Doñana National Park reserve, the modern name of Guadalquivir comes from the Arabic al-wādi al-kabīr, great valley. Classical Arabic Wadi is pronounced in present-day Maghrebi Arabic as Oued, there were a variety of names for the Guadalquivir in Classical and pre-Classical times. Baetis was its name to the Romans, and Greek geographers sometimes called it the river of Tartessus, before Phoenician, Greek, and Roman colonists arrived, two indigenous names for the river may have been Kertis/Certis and Rérkēs. The Phoenicians established the first anchorage grounds and dealt in precious metals, the ancient city of Tartessos was said to have been located at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, although its site has not yet been found. The Romans, whose name for the river was Betis Baetis, settled in Hispalis, in the 2nd century BC, by the 1st century BC Hispalis was a walled city with shipyards building longboats to carry wheat. In the 1st century AD the Hispalis was home to entire naval squadrons, ships sailed to Rome with various products, minerals, salt, fish, etc. During Arab rule between 712 and 1248, the Moors left a stone dock and the Torre del Oro, a reconstructed waterwheel is located at Córdoba on the Guadalquivir River. The Molino de la Albolafia waterwheel originally built by the Romans provided water for the nearby Alcázar gardens as well as being used to mill flour. After the discovery of the Americas, Seville became the centre of the Spanish Empire as its port monopolised the trans-oceanic trade. As navigation of the Guadalquivir River became increasingly difficult Sevilles trade monopoly was transferred to Cádiz, the construction of the artificial canal known as the Corta de Merlina in 1794 marked the beginning of the modernisation of the port of Seville. In late November 2010 the new Seville lock began to function as a regulator of the tides after five years of work, the Guadalquivir River Basin occupies an area of 63,085 km2 and has a long history of severe flooding. During the winter of 2010 heavy rainfall caused flooding in rural and agricultural areas in the provinces of Seville, Córdoba. The accumulated rainfall in the month of February was above 250 mm and this was below that recorded in Seville in the flood of 1963 when a volume of 6,000 m3/s. was reached. During August 2010 when flooding occurred in Jaén, Córdoba and Seville, the Doñana disaster, also known as the Aznalcóllar Disaster or Guadiamar Disaster was an industrial accident in Andalusia
13.
Alluvial fan
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An alluvial fan is a fan- or cone-shaped deposit of sediment crossed and built up by streams. If a fan is built up by debris flows it is called a debris cone or colluvial fan. These flows come from a point source at the apex of the fan. Fans are typically found where a canyon draining from mountainous terrain emerges out onto a flatter plain, a convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is called a bajada, or compound alluvial fan. As a streams gradient decreases, it drops coarse-grained material and this reduces the capacity of the channel and forces it to change direction and gradually build up a slightly mounded or shallow conical fan shape. The deposits are poorly sorted. There will be iso-transport energy lines forming concentric arcs about the point at the apex of the fan. Thus the material will tend to be deposited equally about these lines, Alluvial fans are often found in desert areas subject to periodic flash floods from nearby thunderstorms in local hills. The typical watercourse in an arid climate has a large, funnel-shaped basin at the top, leading to a narrow defile, multiple braided streams are usually present and active during water flows. Phreatophytes are plants that are concentrated at the base of alluvial fans. They have long tap roots 30 to 50 feet to water that has seeped through the fan and hit an impermeable layer, sometimes collecting in springs. These stands of shrubs cling to the soil at their bases, Alluvial fans also develop in wetter climates. Along the upper Koshi tributaries, tectonic forces elevate the Himalayas several millimeters annually, uplift is approximately in equilibrium with erosion, so the river annually carries some 100 million cubic meters of sediment as it exits the mountains. Deposition of this magnitude over millions of years is more than sufficient to account for the megafan, despite overpopulation on the plains, this bhabar zone is highly malarial and has remained largely uninhabited. In North America, streams flowing into Californias Central Valley have deposited smaller, such as that of the Kings River flowing out of the Sierra Nevada creates a low divide, turning the south end of the San Joaquin Valley into an endorheic basin without a connection to the ocean. Alluvial fans are subject to flooding and can be more dangerous than the upstream canyons that feed them. Their slightly convex perpendicular surfaces cause water to spread widely until there is no zone of refuge, if the gradient is steep, active transport of materials down the fan creates a moving substrate that is inhospitable to travel on foot or wheels. But as the gradient diminishes downslope, water comes down from above faster than it can flow away downstream, in the case of the Koshi River, the huge sediment load and megafans slightly convex transverse surface conspire against engineering efforts to contain peak flows inside manmade embankments
14.
Sabkha
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Sabkha is a phonetic translation of the Arabic word for a salt flat. Sabkhas are supratidal, forming along coastlines and are characterized by evaporite-carbonate deposits with some siliciclastics. Sabkhas form subaerial, prograding and shoaling-upward sequences that have a thickness of a meter or less. The accepted type locality is along the coast of the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates, the origin and progression of sabkha development in the Persian Gulf is discussed by Al-Farraj. In the khor-lagoon-sabkha model, a rise in sea-level floods coastal areas. If the features silt up, or the land rises, or the sea level falls, then the water evaporates, leaving a flat salt pan. If the coastal region has irregular topography, then the flooding creates large independent creeks, a khor is a shallow, subtidal flat or tidal inlet. The inlet may host grey mangroves, depending on whether less saline water is available from wadis or groundwater, as sediment begins to accumulate, the khors become more shallow and form a lagoon, or intertidal flat. The lagoons continue to fill until the floor is exposed at low tide. An immature sabkha will be inundated during higher than normal spring tides, after rainstorms, mature sabkhas are only flooded after heavy rainstorms and may eventually coalesce to form a sabkha coastal plain. These coastal plains are flat, with reliefs between 10–50 cm, and their seaward slope can be as little as 1,1,000. The flatness of a sabkha is enhanced by aeolian siliciclastic dust being deposited in the topographic lows with most of the caused by evaporites. These environments can be found laterally contemporaneous in parallel belts to the coast as well, coral reefs, barrier islands, and oolite shoals form the barrier with the open shelf. Inland of this are the supratidal sabkhas, the sabkhas can be as wide as 15 km when seaward of dune fields supplying large amounts of sediment. Sabkhas seaward of low outcrops of Miocene carbonate-evaporites or alluvial fans off the Oman fold, if the coast has dune fields, then flooding creates many smaller pools between the crests of the dunes. In some parts of the world, these lakes can form in inland deserts. For example, large parts of the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, in some places, the sabkha connect to form long accessible corridors into the desert. The third picture shows the south of the crescent-shaped Liwa Oasis in the southern UAE
15.
Dry lake
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A dry lake is an ephemeral lakebed, or a remnant of an endorheic lake. Such flats consist of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts, alternative names for the dry lake include alkali flat, alkali sink and playa. A playa lake may cover an area, but it is never deep. Most water in it evaporates, leaving a layer of salt on the surface and these salt covered stretches are called saltpans. The surface of a dry lake is dry, hard and rough during the dry season. Dry lakes are small, round depressions in the surface of the landscape. If its basin is primarily salt, then a dry lake is called a salt pan, pan, hardpan, another dry lake type is the mudflat. Hardpan is the dry terminus of an internally drained basin in a dry climate, the Spanish word playa literally means beach. Dry lakes are known by name in some parts of Mexico. This term is used on the Llano Estacado and other parts of the Southern High Plains. In South America, the term for a dry lake is salar or salina. Pan is the used in most of South Africa. These may include the small round pans, typical of the Chrissiesmeer area, to the extensive pans of the Northern Cape province. It is also used in Australia, distinguished are salt pans and clay pans. In Arabic, a flat is called a sabkha or shott. In Central Asia, a similar cracked mud salt flat is known as a takyr, in Iran salt flats are called kavir. A playa lake is formed when water from rain or other sources, like intersection with a table, flows into a dry depression in the landscape. If the total annual evaporation rate exceeds the annual inflow
16.
Flash flood
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A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas, washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a thunderstorm, hurricane, tropical storm. Flash floods may occur after the collapse of an ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam. Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by a timescale of less than six hours, the water that is temporarily available is often used by foliage with rapid germination and short growth cycles, and by specially adapted animal life. Flash floods can occur under several types of conditions, Flash flooding occurs when it rains rapidly on saturated soil or dry soil that has poor absorption ability. The runoff collects in gullies and streams and, as they join to form larger volumes, often forms a fast flowing front of water, in areas on or near volcanoes, flash floods have also occurred after eruptions, when glaciers have been melted by the intense heat. Flash floods are known to occur in the highest mountain ranges of the United States and are common in the arid plains of the Southwestern United States. Flash flooding can also be caused by extensive rainfall released by hurricanes and other tropical storms, human activities can also cause flash floods to occur. When dams fail, a quantity of water can be released. Many people tend to underestimate the dangers of flash floods, what makes flash floods most dangerous is their sudden nature and fast-moving water. A vehicle provides little to no protection against being swept away, it may make people overconfident, more than half of the fatalities attributed to flash floods are people swept away in vehicles when trying to cross flooded intersections. As little as 2 feet of water is enough to carry away most SUV-sized vehicles. The U. S. National Weather Service reported in 2005 that, using a national 30-year average, more people die yearly in floods,127 on average, than by lightning, tornadoes, in deserts, flash floods can be particularly deadly for several reasons. First, storms in arid regions are infrequent, but they can deliver an enormous amount of water in a short time. Second, these rains often fall on poorly absorbent and often clay-like soil, in fact, in some areas, desert roads frequently cross dry river and creek beds without bridges. From the drivers perspective, there may be clear weather, when a river unexpectedly forms ahead of or around the vehicle in a matter of seconds. Finally, the lack of rain to clear water channels may cause flash floods in deserts to be headed by large amounts of debris, such as rocks, branches. 1889, Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania, U. S. more than 2,200 people dead 1903, Heppner Flood of 1903, Oregon, United States,247 dead, 25% of the city 1938, Los Angeles Flood of 1938, California, U. S. S
17.
Loess
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Loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. It covers about 10% of the Earths surface and it is usually homogeneous and highly porous and is traversed by vertical capillaries that permit the sediment to fracture and form vertical bluffs. It was first applied to Rhine River valley loess about 1821, Loess is homogeneous, porous, friable, pale yellow or buff, slightly coherent, typically non-stratified and often calcareous. Loess grains are angular with little polishing or rounding and composed of crystals of quartz, feldspar, mica, Loess can be described as a rich, dust-like soil. Loess deposits may become thick, more than a hundred meters in areas of China. It generally occurs as a deposit that covers areas of hundreds of square kilometers. Loess often stands in either steep or vertical faces, because the grains are angular, loess will often stand in banks for many years without slumping. This soil has a characteristic called vertical cleavage which makes it easily excavated to form cave dwellings, in several areas of the world, loess ridges have formed that are aligned with the prevailing winds during the last glacial maximum. These are called paha ridges in America and greda ridges in Europe, the form of these loess dunes has been explained by a combination of wind and tundra conditions. Loess comes from the German Löss or Löß, and ultimately from Alemannic lösch meaning loose as named by peasants, the term Löß was first described in Central Europe by Karl Cäsar von Leonhard who reported yellowish brown, silty deposits along the Rhine valley near Heidelberg. Charles Lyell brought this term into usage by observing similarities between loess and loess derivatives along the loess bluffs in the Rhine and Mississippi. At that time it was thought that the yellowish brown silt-rich sediment was of fluvial origin being deposited by the large rivers. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the origin of loess was recognized. A tremendous number of papers have been published since then, focusing on the formation of loess and on loess/palaeosol sequences as archives of climate and these water conservation works were carried out extensively in China and the research of Loess in China has been continued since 1954. Much effort was put into the setting up of regional and local loess stratigraphies, and Frechen, Horváth & Gábris for the Austrian and Hungarian loess stratigraphy, respectively. During the autumn and winter, when melting of the icesheets and icecaps ceased, as a consequence, large parts of the formerly submerged and unvegetated floodplains of these braided rivers dried out and were exposed to the wind. Because these floodplains consist of sediment containing a high content of glacially ground flour-like silt and clay, they were susceptible to winnowing of their silts. Once entrained by the wind, particles were then deposited downwind, the loess deposits found along both sides of the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley are a classic example of periglacial loess
18.
Clastic rock
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Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus, chunks and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks by physical weathering. Geologists use the term clastic with reference to sedimentary rocks as well as to particles in sediment transport whether in suspension or as bed load, clastic sedimentary rocks are rocks composed predominantly of broken pieces or clasts of older weathered and eroded rocks. Clastic sediments or sedimentary rocks are classified based on size, clast and cementing material composition. The classification factors are often useful in determining a samples environment of deposition, an example clastic environment would be a river system in which the full range of grains being transported by the moving water consist of pieces eroded from solid rock upstream. Grain size varies from clay in shales and claystones, through silt in siltstones, sand in sandstones, the Krumbein phi scale numerically orders these terms in a logarithmic size scale. Siliciclastic rocks are clastic rocks that are composed almost exclusively of silicon. The composition of sedimentary rocks includes the chemical and mineralogical components of the framework as well as the cementing material that make up these rocks. Boggs divides them into four categories, major minerals, accessory minerals, rock fragments, major minerals can be categorized into subdivisions based on their resistance to chemical decomposition. Those that possess a great resistance to decomposition are categorized as stable, while those that do not are considered less stable, the most common stable mineral in siliciclastic sedimentary rocks is quartz. Quartz makes up approximately 65 percent of framework grains present in sandstones, less stable minerals present in this type of rocks are feldspars, including both potassium and plagioclase feldspars. Feldspars comprise a considerably lesser portion of framework grains and minerals and they only make up about 15 percent of framework grains in sandstones and 5% of minerals in shales. Clay mineral groups are present in mudrocks but can be found in other siliciclastic sedimentary rocks at considerably lower levels. Accessory minerals are associated with those whose presence in the rock are not directly important to the classification of the specimen and these generally occur in smaller amounts in comparison to the quartz, and feldspars. Furthermore, those that do occur are generally heavy minerals or coarse grained micas, rock fragments also occur in the composition of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks and are responsible for about 10 -15 percent of the composition of sandstone. They generally make up most of the gravel size particles in conglomerates, though they sometimes are, rock fragments are not always sedimentary in origin. They can also be metamorphic or igneous, chemical cements vary in abundance but are predominantly found in sandstones. The two major types, are based and carbonate based
19.
Carboniferous Limestone
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These rocks formed between 363 and 325 million years ago. Within England and Wales, the entire limestone succession, which includes subordinate mudstones, within Great Britain the suite of rocks known traditionally as the Carboniferous Limestone Series was deposited as marine sediments in three distinct ‘provinces’ separated by contemporary landmasses. One of these landmasses was the Wales-London-Brabant Massif, an east-west aligned belt of land stretching through central Wales and these rocks continue eastwards at depth beneath Oxfordshire. It is characterised by the presence of numerous ‘blocks’ and ‘basins’ each with its own particular depositional style, to the north of the Southern Uplands are the limestones of the Scottish Midland Valley stretching from Ayrshire and Arran in the west to Fife, Lothian and Berwickshire in the east. Though of Carboniferous age, the limestones of this Scottish province are not assigned to the Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup, the Carboniferous Limestone is widespread throughout Ireland. The Carboniferous Limestone is a significant landscape-forming rock unit in each of the provinces of Great Britain within which it is found. It forms prominent headlands such as those of Stackpole Head and Lydstep Point and it is here referred to as the ‘north crop’ as distinct from a sub-parallel outcrop, the ‘south crop’ which defines the southern rim of the South Wales Coalfield. The outcrop continues through Ystradfellte to Pontneddfechan, Penderyn and Pontsticill and it then runs near the southern margin of the national park via Trefil and the Llangattock escarpment to Blorenge where it turns southwards. A very narrow ‘east crop’ and ‘south crop’ run by Cwmbran and it turns west again to meet Swansea Bay at Porthcawl. West of the bay, the forms the renowned southern coast of Gower between Mumbles Head and Worms Head. There are further occurrences in the Vale of Glamorgan, both inland and on the coast, an important outlier is that of the Forest of Dean basin which forms the cliffs of the Wye Valley, straddling the England/Wales border and extends southwestwards through Chepstow to Undy. The larger part of the Mendip Hills are formed from Carboniferous Limestone, showing notable geomorphological features, including Cheddar Gorge, Burrington Combe, the Avon Gorge west of Bristol and the coastal cliffs at Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare are cut in this rock. The limestone islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm are prominent in views across the mouth of the Severn Estuary, there are limited outcrops on the Isle of Man and more extensive ones in Anglesey notably along the Menai Strait, around Benllech and towards Puffin Island. The Carboniferous Limestone belt extends eastwards to from the Great Orme at Llandudno, the neighbouring Little Orme, there are a few outcrops in Shropshire such as Titterstone Clee Hill and at Little Wenlock. The White Peak is named for the limestone which characterises the heart of the Peak District and through deep gorges have been cut by rivers such as the Wye, Dove. The limestone is concealed beneath younger rocks to the east and west, to the north the limestone is exposed once again in east Lancashire and in the Yorkshire Dales. An outcrop extends from Kirkby Stephen along the side of the Vale of Eden. North again, it is a major landscape forming feature in the North Pennines, there are scattered outcrops along the north coast of the Solway Firth
20.
Canyon
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A canyon or gorge is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve out such splits between mountains, examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite National Park in Californias Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on one side are called box canyons. Slot canyons are very narrow canyons, often with smooth walls, steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope underwater are referred to as submarine canyons. Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents, the word canyon is Spanish in origin, with the same meaning. The word canyon is used in North America while the words gorge and ravine are used in Europe and Oceania, though gorge. In the United States, place names generally use canyon in the southwest and gorge in the northeast, in Canada, a gorge is usually narrow while a ravine is more open and often wooded. The military-derived word defile is occasionally used in the United Kingdom, most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau or table-land level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion, Canyons are much more common in arid than in wet areas because physical weathering has a more localized effect in arid zones. The wind and water from the combine to erode and cut away less resistant materials such as shales. The freezing and expansion of water also serves to help form canyons, water seeps into cracks between the rocks and freezes, pushing the rocks apart and eventually causing large chunks to break off the canyon walls, in a process known as frost wedging. Canyon walls are formed of resistant sandstones or granite. Sometimes large rivers run through canyons as the result of geological uplift. These are called entrenched rivers, because they are unable to alter their course. In the United States, the Colorado River in the Southwest, Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. As limestone is soluble to an extent, cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse, a canyon is left, as in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire, England
21.
Arroyo (creek)
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An arroyo, also called a wash, is a dry creek, stream bed or gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Flash floods are common in arroyos following thunderstorms, in Latin America any small river might be called an arroyo, even if it flows continually all year and is never dry. The Arabic terms rambla or wadi are used in North Africa, arroyos provide a water source to desert animals. The desert dry wash biome is restricted to the arroyos of the southwestern United States, arroyos can be natural fluvial landforms or constructed flood control channels. The term usually applies to a sloped or mountainous terrain in xeric, flash flooding can cause the deep arroyos or deposition of sediment on flooded lands. This can lower the level of the surrounding area, making it unsuitable for agriculture. However a shallow water table lowered in desert arroyo valleys can reduce saline seeping and alkali deposits in the topsoil, research has been conducted in the hydrological modeling relative to arroyos. Natural arroyos are made through the known as arroyo-cutting. This occurs in regions such as New Mexico, where heavy rains can lead to enlargement of rivers cutting into surrounding rock creating ravines which are dry under normal weather conditions. It is argued, however, whether these excessively stormy periods are the cause of arroyo-cutting as other factors such as long-term climate changes must also be taken into account. Arroyo cutting which occurred in the 1900s in the southwestern United States caused serious farming issues such as a water table. In agriculture areas in climates needing irrigation, farmers relied on small constructed arroyos, acequias, zanjas or aqueduct channels. An example of larger constructed arroyos is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, there are several miles of open-air concrete lined drainage channels that drain an area into the main North Diversion Channel, a tributary of the Rio Grande joining upstream of Albuquerque. After the San Juan Project Water Treatment Plant here, the Rio Grandes flow exceeding that needed for the silvery minnow habitat is available for municipal water supply diversion. Signs are posted at the constructed arroyos warning to keep out due to danger of flash flooding, the Arroyo Seco and Los Angeles River are more famous examples in Southern California of former natural arroyo seasonal watercourses that became constructed open drainage system arroyos
22.
Sahara
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The Sahara is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its area of 9,200,000 square kilometres is comparable to the area of the United States. The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of tropical savanna around the Niger River valley. The Sahara can be divided into several regions including, the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, the name Sahara is derived from ṣaḥārā, the plural of the Arabic word for desert. The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and it covers 9 million square kilometres, amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with an annual precipitation of less than 250 mm were included. It is one of three physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division. The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada, Ergs form only a minor part, wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features, sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains, dry valleys, dry lakes, and salt flats. Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania, several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad. The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation, the northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are subdivisions of the great desert, Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years, the northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, the southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha, or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. The Sahara is the worlds largest low-latitude hot desert and this steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere
23.
Transhumance
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Transhumance is a type of nomadism or pastoralism, a seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions, it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower valleys in winter, herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Generally only the travel, with a certain number of people necessary to tend them. In contrast, horizontal transhumance is more susceptible to being disrupted by climatic, economic or political change, traditional or fixed transhumance occurs or has occurred throughout the inhabited world, particularly Europe and western Asia. It is often of importance to pastoralist societies, as the dairy products of transhumance flocks. In many languages there are words for the summer pastures. The term transhumance is also used in correlation with nomadic pastoralism – the regular migration of people. The word transhumance comes from French and derives from the Latin words trans across, transhumance developed on every inhabited continent. Although there are cultural and technological variations, the underlying practices for taking advantage of remote seasonal pastures are similar. Transhumance is a form of pastoralism or nomadism, in the Balkans, the Sarakatsani, Aromanian and Yörük peoples traditionally spent summer months in the mountains and returned to lower plains in the winter. When the area was part of the Austro-Hungary and Ottoman empires, in summer, some groups went as far north as the Balkan Mountains, and they would spend the winter on warmer plains in the vicinity of the Aegean Sea. The Morlach were a population of Vlach shepherds who lived in the Dinaric Alps, but as national states appeared in the area of the former Ottoman Empire, new state borders were developed that divided the summer and winter habitats of many of the pastoral groups. These prevented easy movement across borders, particularly at times of war, in most parts of Wales, farm workers and sometimes the farmer would spend the summer months at a hillside summer house, or hafod, where the livestock would graze. During the late autumn the farm family and workers would drive the flocks down to the valleys, both Hafod and Hendref survive in Wales as place names and house names. Today, cattle and sheep that summer on many farms are still transported to lowland winter pastures. In many hilly and mountainous areas of Scotland, agricultural workers spent summer months in bothies or shielings, major drovers roads in the eastern part of Scotland include the Cairnamounth, Elsick Mounth and Causey Mounth. This practice has died out, but was practised within living memory in the Hebridean Islands. Today much transhumance is carried out by truck, with upland flocks being transported under agistment to lower-lying pasture during winter, in southern England, where the climate is mild and the hills low, transhumance historically took the opposite form to more mountainous areas
24.
Velocity
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The velocity of an object is the rate of change of its position with respect to a frame of reference, and is a function of time. Velocity is equivalent to a specification of its speed and direction of motion, Velocity is an important concept in kinematics, the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of bodies. Velocity is a vector quantity, both magnitude and direction are needed to define it. The scalar absolute value of velocity is called speed, being a coherent derived unit whose quantity is measured in the SI system as metres per second or as the SI base unit of. For example,5 metres per second is a scalar, whereas 5 metres per second east is a vector, if there is a change in speed, direction or both, then the object has a changing velocity and is said to be undergoing an acceleration. To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed in a constant direction, constant direction constrains the object to motion in a straight path thus, a constant velocity means motion in a straight line at a constant speed. For example, a car moving at a constant 20 kilometres per hour in a path has a constant speed. Hence, the car is considered to be undergoing an acceleration, Speed describes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity gives both how fast and in what direction the object is moving. If a car is said to travel at 60 km/h, its speed has been specified, however, if the car is said to move at 60 km/h to the north, its velocity has now been specified. The big difference can be noticed when we consider movement around a circle and this is because the average velocity is calculated by only considering the displacement between the starting and the end points while the average speed considers only the total distance traveled. Velocity is defined as the rate of change of position with respect to time, average velocity can be calculated as, v ¯ = Δ x Δ t. The average velocity is less than or equal to the average speed of an object. This can be seen by realizing that while distance is always strictly increasing, from this derivative equation, in the one-dimensional case it can be seen that the area under a velocity vs. time is the displacement, x. In calculus terms, the integral of the velocity v is the displacement function x. In the figure, this corresponds to the area under the curve labeled s. Since the derivative of the position with respect to time gives the change in position divided by the change in time, although velocity is defined as the rate of change of position, it is often common to start with an expression for an objects acceleration. As seen by the three green tangent lines in the figure, an objects instantaneous acceleration at a point in time is the slope of the tangent to the curve of a v graph at that point. In other words, acceleration is defined as the derivative of velocity with respect to time, from there, we can obtain an expression for velocity as the area under an a acceleration vs. time graph
25.
Eolianite
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Eolianite or aeolianite is any rock formed by the lithification of sediment deposited by aeolian processes, that is, the wind. It is also known as kurkar in the Middle East, miliolite in India and Arabia, eolianite occurs in many parts of the world. It occurs most extensively between the latitudes of 20° and 40° in both hemispheres, with little nearer the equator, and virtually no deposits nearer the poles. There is no apparent difference in distribution between the hemispheres, but if the extent and thickness of deposits are taken into account, on the west coast, there are over 800 kilometres of eolianite cliffs, which are over 150 metres thick in some places. These cliffs, locally known as the Tamala Limestone Formation, contain layers of dune origin interspersed with layers of shallow-marine origin. Other substantial deposits occur in Bermuda, the Bahamas, the southern and eastern coasts of South Africa, the Mediterranean, India, and oceanic islands of the Pacific, Atlantic, Sedimentary rock Facies Sedimentary depositional environment Brooke, Brendan
26.
Wadi Bani Khalid
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Wadi Bani Khalid is a wadi about 203 km from Muscat, Oman. It is the best-known wadi of the Sharqiyah region and its stream maintains a constant flow of water throughout the year. Large pools of water and boulders are scattered along the course of the wadi, as a geographical area, Wadi Bani Khalid covers a large swathe of low land and mountains. Caves form some of the features of this wadi. These include Kahf Maqal which is one of the Sultanates underground chambers, however, reaching this cave takes a lot of effort and visitors should be prepared for the adventure. Springs of water are common in this wadi. The springs of Ain Hamouda, Ain al Sarooj and Ain Dawwa, the village of Badaa is a well-known tourist stop in the valley. Media related to Wadi Bani Khalid at Wikimedia Commons
27.
Arabian Peninsula
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The Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia and it is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km2. The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, it was divided into four regions, Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia, Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman. Eastern Arabia consists of the coastal strip of the Persian Gulf. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabian Peninsula into Jordan and southern Syria. The peninsulas constituent countries are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula. Six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council, however, this is a disputed term. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the live in Saudi Arabia. The peninsula contains the worlds largest reserves of oil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate - as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. The population tends to be young and heavily skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry, the four smallest states, which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the worlds most extreme population growth, roughly tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936. Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula and its two main subclades, show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East
28.
Negev
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The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The regions largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba, in the north, at its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin cities, including Rahat and Tel as-Sabi and Lakyah. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker, the origin of the word negev is from the Hebrew root denoting dry. In the Bible, the word Negev is also used for the direction south, during the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district. The Negev covers more than half of Israel, over some 13,000 km² or at least 55% of the land area. It forms a triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features, among the latter are three enormous, craterlike makhteshim, which are unique to the region, Makhtesh Ramon, Makhtesh Gadol, and Makhtesh Katan. The Negev is a rocky desert and it is a melange of brown, rocky, dusty mountains interrupted by wadis and deep craters. It can be split into five different ecological regions, northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau, the northern Negev, or Mediterranean zone, receives 300 mm of rain annually and has fairly fertile soils. The western Negev receives 250 mm of rain per year, with light, sand dunes can reach heights of up to 30 metres here. The high plateau area of Ramat HaNegev stands between 370 metres and 520 metres above sea level with temperatures in summer and winter. The area gets 100 mm of rain per year, with inferior, the Arabah Valley along the Jordanian border stretches 180 km from Eilat in the south to the tip of the Dead Sea in the north. The Arabah Valley is very arid with barely 50 mm of rain annually and it has inferior soils in which little can grow without irrigation and special soil additives. Vegetation in the Negev is sparse, but certain trees and plants there, among them Acacia, Pistacia, Retama, Urginea maritima. A small population of Arabian leopards, an animal in the Arabian peninsula. The Negev Tortoise is a endangered species that currently lives only in the sands of the western. The Negev shrew is a species of mammal of the family Soricidae found only in Israel, hyphaene thebaica or doum palm can be found in the Southern Negev
29.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
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Morocco
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Morocco, officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco, is a sovereign country located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Geographically, Morocco is characterized by a mountainous interior, large tracts of desert. Morocco has a population of over 33.8 million and an area of 446,550 km2 and its capital is Rabat, and the largest city is Casablanca. Other major cities include Marrakesh, Tangier, Tetouan, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, a historically prominent regional power, Morocco has a history of independence not shared by its neighbours. Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, the Alaouite dynasty, the current ruling dynasty, seized power in 1666. In 1912 Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with a zone in Tangier. Moroccan culture is a blend of Arab, indigenous Berber, Sub-Saharan African, Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, leading to a war with indigenous forces until a cease-fire in 1991. Peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy, the king can issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. He can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister, Moroccos predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight. The Moroccan dialect, referred to as Darija, and French are also widely spoken, Morocco is a member of the Arab League, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the African Union. It has the fifth largest economy of Africa, the full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah translates to Kingdom of the West, although the West in Arabic is الغرب Al-Gharb. The basis of Moroccos English name is Marrakesh, its capital under the Almoravid dynasty, the origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed, but is most likely from the Berber words amur akush or Land of God. The modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc, in Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish Marruecos, the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the Iberomaurusian Mechta-Afalou burials and European Cro-Magnon remains, the Iberomaurusian was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco
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Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
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Desert pavement
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A desert pavement, also called reg, serir, gibber, or saï is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and cobble size. Desert varnish collects on the surface rocks over time. Geologists debate the mechanics of pavement formation and their age, several theories have been proposed for the formation of desert pavements. A common theory suggests they form through the removal of sand, dust and other fine-grained material by the wind and intermittent rain. The removal of particles by wind does not continue indefinitely, because once the pavement forms. The small particles collect underneath the pavement surface, forming a vesicular A soil horizon, a newer theory of pavement formation comes from studies of places such as Cima Dome, in the Mojave Desert of California, by Stephen Wells and his coworkers. At Cima Dome, geologically recent lava flows are covered by younger layers, with desert pavement on top of them. The soil has built up, not blown away, yet the stones remain on top. There are no stones in the soil, not even gravel, researchers can determine how many years a stone has been exposed on the ground. Wells used a method based on cosmogenic helium-3, which forms by cosmic ray bombardment at the ground surface, helium-3 is retained inside grains of olivine and pyroxene in the lava flows, building up with exposure time. The helium-3 dates show that the stones in the desert pavement at Cima Dome have all been at the surface the same amount of time as the solid lava flows right next to them. He wrote in a July 1995 article in Geology, that he concluded, while the stones remain on the surface due to heave, deposition of windblown dust must build up the soil beneath that pavement. For the geologist, this means that some desert pavements preserve a long history of dust deposition beneath them. The dust is a record of ancient climate, just as it is on the sea floor. Desert pavement surfaces are coated with desert varnish, a dark brown. In the USA a famous example can be found on Newspaper Rock in southeastern Utah, Desert varnish is a thin coating of manganese, iron and clays on the surface of sun-baked boulders. It is formed by colonies of bacteria living on the surface for thousands of years. Desert varnish is also prevalent in the Mojave desert and Great Basin geomorphic province, stony deserts may be known by different names according to the region
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Coulee
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Coulee is applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word coulee comes from the Canadian French coulée, from the French word couler meaning to flow, the term is often used interchangeably in the Great Plains for any number of water features, from ponds to creeks. In southern Louisiana the word originally meant a gully or ravine usually dry or intermittent. As stream channels were dredged or canalized, the term was applied to perennial streams. The term is used for small ditches or canals in the swamp. The dry, braided channels formed by glacial drainage of the Scablands of eastern Washington, such as Grand Coulee, the furrowed moraines channeling rain runoff in the area east of the Coteau du Missouri in the western United States and western Canada at the base of the Rocky Mountains. In the western United States, tongue-like protrusions of solidified lava, in Wisconsin, it is applied to valleys. These valleys tend to have high, steep walls, hollow is used as a synonym, often for the smallest of such valleys. The term is applied to the greater La Crosse, Wisconsin metropolitan area. The Gassman Coulee Trestle supports commercial and Amtrak trains, SW of Minot ND, the coulee may have been a contributing factor to the flooding of the Souris River in June 2011. In some parts of Louisiana coulees are not concreted but rather sheer sided large ditches that collect smaller ditch runoff, aside from those formed by volcanic eruptions, they are commonly canyons characterized by steep walls that have been shaped by erosion. These types of coulees are generally found in the northwestern United States, in the American west, rapid melting of glaciers at the end of the last ice age caused catastrophic flooding which removed bedrock by massive down-cutting erosion, forming deep canyons. Some coulees may be dry or contain small streams, however these small streams do not have the magnitude of force necessary to form such expansive erosion. In Wisconsin, they are the product of nearly a million years of erosion. The loose rocks at the base of the wall form what are called scree slopes and these are formed when chunks of the canyon wall give way in a rockslide. Left alone, the valleys are often woodland, with the ridgetops transitioning into tallgrass prairie when not turned into pasture or used for row crops, coulees provide shelter from wind and concentrated water supplies to plants which would otherwise struggle to survive in the xeric sagebrush steppe. Trees are often found in habitats along streams in coulees
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Gully
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A gully is a landform created by running water, eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in depth and width, when the gully formation is in process, the water flow rate can be substantial, causing a significant deep cutting action into soil. The earliest known usage of the term is from 1657 and it originates from the French word goulet, a diminutive form of goule which means throat. It is possible that the term was derived from a type of knife at the time, gullying or gully erosion is the process by which gullies are formed. Hillsides are more prone to gullying when they are cleared of vegetation, through deforestation, the eroded soil is easily carried by the flowing water after being dislodged from the ground, normally when rainfall falls during short, intense storms such as during thunderstorms. A gully may grow in length by means of erosion at a knick point. This erosion can result from interflow as well as surface runoff, gullies reduce the productivity of farmland where they incise into the land, and produce sediment that may clog downstream waterbodies. Because of this, much effort is invested into the study of gullies within the scope of geomorphology, in the prevention of gully erosion, the total soil loss from gully formation and subsequent downstream river sedimentation can be sizeable. Gullies can be formed or enlarged by a number of human activities, artificial gullies are formed during hydraulic mining when jets or streams of water are projected onto soft alluvial deposits to extract gold or tin ore. The remains of mining methods are very visible landform features in old goldfields such as in California. The badlands at Las Medulas for example, were created during the Roman period by hushing or hydraulic mining of the gold-rich alluvium with water supplied by numerous aqueducts tapping nearby rivers, each aqueduct produced large gullies below by erosion of the soft deposits. The effluvium was carefully washed with smaller streams of water to extract the nuggets, gullies are widespread at mid- to high latitudes on the surface of Mars, and are some of the youngest features observed on that planet, probably forming within the last few 100,000 years. Flow as springs from deeper seated liquid water aquifers in the subsurface is also a possible explanation for the formation of some Martian gullies. Arroyo Coulee Couloir Canyon Gulch Ravine Wadi Lavaka Badlands Rill Oxford English Dictionary
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Oasis
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In geography, an oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source, such as a pond or small lake. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even if the area is big enough. The location of oases has been of importance for trade and transportation routes in desert areas, caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water. Thus, political or military control of an oasis has in many cases meant control of trade on a particular route. For example, the oases of Awjila, Ghadames, and Kufra, oases are formed from underground rivers or aquifers such as an artesian aquifer, where water can reach the surface naturally by pressure or by man-made wells. Occasional brief thunderstorms provide subterranean water to sustain natural oases, such as the Tuat, substrata of impermeable rock and stone can trap water and retain it in pockets, or on long faulting subsurface ridges or volcanic dikes water can collect and percolate to the surface. Any incidence of water is used by migrating birds, which also pass seeds with their droppings which will grow at the waters edge forming an oasis. It can also be used to plant crops, the word oasis came into English via Latin, oasis from Ancient Greek, ὄασις óasis, which in turn is a direct borrowing from Demotic Egyptian. The word for oasis in the later attested Coptic language is wahe or ouahe which means a dwelling place, people who live in an oasis must manage land and water use carefully, fields must be irrigated to grow plants like apricots, dates, figs, and olives. The most important plant in an oasis is the date palm and these palm trees provide shade for smaller trees like peach trees, which form the middle layer. By growing plants in different layers, the farmers make best use of the soil, many vegetables are also grown and some cereals, such as barley, millet, and wheat, are grown where there is more moisture. Great Man-Made River – the worlds largest irrigation project, developed in Libya to connect cities with fossil water. Guelta Mirage Oasification Qanat Wadi Water supply référence, Jardins au désert |Battesti, Jardins au désert, Evolution des pratiques et savoirs oasiens, Jérid tunisien, Paris, Éditions IRD, coll. À travers champs,2005,440 p. ISBN 2-7099-1564-2 Open Archives, book in free access / in French The dictionary definition of oasis at Wiktionary
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Holiest sites in Islam
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There are numerous sites in Islam that are considered holiest to the religion. The cities of Mecca and Medina are home to the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca is considered the holiest city in Islam, as it is home to the Kaaba and Masjid al-Haram. Only Muslims are allowed to enter Mecca, as one of the Five Pillars of Islam, every adult Muslim who is capable must perform the Hajj - a pilgrimage to Mecca - at least once in their lifetime. This obligation is fulfilled if it is done on the eighth to twelfth day of the last month of the Islamic calendar. Hajj is one of the largest annual Muslim gatherings in the world, only second to pilgrimages to the shrine of Hussain in Karbala, Masjid an-Nabawi located in Medina is the second-holiest site in Islam, after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. It is the place of prophet Muhammad. Holiest sites in Sunni Islam Holiest sites in Shia Islam Holiest sites in Sufi Islam Peters, the Hajj, The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, the Five Pillars of Islam, Laying the Foundations of Divine Love and Service to Humanity. Health, Science, and Place, A New Model, the encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a political, social, and military history
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Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
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UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
