Amusing Chocolate Hills in Philippines
Posted: January 28, 2011 Filed under: Landforms, Mountains 1 Comment »
The Chocolate Hills are an unusual geological formation in Bohol, Philippines.According to the latest accurate survey done,there are 1,776 hills spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometres (20 sq mi). They are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, hence the name.
The Chocolate Hills are a famous tourist attraction of Bohol. They are featured in the provincial flag and seal to symbolize the abundance of natural attractions in the province. They are in the Philippine Tourism Authority’s list of tourist destinations in the Philippines; they have been declared the country’s third National Geological Monument and proposed for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Vegetation
The vegetation of the Chocolate Hills is dominated by hard grass species such as Imperata cylindrica and Saccharum spontaneum. Several Compositae and ferns also grow on them. In between the hills, the flat lands are cultivated with rice and other cash crops. However, the natural vegetation on the Chocolate Hills is now threatened by quarrying activities.
Origin
The Chocolate Hills are conical karst hills similar to those seen in the limestone regions of Slovenia, Croatia, northern Puerto Rico, and Pinar del Rio Province, Cuba. These hills consist of Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene, thin to medium bedded, sandy to rubbly marine limestones. These limestones contain the aboundant fossils of shallow marine foraminifera, coral, mollusks, and algae. These conical karst hills, called mogote, are created by a combination of the dissolution of limestones by rainfall, surface water, and groundwater and their subaerial erosion by rivers and streams after they had been uplifted above sea level and fractured by tectonic processes. These hills are separated by well developed flat plains and contain numerous caves and springs. The Chocolate Hills are considered to be a remarkable example of conical karst topography.
The origin for the conical karst of the Chocolate Hills is described in popular terms on the bronze plaque at the viewing deck in Carmen, Bohol. This plaque states that they are eroded formations of a type of marine limestone that sits on top of hardened clay. The plaque reads:
The unique land form known as the Chocolate Hills of Bohol was formed ages ago by the uplift of coral deposits and the action of rain water and erosion.
The plaque also makes reference to a fanciful explanation of the origin of the Chocolate Hills that is unsupported by any published scientific research, i.e. either Hillmer or Travaglia and others, when it states::
the grassy hills were once coral reefs that erupted from the sea in a massive geologic shift. Wind and water put on the finishing touches over hundreds of thousands of years.
Self-published, popular web pages present a variety of fanciful and less credible explanations about how these hills formed. They include sub-oceanic volcanism; limestone covered blocks created by the destruction of an active volcano in a cataclysmic eruption;[14] coral reefs that were raised from the sea as the result of a massive geologic shift; and tidal movements. [15] The lack of any exposed or associated volcanic rocks anywhere in the Chocolate Hills refutes the popular theories involving volcanic eruptions. These theories involving either a sudden, massive geologic shift, coral reefs being erupted from the sea, or tidal movements lack any collaborating evidence and support among geologists.
Legend
Four legends explain the formation of the Chocolate Hills. The first tells the story of two feuding giants who hurled rocks, boulders, and sand at each other. The fighting lasted for days, and exhausted the two giants. In their exhaustion, they forgot about their feud and became friends, but when they left they forgot to clean up the mess they had made during their battle, hence the Chocolate Hills.
A more romantic legend tells of a giant named Arogo who was extremely powerful and youthful. Arogo fell in love with Aloya, who was a simple mortal. Aloya’s death caused Arogo much pain and misery, and in his sorrow he could not stop crying. When his tears dried, the Chocolate Hills were formed.
The third legend tells of a town being plagued by a giant carabao, who ate all of their crops. Finally having had enough, the townsfolk took all of their spoiled food and placed it in such a way that the carabao would not miss it. Sure enough, the carabao ate it, but his stomach couldn’t handle the spoiled food, so he defecated, leaving behind him a mound of feces, until he had emptied his stomach of the food. The feces then dried, forming the Chocolate Hills.
The last legend is about a gluttonous giant named Miguel that eats everything in his path. One day he came to a plain. He saw a beautiful young woman named Adrianna. To win her affection, he needed to lose weight. So he excreted everything he ate. In the end, his fecal matter covered the land and he won Eng’s affection.
Read more at Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Hills
Motions of the Ocean
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: climate change, oceans Leave a comment »
Water swirls around ocean basins in surface ocean currents. The Gulf Stream is a surface current that runs between the United States and Europe in the North Atlantic Ocean. Smaller spinning rings of water called eddies can form from surface ocean currents. Ocean water also moves from the deep sea to the ocean surface. Places where this happens are called areas of upwelling. The marine life and the climate can be affected as the cold water makes its way up from the deep. The upwelling water is rich in nutrients so plankton flourishes, and it is very cold, which can lead to cool, damp and foggy weather. Moving water is found on smaller scales too. Waves travel across the ocean and crash on coastlines. Currents along coastlines have the power to transport sand to new places and to even move swimmers far from their beach towels. On a global scale, water moves each day with the tides. And over a long time it moves around the world from the shallow to deep oceans because of changes in the water’s density – a process called thermohaline circulation. The moving water in the oceans transports heat and so it has a large impact on Earth’s climate.
Happy Republic Day to Incredible India
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments »
Happy Republic Day to Incredible India
Hamid Karzai accused NATO of illegally cutting down thousands of trees
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: BIODIVERSITY, Countries, Ecosystem, Environment, News Leave a comment »
Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused NATO-led forces fighting an Islamic insurgency in his country of illegally cutting down thousands of trees. The US-backed leader said Western troops, part of a 140,000-strong US-led force deployed to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, had chopped down up to 4,000 trees in Ghazni, a troubled province in the southeast.
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According to U.N. Estimates Cost of natural disasters $109 billion in 2010-Cities were More Vulnerable
Posted: January 25, 2011 Filed under: Cities, climate change, Urban Studies Leave a comment »Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the cost, the United Nations said Monday.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February cost $30 billion. Landslides and floods last summer in China caused $18 billion in losses, data compiled by the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) showed.
Although Haiti’s January 12 earthquake was the deadliest event of 2010, killing 316,000 people according to the government in Port-au-Prince, its economic toll was $8 billion. The July-August floods in Pakistan cost $9.5 billion.
Cities are particularly vulnerable to big economic losses when poorly-maintained infrastructure is rattled by earthquakes or exposed to big storms, Wahlstrom said.”With more extreme weather events, and more earthquakes in urban areas, the state of repair or disrepair in urban areas is really critical,” she said.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The most populous cities on earthquake fault lines include Mexico City, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta and Tokyo, according to the U.N.’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
Many people also live in parts of urban areas vulnerable to landslides and floods, which are anticipated to occur more often as a result of climate change, Wahlstrom said, also warning of rising risks from “silent events” like droughts.
Of the 373 disasters recorded last year, 22 were in China, 16 were in India and 14 were in the Philippines, CRED said.
The storms, earthquakes, heatwaves and cold snaps affected 207 million people and killed 296,800, according to the data, which does not incorporate an increase of Haiti’s death toll announced earlier this month by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
The global toll estimates that 55,736 people died from a summer heatwave in Russia which led to crop failures and helped drive up food prices.
It also says 2,968 people were killed in an April earthquake in China and 1,985 died from the Pakistani floods.
The 2009 economic price tag of $34.9 billion was unusually low because of the lack of a major weather or climate event in the period, which nonetheless saw floods and typhoons in Asia and an earthquake in Indonesia.
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Orion Nebula: Still Alive and Full of Surprises-We Could Get Second Sun
Posted: January 23, 2011 Filed under: Solar System, Space Leave a comment »
The Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42, is one of the most easily recognisable and best-studied celestial objects. It is a huge complex of gas and dust where massive stars are forming and is the closest such region to the Earth. The glowing gas is so bright that it can be seen with the unaided eye and is a fascinating sight through a telescope. Despite its familiarity and closeness there is still much to learn about this stellar nursery. It was only in 2007, for instance, that the nebula was shown to be closer to us than previously thought: 1350 light-years, rather than about 1500 light-years.
The Nebula is in fact part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex extends throughout the constellation of Orion and includes Barnard’s Loop, the Horsehead Nebula, M43, M78 and the Flame Nebula. Stars are forming throughout the Orion Nebula, and due to this heat-intensive process the region is particularly prominent in the infrared.
The nebula is visible with the naked eye even from areas affected by some light pollution. It is seen as the middle “star” in the sword of Orion, which are the three stars located south of Orion’s Belt. The star appears fuzzy to sharp-eyed observers, and the nebulosity is obvious through binoculars or a small telescope.
The Earth could have a second sun lighting up the sky, if only for a matter of weeks, should the infamous red super-giant star Betelgeuse in Orion’s nebula explode.Dr Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland said Betelgeuse, the second biggest star in the universe, is losing mass, a typical indication that a gravitation collapse is occurring, and when that happens, we’ll get our second sun.
Links and Sources:
Earth may witness twin suns if Betelgeuse star in Orion nebula explodes
New Layer in Google Earth will Show Astronomical Events in Real Time
Posted: January 22, 2011 Filed under: Space Leave a comment »Even with some of the best telescopes, it’s hard to make out all the planets. But now, there’s a new way for you to explore space — traveling through the final frontier on your PC.Astronomers have added an application to Google Earth that allows users to not only look at detailed pictures of the night sky at their convenience, but to observe unfolding cosmic events in real time. This application is an extra layer to the Google application and it will show both explosive gamma-ray bursts and shiny gravitational microlensing events…
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World’s largest solar park planned in Greece
Posted: January 22, 2011 Filed under: Alternative Energy Leave a comment »Greece plans to build the world’s largest solar park over depleted coal mines in the northern city of Kozani.Estimated to cost 600 million euros ($807 million) and with a capacity of 200 megawatts (MW), the project’s electricity output will be “greater than any other photovoltaic park operational in the world until now.
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Carbon Sequestration in Oceans Makes them More Acidic
Posted: January 21, 2011 Filed under: earth, Ecosystem, oceans Leave a comment »
Carbon sequestration is “The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir.” When carried out deliberately, this may also be referred to as carbon dioxide removal, which is a form of geoengineering. The term carbon sequestration may also be used to refer to the process of carbon capture and storage, where CO2 is removed from flue gases, such as on power stations, before being stored in underground reservoirs. The term may also refer to natural biogeochemical cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and reservoirs, such as by chemical weathering of rocks. Using seawater and calcium to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) in a natural gas power plant’s flue stream, and then pumping the resulting calcium bicarbonate in the sea, could be beneficial to the oceans’ marine life or states a new research report.
The oceans contain around 36,000 gigatons of carbon, mostly in the form of bicarbonate ion (over 90%, with most of the remainder being carbonate).
Inorganic carbon, that is carbon compounds with no carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogenbonds, is important in its reactions within water. This carbon exchange becomes important in controlling pH in the ocean and can also vary as a source or sink for carbon. Carbon is readily exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean. In regions of oceanic upwelling, carbon is released to the atmosphere. Conversely, regions of downwelling transfer carbon (CO2) from the atmosphere to the ocean.
In addition to global warming effects, when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, a significant fraction is passively taken up by the ocean in a form that makes the ocean more acidic. This acidification has been shown to be harmful to marine life, especially corals and shellfish.
If the carbon dioxide reacted with crushed limestone and seawater, and the resulting solution was released to the ocean, this would not only sequester carbon from the atmosphere, but also would add ocean alkalinity that would help buffer and offset the effects of ongoing marine acidification. Again, this speeds up the natural CO2 consumption and buffering process offered by carbonate weathering.
There are many potential techniques to control or reduce CO2 air emissions such as growing new forests, underground injection, and even a newly developed cement type that can absorb CO2 from ambient air during hardening.
Links and Sources:
ENN(Main Source)
Opening and Closing of Ocean Basins
Posted: January 19, 2011 Filed under: Landforms Leave a comment »No rock is accidental. No idea in geology is more profound than this; it runs from the center to the whole of geology and influences every subdiscipline of the field. Genuine understanding of the science of geology begins with one’s ability to understand and explain why no rock is accidental. is concerned with deformation in the earth and the forces which produce deformation. Plate tectonics is the theory that the earth’s Plate tectonics is one of the great unifying theories in geology. Virtually every part of the earth’s crust, and every kind of rock and every kind of geology can be related to the plate tectonic conditions which existed at the time they formed. Nothing in geology makes sense except in terms of plate tectonic theory.
One of the most important messages of modern understanding of plate tectonics and the Wilson cycle is that beginning with a parent igneous rock of mafic/ultramafic composition all the other rocks now on the earth can be generated. The most important message of the plate tectonic rock cycle is that each and every rock forms only under a specific set of tectonic conditions.
divergent boundaries where plates are moving apart and new crust is being created,
convergent boundaries where plates are moving together and crust is being destroyed, and
transform boundaries where plates slide past one another.
We have two models summarizing earth evolutionary processes.
(1) The Wilson Cycle and . . .Tectonic Rock Cycle, a more theoretically abstact model of how rocks and the earth evolve.
The following Wilson Cycle model follows the series of cross sections constituting the Wilson cycle. It begins with a hypothetical geologically (tectonically) quiet continent. The model is divided into nine stages, but the stages are arbitrary and do not exist naturally. The earth is an ongoing series of processes so it is much more important to understand the processes, how they are related, and how one process leads naturally to the next process.
Wilson Cycle is a simple, ideal model. The earth has many continents, which migrate across its spherical surface in very complex ways. Just about any scenario you can think of, and any exception you can imagine is quite possible – and has probably happened during some point in the earth’s history.
lithosphere (outer rigid shell) is composed of several dozen “plates”, or pieces, which float on a ductile mantle, like slabs of ice on a pond. In plate tectonic theory earth history, at its simplest, is one of plates rifting into pieces diverging apart and new ocean basins being born, followed by motion reversal, convergence back together, plate collision, and mountain building. This cycle of opening and closing ocean basins is the Wilson Cycle.
Source::http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/Wilson/Wilson.html
