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Category The Earth

How Islands were invented?

An Island is born

Day after day, huge explosions filled the air. The ocean sizzled as hot rock and ash shot up from the sea floor. Soon, a large mound of dark, melted rock rose out of the water. Far out in the sea, a new volcano was born.

After it rose above the surface of the ocean, the new volcano was called an island. This island formed in the ocean near the southern coast of Iceland. It is called Surtsey. It is really an underwater volcano, and its bottom lies under the sea.

For four months, huge explosions sent steam and ash into the air. Steam sometimes rose as high as 6 kilometres. Then flaming hot lava began to flow. When it hit the cold water, the lava cooled and hardened, forming a cone-shaped mountain. The volcano erupted for about three and a half years.

Today, Surtsey covers an area of nearly 2.6 square kilometres. From a distance, the island appears to have no life on it. But scientists who visit it are finding insects and spiders there, as well as plants that started from seeds carried by birds, wind, and water.

Picture Credit : Google

Why do Mountains explode?

A volcano is a special kind of mountain that actually builds itself! It is made of red-hot rock that pushed up out of a crack in the earth.

A volcano begins deep inside the earth when the force of hot gas pushes melted rock up. With a loud, deep rumble, the ground begins to shake and burst open. Fiery hot rock can shoot into the air, and melted rock may flow out of the earth. With the volcano, there may be earthquakes and explosions. Huge clouds of smoke and ash may fill the air.

The melted rock is called magma. Magma that pours out onto the earth’s surface is called lava. Some lava is as thick as syrup, and some is as thin as soup.

As thin lava stops flowing and cools, it hardens into smooth sheets of rock. Thicker lava cools into rough, jagged sheets.

As more lava pours out of the earth, it falls on the cooled rock. As the ash and rock pile up, a new mountain forms. It forms a cone-shaped mountain with a deep tunnel down its middle.

Picture Credit : Google

Why mountains are there?

Some mountains are no more than steep hills covered with grass and trees. Others rise high into the atmosphere with snow-covered peaks. Often mountains stretch out in long chains called mountain ranges.

Mountains are formed over long periods by tremendous forces in the earth. These forces move parts of the earth’s crust in different ways, making different kinds of mountains.

Mountain ranges are important because they influence the climate and water flow of the land around them. How do they do this? Air cools as it reaches high altitudes. And cold air holds less water than warm air does. So as the warm air turns cooler near the tops of the mountains, it releases water in the form of rain or snow. This rain or snow feeds nearby rivers and streams. Mountains are also important as homes for plants and animals and as a source for minerals.

Scientists say the earth’s mountains are millions of years old. The youngest mountains have rugged, sharp peaks. Older mountains are smoother, with rounded tops. These older mountains have been worn down by wind and rain over millions of years.

But all mountains begin to wear away, or erode, even while they are rising. Rainfall washes away tiny pieces of rock. The wind carries away dust and earth.

Water seeps into cracks in the rock and freezes. Ice takes up more space than water, so it forces the cracks open. This happens over and over until rocks break off and fall down the mountainside. After millions and millions of years, all of these forces wear away the mountains.

There are five different kinds of mountains.

Fold Mountains form when sections of the earth’s crust meet head-on. This makes layers of rock in the crust crumple and fold. They often make wave-like patterns.

Fault-block Mountains form when earthquakes make the earth’s crust break into large blocks that are tilted or pushed out of place.

Dome Mountains form when forces inside the earth push the earth’s crust up into a huge bulge or dome.

Erosion Mountains form when rivers or glaciers flow over a high, flat area of rock. They wear it away to form peaks and valleys.

Volcanic Mountains form when molten rock from deep within the earth erupts. It pushes up through the earth and piles up on the surface.

Picture Credit : Google

Describe the plates of Earth?

The Earth’s Plates

It may seem that the earth’s crust is one gigantic piece of rock. But the outer shell of the earth is divided into about 30 large and small pieces that fit together like a puzzle. These pieces are called tectonic plates.

The plates move on a very hot layer of rock within the mantle. The plates move very slowly, only from 1.3 to 20 centimetres per year.

The continents sit on top of the plates. When the plates move, they take the continents with them. But the plates aren’t only under the continents. They are also under the ocean floor. They are under water on the continents, such as lakes and rivers, too.

Under land, the plates are about 100 kilometres thick in most places. In some places in the world’s oceans, they may be less than 8 kilometres thick.

As the plates move, the continents and oceans slowly change. Scientists think that in 50 million years, South America and Africa will be further apart. They think the Atlantic Ocean will be wider, and the Pacific Ocean will be smaller.

Picture Credit : Google

Who Studies the Earth?

Some of the world’s best detectives are the people who study the earth. They are called geologists.

Geologists help us learn about the earth’s resources and how to care for them. They tell us how to preserve these resources and to use them properly when we must. Some geologists study where to build homes, bridges, and dams safely. These scientists also work to protect people from earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters.

Geologists may be found chipping rocks on a mountainside or drilling on the ocean floor. Sometimes geologists work indoors. They X-ray rock samples, do research and tests on computers, or make maps of places they want to explore.

Geologists may travel all over the world. They search mountains, swamps, deserts, and the bottom of the ocean, so that we can learn more about the earth. They may tramp through rain forests, go underground into mines, or climb around an icy glacier.

Geologists and many other kinds of scientists uncover the secrets of the earth in different ways. Sometimes such scientists are called earth scientists.

Environmental geologists work to solve problems of pollution. They search for the best ways to get rid of hazardous waste – materials that are dangerous to our health.

Meteorologists study the weather and the air that surrounds the earth. They predict weather conditions.

Mining geologists study the earth’s rocks and ways to remove them.

Mineralogists identify and study the 3, 000 or so kinds of minerals found on the earth.

Petroleum geologists search for oil and natural gas on land and beneath the ocean floor.

Seismologists study the motion of the earth. They watch for earthquakes. Most earthquakes occur underwater.

Geochemists study the chemicals in the earth’s crust, its waters, and its atmosphere and why they are there.

Palaeontologists study fossils of animals and plants to learn about the earth’s past.

There are many kinds of earth scientists, but they have one thing in common. They all enjoy studying the earth and want to uncover its secrets.

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What is Oil?

Maybe you have used oil on your bicycle chain to keep it from squeaking. Did you know that oil was once part of the earth? It starts as a thick dark liquid called crude oil that is found between layers of rock deep inside the earth’s crust. Crude oil is also called petroleum.

Crude oil is a fossil fuel. This means that it started forming millions of years ago from dead plants and animals that had lived in the ocean. Over millions of years, these dead plants and animals piled up on the ocean floor. Thick layers of sand and soil covered them. The sand and soil squeezed together under their own weight and the weight of the water pressing down on them. They were pressed so hard that they turned into rock. Scientists believe that the weight of the rock helped turn the piles of dead plants and animals into oil.

People today use oil for many things. They use oil to heat homes and to run cars, planes, trains, ships, and trucks. They also use oil to make such things as medicines and plastics.

Oil companies get oil by drilling into the earth’s crust. They pump out the oil that is trapped under the earth’s surface. They even pump oil from under the ocean floor.

Because of its many uses, oil has become very valuable. But it takes millions of years for the earth to make more oil, so we need to make sure we don’t waste it.

Picture Credit : Google

What are Fossils?

Imagine a giant dinosaur moving along a lakeshore 80 million years ago. It is searching for food. The dinosaur sees some plants and wades out to them. But before it reaches the plants, it steps into a deep hole filled with soft, wet mud. The dinosaur sinks deeper and deeper into the mud, and the dinosaur drowns.

Over time, the soft parts of the animal’s body rot away. Only its bones are left, covered by mud. For many years, layers of sediment pile on top of the mud and pack it tightly around the bones. Eventually, the packed mud turns to clay. After many more years pass, the clay turns to rock.

During all this time, minerals in the water of the lake fill the hollow places in the bones. The minerals harden and the skeleton of the dinosaur is preserved. The bones in the rock are called fossils.

There are other ways for fossils to be made. And, fossils exist for many kinds of living things – from bugs to plants to woolly mammoths – not just for dinosaurs.

Picture Credit : Google

What are some cool facts about the Universe?

Here are 17 coolest facts about the Universe.

1. Time concept is within the Universe. Time doesn’t exist, clock does. Time is just an illusion. If you think time is constant throughout the Universe then you’re probably wrong. It varies according to gravity and speed.

2. Universe wasn’t forever. It originated from a singularity.

3. According to NO BOUNDARY THEORY, no one has created the universe and no one directs are fate. Why? Since, everything needs time to be exited in, but time is within the Universe. Where and when would the creator live in?

4. The biggest black hole in the observable universe is TON 618.

5. The biggest star in the observable universe is UY SCUTY.

6. Black holes are actually not holes, they are collapsed and dead stars which leave a residue in the form of black holes whose gravity and mass is much more than the star itself and infinite density.

7. Spacetime tells matter how to move, matter tells spacetime how to curve.

8. There are more stars in a galaxy than the grains of sand on earth but there are more atoms in a grain of sand than the number of stars in a galaxy.

9. The sun has enough heat to enlighten the atmosphere for about 4 billion years from today.

10. If you leave earth at the age of 15 with the speed of light and return after 5 years, you’ll find all your friends are 65 y/o now. This is due to time dilation. Remember point 1? Time is an illusion.

11. In a way, we represent energy. And also energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. The energy we have within us is as old as the universe is i.e. 13.4 billion years old. Sounds like holy shit!

12. Whenever you look up in the sky, you see into the past in an encrypted way.

13. As the universe keeps expanding, in the beginning of the universe, it is said to have a size smaller than a proton.

14. If universe was forever, there would have been no life. Because all the stars in the universe are continuously heating up the universe. In this way, even sun would do the same work and the planets like earth would have no life due to extreme heat.

15. The light of sun you observe is the light sun radiated 8.20 minutes ago.

16. If there is an intelligent life other than us then they must be very very far away from us otherwise they would have visited us by now.

17. The most dangerous thing we can find on any other planet would be humans.

Adding some more:

18. There is no sound in space. Space is unbelievably silent. Sound has no medium to travel in space. Space travelers use technology to communicate in the space.

19. 700 million light years away from Earth, there is böotes void, one of the largest known voids of the observable universe with a diameter of 300 million light years and has approximately 50–60 galaxies only!

20. A year on Venus is 224 Earth days i.e. time of revolution and a day on Venus i.e. time of rotation is 243 Earth days. A year on Venus is longer than its day.

21. Don’t cry in space, your years won’t fall.

22. Imagine if alien females go through menstrual cycle, where would their blood flow on zero gravity?

25. When you look at the person in front of you, you look 0.0003 nanoseconds in the past.

26. If Andromeda galaxy was visible to us with naked eyes, it’d seem to be 6 times bigger than the moon.

27. A spacesuit costs US$ 12 million.

28. The observable universe, 93 billion light years, it just made of 103 folds of a paper. Seems unbelievable because it is impossible to fold a paper more than 8 times but this is proven by scientists. If you had a paper large enough that you can fold it as many times you want then the entire observable universe would fit in 103 folds!

29. Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar. The 13.7 billion year lifetime of the universe mapped onto a single year. At this scale the Big Bang takes place on January 1 at midnight, the current time is December 31 at midnight, with Beyoncé in it. Each second is 434 years.

30. If you look outside from a black hole, you could look at the entire universe just as the size of your T.V.

 

Credit : Quora

Picture Credit : Google

If humans suddenly disappeared, what would happen to our planet?

After just one day, the entire planet would be plunged into darkness.

Most fossil fuel power stations would shut down, causing cascading blackouts worldwide, once they ran out of fuel. Solar panels and wind turbines would still be able to generate electricity in some areas of the planet, but eventually, they would stop working after a few months or a couple of years.

Nuclear power plants around the world would shut down and enter an automatic safe mode so as to prevent a possible meltdown of the nuclear reactor, without people to use the energy that these power plants make.

Also, no power means that water pumps in subway systems would stop working. The tunnels in subway systems would fill with water.

Domestic animals, would either starve to death, or escape their houses, and start scavenging for food.

Pets still trapped inside their houses would be able to eat food in kitchens, but eventually their food supply would run out, and their only choice would be to escape and look for food elsewhere.

But the truth is that a lot of animals would not be able to survive. Many dog and cat breeds would be simply unfit for this new environment and they would be hunted down by animals like wolves.

Animals like rats and cockroaches would thrive off of the remaining food supply, but once their supply ran out, their populations would plummet.

Some animals would actually go extinct in the absence of humans. Such as head lice.

Head lice have evolved to feed exclusively on human blood. If we disappeared, head lice would join us.

Food everywhere would be rotting. Without power, there would be no refrigeration, and with no refrigeration, our food supply would start to decay.

Dairy products would begin to spoil within a few hours. The fruit would start to decay. As the fruit decays, it releases a gas called ethylene, which causes the other fruits to decay at a faster pace. Meat would also start rotting, and it would be eaten by flies, maggots and rats.

After more than a week, due to the heat coming from the fuel rods, spent fuel pools inside nuclear power plants would begin to boil away. The fuel rods themselves catch fire and burn.

The equivalent of 20 cores worth of radiation would be released into the environment, and nothing would be safe for miles in each direction. This would also cause some nuclear reactors to explode violently.

After several months, without people to keep them at bay, wild animals would start returning to the urban landscape.

Animals such as coyotes, bobcats, among others, would be the first new residents, followed by animals like bears, cougars, etc.

Animals trapped inside zoos would succumb to starvation. Other animals would be able to escape, then they would start roaming around, scavenging for food, trying to survive. You could see animals like apes, elephants, bears, wolves, all in the same place.

After one year, plant vegetation would start taking over. Weeds and grass would start growing in cracks in roads and highways.

Buildings would start getting overrun by plants and ivy. Plants would start to take root in stone and masonry work, and they would start to damage the foundations of buildings.

A lot of animal species would also flourish in our absence. Animals like the giant panda, the Asian elephant, among others, had to put up with humans destroying their habitats, and hunting them down for various reasons. If humans were to disappear, these animals would be extremely happy. Granted, they still would have things to worry about, but without humans, one of their biggest threats would be gone forever.

Certain species of birds would also be pretty happy. Without people, some species of birds would not have to worry about being shot by a hunter’s firearm, and they would also be able to fly without the fear of dying by flying into an airplane’s engine.

In the absence of humans, wildfires will go unchecked. A lightning strike has the possibility to start a fire in the countryside, or in a certain building in a city. Without firefighters to keep these fires at bay, they will spread quickly and raze entire cities to the ground.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Is Earth’s climate changing?

Earth’s climate is slowly getting warmer. Scientists who study the climate have found that it is a little warmer now than it was 100 years ago. You may not notice the difference, but plants and animals do.

Is it true? Trees reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Yes. Tree leaves take harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and give out oxygen. We breathe the oxygen they make.

Why is the temperature rising?

It’s getting warmer because of what the Earth’s 6 billion people are doing. Because of the way we lead our lives; we are changing the Earth’s climate. We are making the planet grow warmer.

Amazing! There is far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was 200 years ago. This is mainly why it’s warmer today than it was in the past.

How are we making the temperature rise?

By burning ‘fossil fuels’ — coal, oil and natural gas — we are putting ‘greenhouse gases’, such as carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. The gases surround the Earth and keep heat in.

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