Earth Archives -

Fascinating Natural Phenomenon – The curious world we live in!

The world around us is full of awe-inspiring and seemingly magical phenomenon. From stones sailing on dried mud to flowers blooming in the middle of a desert, there are many such fascinating occurrences that baffle our mind and compel us to take notice. Here are a few of such phenomenon from different parts of the world:

Flowering desert – Every few years, the barren desert of Atacama in Chile is bathed in the most beautiful colors of pink, purple and white amongst others when flowers bloom here. It happens due to a climatic process when unusually high rainfall leads to the water reaching the seeds and bulbs otherwise latent or dormant. This takes place between September and November.

The Atacama Desert in full bloom Image Credits: Wikipedia.org — The Atacama Desert in full bloom
Image Credits: Wikipedia.org

Pororoca – Literally meaning ‘Great Roar’, Pororoca is a tidal bore that travels as far as 500 miles inland upstream on the Amazon River. It occurs when the tides of the Atlantic Ocean meet these roaring waves at the mouth of the Amazon River. These waves, that get as high as 4meters, are getting increasingly popular with surfers. The best time to witness this phenomenon is February and March.

Roaring Pororoca Image Credits: Wikipedia.org — Roaring Pororoca
Image Credits: Wikipedia.org

Antarctica – Things to know

Older than you know! – Research shows that Antarctica has existed for over 200 million years! Back all those aeons ago, it was joined with Australia, Africa, South America, India and New Zealand, in the supercontinent Gondwana. Then around 40 million years ago, it made its final disengagement from the Australian continent, settled into its present polar position, and began to cool dramatically.
Watch this amazing video to know what life’s like on the coldest place on the planet!
Cloud Filled Mountains of the Neuymayer Channel in Antarctica
A bit of history – Antarctica was discovered in 1820 by a Russian team but it took almost 100 years before further serious expeditions were undertaken. In the 1890s, John George Bartholomew, a Scottish cartographer, became the first person to formally use “Antarctica” as a name for the continent. Translated literally, Antarctica means “opposite the bear” (from the Great Bear, or Ursa Major, above the North Pole) or “opposite to the Arctic”.
Coldest place on the planet – Antarctica is the world’s highest, driest and coldest continent, with an annual mean temperature of -55°C. It was at Russia’s Vostok Station, in Antarctica, that earth’s lowest ever temperature ever, -89.2°C, was recorded, on 21^st July, 1983.
Ice Ice baby –
The ice sheet in Antarctica is 4,776 metres deep at its thickest point, with an average thickness of 2,160 metres. This is 90 percent of the world’s entire ice, and 70 percent of the world’s total freshwater. There is about eight times as much ice in Antarctica as there is in the Arctic. If all this ice were to melt (let’s hope for everyone’s sake that it doesn’t!), ocean levels across the world would rise by 200-210 feet.

Ice Shelf

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