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Trivia ~ Nature
~ Geology ~
Where are the tallest sand dunes in North America?
In the southern Colorado Rocky Mountains, nestled in a desert valley lies a field of sand dunes, some of which are more than 700 feet tall (214 m). The dunes are sheltered by the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountains whose looming bulk funnels the wind, trapping vast amounts of desert sand.
Most of the sand in the valley was deposited there by the Rio Grande River, which flowed through it thousands of years ago before changing to its present course. Glaciers brought in some of the sand during the ice age. Because of the way the winds blow, the valley includes some of the world's finest examples of star dunes, which have ridges radiating in many directions from a central peak.
This spectacular natural wonder was designated a National Monument in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover and much of it became a National Wilderness in 1972.
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
The most powerful earthquake ever recorded happened on May 22, 1960 measuring a magnitude 9.5 on the Richter scale struck southern Chile. The largest recorded quake was part of a week of disasters caused by slipping of two plates of the Earth's crust against each other.
One of the side effects of the earthquake was a tsunami (ocean wave) that swept across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner and caused deaths as far away as Hawaii and Japan. Large areas of Chile subsided by hundreds of feet. Six dormant volcanoes erupted and two new ones were born.
Earthquakes like the 1960 Chile mega-quake are caused at places where one part of the Earth's crust slips below another. This kind of quake, which does not happen often, can involve a very large section of the crust. Such quakes are not limited to Chile; they can also occur near the Pacific Northwest of North America.
Of all the states in the United States, Maine has the largest ratio of forest to non-forest land. 89.8% of that state is classified as "wooded" by the US Forest Service. Next is New Hampshire at 88.1%, followed by West Virginia at 77.5%.
More than 3.5 million acres of Maine's forests are contained within a sprawling region called the North Maine Woods. The crown jewel of the area is the protected Allagash Wilderness Waterway, a national treasure that includes more than 2.5 million acres of pristine forest.
While not technically a wilderness area, the North Maine Woods is almost entirely rural. It is mostly privately owned, and there is a strong, coordinated effort by its landowners to restrict development in order to preserve the land's natural beauty and diverse ecosystems.
Just how dead is the Dead Sea?
It's pretty obvious that a real estate developer did not name this body of water between Jordan and Israel. Imagine trying to sell beachfront property with that moniker!
The Dead Sea is so called because of the high salt content of its waters. That spells instant death for fish that happen to wander in, as they occasionally do from the Jordan River. In fact it kills most animal and plant life--with the exception of tourists, who love the property of the salt water that makes it so easy to float on.
Bacteria survive in the Dead Sea, though, as do brine shrimp and a class of plants called halophytes that love salt water. So it's not entirely dead, although not exactly a wild and crazy place, either.
The HIGHEST point in Pennsylvania is LOWER than the lowest point in Colorado.
The two largest diamonds discovered in the United States came from Arkansas
While diamonds are usually considered the most precious of stones, a large, near flawless emerald is worth considerably more than a diamond of the same size.
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