The Amazon, reversed
The rise of the Andes reversed the direction of the Amazon River’s flow from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Category: Earth science
Extreme heat
The Danakil Depression in the Afar Triangle, Ethiopia, is the point where three tectonic plates diverge; has the highest average annual temperature on the planet; and Lucy, the Australopithecus fossil, was found there.
Exploding lake
On August 21, 1986, seventeen hundred people who lived around Lake Nyos in Cameroon suffocated overnight – victims of an extremely rare and silent natural disaster.
Blood rainbow
At dusk or dawn, you might someday see an all-red rainbow.
The long winter
In Norse mythology Fimbulwinter is the great winter immediately preceding Ragnarök. It may have been inspired by the horrifying real-life events of 536 CE.
Black diamond mystery
Where do black diamonds come from? We don’t actually know.
The darkness between rainbows
When a double rainbow happens there’s a dark shadow between the bows. This is Alexander’s band.
Fire birds
Several bird species have been implicated in the spread of wildfire in Australia.
Where the tides turn
How high does the high tide go? In the Bay of Fundy, Canada, the difference between high and low tides is more than 16 metres. But at several points in the world’s oceans, called the tidal nodes, the sea level doesn’t change at all.
Underground town
Many of the world’s opals come from a town where the houses are underground and the umbrellas are upside down.
Central Australian yacht club
Lake Eyre, in the middle of the Australian Outback, is only a lake when it floods. And when that happens, people like to sail yachts on it.
Blood rain
Oh great, it’s raining blood again! I hope it’s just rain dust from the desert and not intercontinental cloud algae.
Involuntary park
When a location is abandoned by humans, nature returns. Sci-fi author Bruce Sterling calls these feral landscapes involuntary parks.
Lying stones
In 1725 Professor Beringer of the University of Würzburg dug up some extraordinary fossils: they contained the name of God written in Hebrew. A book, a court case, and the ruining of several careers ensued.
Swamp fires
From 1996 onwards vast swathes of peat swamp in Borneo were cleared to make rice paddies. But then the swamp caught on fire.
Largest ocean current
How do you measure ocean flow? One sverdrup equals a million cubic metres of water per second. All of the world’s rivers emptying into the ocean is 1.2 sverdrups; the largest current in the world is more than a hundred times larger.
The Generalist Academy 