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Category: Earth science

By The Generalist Posted on July 10, 2022July 9, 2022

War hailstones

More than a thousand English soldiers were killed by hailstones during the Siege of Chartres in 1360.

Categories: Earth science, Europe, Medieval history, Military
By The Generalist Posted on June 17, 2022June 16, 2022

Small island alliance

For the last thirty-one years, an alliance of nearly forty small island states have campaigned against global warming – because if it is not checked, some of them will be underwater.

Categories: 20th century history, 21st century history, Earth science, Oceania, Politics & law, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on June 15, 2022June 14, 2022

Lava balloons

Imagine glowing, hissing, steaming balls of floating rock up to three metres across emerging from the depths of the ocean – these are lava balloons.

Categories: Earth science, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on February 7, 2022February 5, 2022

Volcanic city

Auckland, New Zealand, is built on top of more than fifty volcanoes.

Categories: Earth science, Oceania
By The Generalist Posted on February 4, 2022February 3, 2022

Mythical Indian Ocean continent

Before we knew about plate tectonics, a zoologist proposed a lost continent connecting Madagascar and India across the Indian Ocean. That hypothesis, now debunked, was nevertheless picked up by Theosophists and Tamil revivalists.

Categories: 19th century history, Africa, Ancient history, Earth science, Literature, Religion & belief, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on December 29, 2021December 28, 2021

Temporary island

Pobeda Ice Island was first discovered in 1840. It was seen again in the 1910s, but was gone by the late 1920s. By the 1960s it was back, only to disappear again in the 1970s.

Categories: 20th century history, Earth science, Oceania, The poles
By The Generalist Posted on November 19, 2021November 18, 2021

Stalactite music

Within the Luray Caverns in Virginia, United States, is an electric organ made of stalactites. It literally makes rock music.

Categories: 20th century history, Earth science, Music, North & Central America, Prehistory
By The Generalist Posted on October 21, 2021October 20, 2021

The dead marsh

A stand of trees dead for six hundred years stick out of the Namib Desert in the claypan called the Deadvlei.

Categories: Africa, Earth science
By The Generalist Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021

Personal carbon footprint

The “personal carbon footprint” concept was popularised by an oil company advertising campaign to divert attention away from their own climate-unfriendly practices.

Categories: 21st century history, Earth science, Economics & business
By The Generalist Posted on July 30, 2021January 25, 2023

Climate crisis knitting

How do you visualise climate change simply and evocatively? Well, you could knit it.

Categories: 21st century history, Earth science, Fashion & design
By The Generalist Posted on July 29, 2021July 28, 2021

Shallowest sea

The Sea of Azov, between Ukraine and Russia, is never more than fourteen metres deep. Parts of the sea are shallow enough to wade across.

Categories: Earth science, Europe, North & Central Asia
By The Generalist Posted on July 19, 2021July 15, 2021

Doomsday Glacier

Thwaites Glacier, in West Antarctica, is roughly the size of Florida. This glacier alone contributes four percent of the global rise in sea levels, and if it melted completely oceans would be 65cm higher – hence its alternative name, the Doomsday Glacier.

Categories: Earth science, The poles
By The Generalist Posted on July 12, 2021January 25, 2023

The sound of hell

An urban legend from the late 1980s claimed that Soviet scientists had drilled so far down they hit hell – and brought back an audio recording of the suffering souls. But it was actually Baron Blood.

Categories: 20th century history, Earth science, Europe, North & Central America, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on June 25, 2021June 24, 2021

Largest caves

Gruta Casa de Pedra in Brazil has the largest cave mouth in the world – it is higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza. But the largest cave chamber in the world is larger still.

Categories: Earth science, East Asia, South America, Southeast Asia
By The Generalist Posted on June 18, 2021January 25, 2023

Orinoco flow

By discharge volume, the Amazon and the Orinoco are the largest and fourth largest rivers in the world. The Casiquiare River in Venezuela connects them.

Categories: Earth science, South America
By The Generalist Posted on June 3, 2021January 25, 2023

Farthest mountain

The summit of Chimborazo, a volcano in Ecuador, is two kilometres farther from the Earth’s centre than Mount Everest.

Categories: Earth science, Oceania, South America, Weights & measures

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