HONULOLU HAWAII

HONULOLU HAWAII

Honolulu /hoʊnoʊˈluːluː/ is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as Honolulu County which covers the entire island. For statistical purposes, the U.S. Census Bureau recognizes the urban part of Honolulu as a census-designated place. Honolulu is a major financial center of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The population of the Census-designated place was 390,738 at the 2010 census, while the population of the city and county was 953,207. Honolulu is the most populous state capital relative to state population. In the Hawaiian language, Honolulu means "sheltered bay" or "place of shelter". The old name is said to be Kou, a district roughly encompassing the area from Nuuanu Avenue to Alakea Street and from Hotel Street to Queen Street which is the heart of the present downtown district.The city has been the capital of the Hawaiian islands since 1845 and gained historical recognition following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor near the city on December 7, 1941, and as the birthplace of Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States.

Honolulu has a massive skyline. As of April 2012, the city had a total of over 470 high rises, which is ranked 4th only behind New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Similarly to New York and Chicago, highrises are located in more than just the downtown area; neighboring and nearby districts including Ala Moana and Waikiki include large clusters of office, residential, and hotel high-rises, extending from Downtown, all the way to Diamond Head.

TRISTAN DA CUNHA

TRISTAN  DA CUNHA 

Tristan da Cunha ( /ˈtrɪstən də ˈkuːnə/) is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying 2,816 kilometres (1,750 mi) from the nearest land, South Africa, and 3,360 kilometres (2,088 mi) from South America.The territory consists of the main island of Tristan da Cunha itself, which measures about 11.27 kilometres (7.0 mi) across and has an area of 98 square kilometres (37.8 sq mi), along with the uninhabited Nightingale Islands and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible Island and Gough Island. It has a permanent population of 275 (2009 figures).
Tristan da Cunha is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Saint Helena 2,430 kilometres (1,510 mi) to its north, and equatorial Ascension Island even farther removed.
he islands were first sighted in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha, although rough seas prevented a landing. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha, which was later anglicised to Tristan da Cunha Island. In 1643 the crew of the Heemstede, captained by Claes Gerritsz. Bierenbroodspot made the first recorded landing. The first survey of the archipelago was made by the French frigate L'Heure du Berger in 1767. Soundings were taken and a rough survey of the coastline was made. The presence of water at the large waterfall of Big Watron and in a lake on the north coast were noted, and the results of the survey were published by a Royal Navy hydrographer in 1781. The first permanent settler was Jonathan Lambert, from Salem, Massachusetts, United States, who arrived at the islands in December 1810. He declared the islands his property and named them the Islands of Refreshment. Lambert's rule was short-lived, as he died in a boating accident in 1812.
In 1816 the United Kingdom formally annexed the islands, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa. This is reported to have primarily been a measure to ensure that the French would not be able to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on Saint Helena. The occupation also prevented the United States from using Tristan da Cunha as a base, as they had during the War of 1812. Attempts to colonise Inaccessible Island failed.
The islands were occupied by a garrison of British Marines, and a civilian population was gradually built up. Whalers also set up on the islands as a base for operations in the Southern Atlantic. However, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, together with the gradual move from sailing ships to coal-fired steam ships, increased the isolation of the islands, as they were no longer needed as a stopping port for journeys from Europe to the Far East
In 1867, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, visited the islands. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, was named in honour of his visit. Lewis Carroll's youngest brother, the Rev. Edwin H. Dodgson, served as an Anglican missionary and school teacher in Tristan da Cunha in the 1880s. The second Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, visited the islands in 1957 as part of a world tour onboard the royal yacht Britannia.
On 12 January 1938, by Letters Patent, the islands were declared a dependency of Saint Helena. Prior to this, passing ships stopped irregularly at the island for a period of mere hours.

PATAGONIA

PATAGONIA

Patagonia is a region located at the southern end of South America, territory shared by Argentina and Chile, which comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the mountain range to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean. To the west, it includes the territory of Valdivia through Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed the Patagons were actually Tehuelches with an average height of 180 cm (~5′11″) compared to the 155 cm (~5′1″) average for Spaniards of the time.
The Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz, as well as the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego archipelago and the southernmost department of Buenos Aires province: Patagones. The Argentine politico-economic Patagonic Region includes the Province of La Pampa.
The Chilean part of Patagonia embraces the southern provinces and regions of Valdivia, Llanquihue, Aisén and Magallanes, including the west side of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, and Palena Province in Los Lagos Region

MISSISSIPPI RIVER

MISSISSIPPI RIVER

The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States (though its drainage basin reaches into Canada), it rises in northern Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for 2,530 miles (4,070 km) to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains and even reaches into southern Canada. The Mississippi ranks fourth longest and tenth largest among the world's rivers.
Native Americans lived along the Mississippi and its tributaries. Most were hunter-gatherers or herders, but some, such as the Mound builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 1500s forever changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served first as barrier – forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States – then as vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of Manifest Destiny, the Mississippi and several western tributaries, most notably the Missouri, formed pathways for pioneers partaking in the western expansion of the United States.
Formed from thick layers of this river's silt deposits, the Mississippi River Valley is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country, which resulted in the river's storied steamboat era. During the American Civil War, the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory because of this very importance as a route of trade and travel, not least to the Confederacy. Because of substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that have supplanted riverboats, the decades following the 1900s saw massive engineering works applied to the river system, such as the often in-combination construction of levees, locks and dams.
Since modern development of the basin began, the Mississippi has also seen its share of pollution and environmental problems – most notably large volumes of agricultural runoff, which has led to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone off the Delta. In recent years, the river has shown a steady shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta; a course change would prove disastrous to seaports such as New Orleans. A system of dikes and gates has, so far, held the Mississippi at bay but, due to fluvial processes, the shift becomes more likely each year.

AMAZON RIVER

AMAZON RIVER

 

The Amazon River  in South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined (not including Madeira and Rio Negro, which are tributaries of the Amazon). The Amazon, which has the largest drainage basin in the world, about 7,050,000 square kilometres (2,720,000 sq mi), accounts for approximately one-fifth of the world's total river flow.
In its upper stretches, above the confluence of the Negro River, the Amazon is called Solimões in Brazil; however, in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, as well as the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, the river is generally called the Amazon downstream from the confluence of the Marañón and Ucayali rivers in Peru. The Ucayali-Apurímac river system is considered the main source of the Amazon.
The width of the Amazon varies between 1.6 and 10 kilometres (1.0 and 6.2 mi) at low stage, but expands during the wet season to 48 kilometres (30 mi) or more. The river enters the Atlantic Ocean in a broad estuary about 240 kilometres (150 mi) wide. The mouth of the main stem is 80 kilometres (50 mi). Because of its vast dimensions, it is sometimes called The River Sea. The first bridge in the Amazon river system (over the Rio Negro) opened on October 10, 2010. It is just outside Manaus.

SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Description:

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.5 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391.
In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors (Vietnam) led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.
Today, San Francisco is one of the top tourist destinations in the world, ranking 35th out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide, and is renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home to more than 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco rank 18th in the world's top producing cities, eighth in the United States, and ninth place in the top twenty global financial centers.

CARNIVAL IN RIO

                     
 

The Carnival in Rio  is a world famous festival held before Lent every year and considered the biggest carnival in the world with two million people per day on the streets
One of the main purposes of the Rio carnival parade is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival( they are called co-sisters) samba-schools; this competition is the climax of the whole carnival festival in this city, related to the samba-schools environment. Each school chooses a theme to try and portray in their entry. The samba schools work to build the best floats,costumes, lyrics, aesthetics, to represent their themes ( in Carnival terminology called "enredo"), and to include the best music they can from their drumming band called the bateria.There are many parts to each school's entry including the six to eight floats and up to 4,000 ( four thousand revelers per the Samba-schools of the so called Special group).
There is a special order that every school has to follow with their parade entries. Each school begins with the "comissão de frente", which is the first wing. The "comissão de frente" is made up of ten to fifteen people only, and they are the ones who introduce the school and set the mood. These people have choreographic dances in fancy costumes that usually tell a short story. Following the "comissão de frente", Opening Wing, in English is the first float of the samba school, called "abre-alas".
Some of the important roles include the porta-bandeira and mestre-sala. The porta-bandeira is a very important lady who is in charge of the samba school flag, including making sure to not allow the flag to roll. She is accompanied by the mestre-sala, who is supposed to draw everyone’s attention to "his queen", the porta-bandeira. Floatees, who are also important, are the people who populate the floats, also known as destaques. The floatees have the most luxurious and expensive costumes that can be extremely heavy. Along with all the floatees is one main floatee that is located at the top of each float. The main destaque dances and sings for the entire time that the float is on the runway.
One other aspect that is mandatory is the presence of the ala das baianas. This is a wing of the samba school entry that includes at least 100 females only. These women along with many other people do not ride on the floats as many others do, instead they are passistas, the people who belong to the samba school that do the marching alongside and between the floats

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

 Location: USA
Description:
   Yellowstone National Park, the oldest, one of the largest, and probably the best-known national park in the United States. It issituated in northwestern Wyoming and partly in southern Montana and eastern Idaho and includes the greatest concentration of geothermal features in the world. The park was established by the U.S. Congress on March 1, 1872, as the nation’s—and the world’s—first national park. It was designated a World Heritage site in 1978. The park, almost all of which remains undeveloped, covers 3,468 square miles (8,983 square km) and consists mostly of broad volcanic plateaus with an average elevation of 8,000 feet (2,440 metres). Among the mountain ranges that protrude into the park are the Gallatin Range on the northwest, the Absaroka Range on the east, and the Tetons along the park’s southern boundary. The park is also surrounded by the Custer, Shoshone, Teton, Targhee, Beaverhead, and Gallatin national forests.Aside from its rugged mountains and spectacular deep valleys, Yellowstone has unusual geologic features, including fossil forests, eroded basaltic lava flows, a black obsidian (volcanic-glass) mountain, and odd erosional forms. Its principal attractions, however, are its 10,000 hot springs, which find surface expression as steam vents, fumaroles, colourful hot pools, mud cauldrons, paint pots, hot springs and terraces, hot rivers, and geysers. Of the park’s more than 200 geysers, many erupt to heights of 100 feet (30 metres) or more. Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in Yellowstone, erupts fairly regularly every 33 to 120 minutes. Many of Yellowstone’s noted hot springs and geysers are located in the western portion of the park between Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs (the park’s headquarters) some 50 miles (80 km) north. These include The Giantess, a geyser near Old Faithful with a six- to eight-month wait between eruptions; the Fountain Paint Pots in the Lower Geyser Basin, with pink, plopping geysers, fumaroles, and a blue, hot-spring pool; and Minerva, a multicoloured terrace with hot water cascades, at Mammoth Hot Springs.
     Yellowstone is also known for its lakes and rivers; among these are Yellowstone Lake, Shoshone Lake, the Snake River, the Lewis River, and the Yellowstone River. Yellowstone Lake has a surface area of 136 square miles (352 square km) and is the largest mountain lake in North America. Fishing and boating are popular. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River is a colourful gorge 19 miles (30 km) long located in the north-central part of the park. The canyon, between 800 and 1,200 feet (240 and 370 metres) deep and up to 4,000 feet (1,200 metres) wide, has brilliantly coloured rock walls, with two majestic waterfalls along its course; the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River have a drop of 308 feet (94 metres).
     Most of Yellowstone park is forested, and the vast majority of the tree growth consists of lodgepole pine, though there are other conifer species, as well as cottonwoods and aspens. Many types of wildflowers blossom in the warm months. In 1988 a disastrous series of forest fires temporarily laid waste large areas of the park.
     Animal life in Yellowstone is typical of the Rocky Mountains and includes bison (buffalo), elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, deer, moose, black bears, grizzly bears, and coyotes. Wolves were reintroduced into the park in 1995. Hundreds of different species of birds live in the park, among them many waterfowl, including the trumpeter swan. The lakes and streams are stocked with fish; trout is the most popular with anglers.
    The park has more than 500 miles (800 km) of roads and more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of trails. The John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway, an 80-mile (130-km) scenic roadway that was established in 1972, connects Yellowstone with Grand Teton National Park to the south.

WIND CAVE

WIND CAVE

Location: USA

Description:

 Wind Cave, located in the rugged Black Hills of South Dakota is one of the world's longest and complex cave. It was named for its very strong air currents that pass in and out of its entrance. Changes in barometric pressure rises apparently trigger these eerie winds. When the atmospheric pressure rises outside the cave, wind rushes in; then when the outside air pressure drops, the air rushes out again.
Wind Cave is remarkable for its unrivaled displays of the delicate rock formation known as Boxwork - The nature's intricate art wonders!. Boxwork is found in small amounts in other caves, but perhaps in no other cave in the world is boxwork so well-formed and abundant as in Wind Cave. [Boxwork is made of thin blades of calcite that project from cave walls and ceilings, forming a honeycomb pattern.] When the limestone containing the cave was uplifted some 60 million years ago, it was broken up by networks of intersecting cracks. Over long periods of time, seeping water deposited veins of the mineral calcite in the cracks. Later, when the cave was formed, the enveloping limestone was eroded away, while the more resistant calcite in the cracks was left projecting from the ceilings and walls in fragile, beautifully intricate patterns.
The Wind Cave National Park has a number of unusual attractions above the ground as well, 28,295 acres of mixed-grass prairie, ponderosa pine forest, and associated wildlife are the main features of this park.

COTOPAXI, EQUADOR, SOUTH AMERICA

COTOPAXI

Location: EQUADOR

Description:

    Cotopaxi is the sight to behold. Towering above the neighboring Andean peaks in north-central Ecuador, South America, it is an almost perfectly symmetrical volcanic cone. Dominating the capital city of Quito skyline to the south, 19,348 feet in elevation, Cotopaxi is the second highest peak in the Ecuador and the highest continually active volcano in the world. Its flanks are largely covered by permanent fields of snow and ice. And it is the snow that presents the greatest peril when the volcano intermittently erupts. Cotopaxi means "Smooth Neck of the Moon" and the native people have worshiped the mountain for centuries.
Cotopaxi's shapely profile was a long time in the making, for it is actually composed of two volcanic structures, with the newer one superimposed on its ancient ancestor. The older volcano called Picacho, was formed long before any of the neighboring extinct volcanoes in this area of the Andes. Traces of its caldera (a giant crater like cavity formed when a volcano's top collapses in an explosion.) are still visible on Cotopaxi's flanksCotopaxi is known as a Stratovolcano: built up with lava flows alternating with layers of ash and other volcanic materials that were exploded from its vent. But the most deadliest effects of its eruptions result from Lahars - gigantic avalanches of mud and meltwater that periodically come flooding down its flanks. The first recorded eruption of Cotopaxi was in 1533. Of the many that have occurred since then, the worst took place in 1877. The explosions were heard over a radius of more than 200 miles, clouds of ash and pumice completely darkened the midday sky and the accompanying lahars killed thousands of people. Evidence of that catastrophic flow can still be seen throughout much of the countryside of the Sierras. Though Cotopaxi remains active, it has been long since the last large eruption.

CARLSBAD CAVERNS, NEW MEXICO, USA

CARLSBAD CAVERNS

Location: USA

Description:

    Carlsbad Caverns National Park, area of the Chihuahuan Desert in southeastern New Mexico, U.S., near the base of the Guadalupe Mountains (a segment of the Sacramento Mountains). It was established in 1923 as a national monument, designated a national park in 1930, and proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Beneath the park, which has a surface area of 73 square miles (189 square km), are 83 individual caves, including Carlsbad Cavern, the park’s namesake. The park also includes Rattlesnake Springs, a small enclave about 5 miles (8 km) to the southeast.

    About 250 million years ago, a shallow sea ringed by a vast, horseshoe-shaped limestone reef covered the area. This formation, called Capitan Reef, is found in southeastern New Mexico and western Texas and includes Guadalupe Mountains National Park, just southwest of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. After the sea evaporated, the constant dripping of acidic groundwater carved out the massive underground chambers, converted limestone to gypsum, and formed enormous stalactites, stalagmites, and other cave deposits ranging from the delicate to the bizarre.
   Pictographs near the entrance to Carlsbad Cavern give evidence that Native Americans knew of the site 1,000 years ago, but it wasn’t until the 1880s that nearby settlers rediscovered the location and began mining it for bat guano to be used as fertilizer. One of the miners, James Larkin White—who claimed to have discovered the cavern—explored the cave further and began giving tours lit by kerosene lanterns, lowering the curious to a depth of 170 feet (52 metres) in bat-guano buckets. White also guided early scientific expeditions into the caves, including a major reconnaisance conducted for the U.S. Geological Survey in 1924.
   Carlsbad Cavern has a labyrinth of underground chambers, including one of the largest ever discovered. The total length of the rooms and passages is still unknown, but the explored part of the main cavern is more than 30 miles (48 km) long, of which 3 miles (5 km) are open to visitors. Of the three major levels, the deepest is 1,027 feet (313 metres) belowground. Visitors can walk or take an elevator to the 755-foot (230-metre) level and explore the Big Room, which measures about 2,000 feet (610 metres) long and 1,100 feet (335 metres) wide at its greatest extents and has a ceiling that arches 255 feet (78 metres) above the floor. Found within are the Giant Dome, a stalagmite 62 feet (19 metres) tall the Twin Domes, only slightly smaller, superbly proportioned and delicately fluted; and the so-called Bottomless Pit, which is some 700 feet (210 metres) deep. During the summer a colony of about one million Mexican free-tailed bats inhabits a part of the caverns known as Bat Cave; each evening at sunset they swarm out of the cave’s entrance to feed in the surrounding area.
    To the southwest of Carlsbad Cavern, within the park, is Slaughter Canyon Cave, with the Monarch, one of the world’s tallest columns (89 feet [27 metres]), and a delicate rimstone dam (natural dam formed by the accumulation of calcium carbonate). Near the northern border of the park is Lechuguilla Cave. Since 1984, when exploration of Lechuguilla began, more than 100 miles (160 km) of passages have been surveyed. It is the fifth longest known cave in the world, the third longest in the United States, and it contains underwater formations unlike those found anywhere else in the world. In 1993 Congress passed legislation establishing a cave protection zone of about 10 square miles (25 square km) around Lechuguilla.
   The park’s surface area is a sanctuary for such native plants as yucca, ocotillo, Texas black walnut, and desert willow. Park wildlife includes mule deer, coyotes, bobcats, rattlesnakes, and pumas (mountain lions).

REDWOOD TREES

REDWOOD TREES

Location: USA

Description:

    Have you ever seen a redwood? They are tall! They are also called Sequoias which is a common name for a group of big, majestic evergreen trees of the cypress family. They can grow up to 100 feet tall or more! The sequoias are so big, that they are even bigger than the whale! If you saw a picture of a full grown Sequoia with a person standing next to it, that person would only be a large dot! Even if you saw the person well enough to identify him, the Sequoia would be like a big, huge background and you wouldn't know that it was a tree! It would take about ten people to all hold hands around a Sequoia because the circumfrence is so big!
     The Giant Sequoia is found on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada . A Sequoia is estimated to weigh as much as 2500 metric tons! If you wanted to know how old a tree was after it had been cut down, you could look at the stump, and count the number of rings it has. Once you figure that out, you'll know how old the tree is (was). Some trees have been 2300 years of age. However, some other trees have lived up to 4000 years!
The leaves on a Giant Sequoia are scale like and lie close to the branches. The bark is spongy in texture. The wood is light, and highly resistant to insects and fire.
At one time, the most popular Sequoia was the dawn redwood. Its height is just about 100 feet and its diameter is about 6 feet.
     Do you see that picture next to this. That little red dot is actually a person standing next to the Giant Sequoia! Can you believe it?

 

THE BARRINGER METEOR CRATER

THE BARRINGER METEOR CRATER

Location: USA

Description:

    Some of the natural wonders are known for their beauty. The Meteor Crater is not one of them. It looks like a big hole in the desert. It was caused by a meteorite hitting the earth thousands of years ago. A meteorite is a rock that crashed into the earth that came from outer space.
     The crater is 4,145 feet across, and 570 feet deep and is the largest impact crater in the whole entire world. There are others in Mexico, Antarctica, Australia, and Siberia.
     In 1871 the Europeans thought it was a clasped top of a volcano. However, in 1902 Dr. Daniel Barringer proved that the rocks around the hole were NOT volcanic and showed a couple of signs that mean it was crushed by an enormous body going at the speed of 43,125 mph. The explosion would have been about forty times as large as the atomic bomb that destroyed the city Hiroshima in Japan in 1945.
At first no one could understand why the crater itself is known as the Barringer Meteor Crater. Some people thought that the meteorite was buried under the ground. Then after a while scientists discovered that this 77,000 ton rock, almost 80 to 100 feet across, had smashed into pieces when it landed.
The meteor crater lies in Arizona between the towns of Flagstaff and Winslow.
     In 1946 a meteorite collector who goes by the name of Harvey H. Nininger analyzed the tiny metallic particles mixed into soil around the crater, along with some little "bombs" of melted rock within it. He decided that both particles were solidified droplets, which must have condensed from the cloud of rock and metal at impact. Then he believed this was proof that the crater was created by an explosion. The plain around the crater was covered with chunks of meteoritic iron- over 30 tons of it, scattered all over an area 8 to 10 miles in diameter.

CN TOWER

CN TOWER

Location: CANADA

 

FACTS ABOUT

  CN TOWER

Height:

    Antenna spire 553.33 metres (1,815.4 feet).

    Roof 457.2 metres (1,500 feet).

    Top floor 446.5 metres (1,464.9 feet).

Floor count:

    147 (Equivalent).

    No: of elevators: 6

Architect:  John Andrews Architect
                      WZMH Architects

 

  CN TOWER

Description:

 

    The CN Tower stands for Canadian National Tower which is a communication & observation tower located in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This tower was made by the railway company. It is 553.33 metres (1,815.4 feet) completed in 1976. Alternatively, it is also called Canada’s National Tower. After the completion of its construction it became the world's tallest free-standing structure and world's tallest tower at the time but now its status of being tallest free standing structure in the world has been replaced by the construction of Burj  Khalifa and Canton Tower but it is still the tallest free standing structure in the western hemisphere. The idea of construction of this tower resulted as a desire of Canadian National Railway for the purpose of building a large TV and radio communication platform to serve the Toronto area and demonstrating the Canadian industry’s strength and CN particular as well. On Feb 6 1973, the construction of CN Tower was begun with massive excavations at the base of the tower for the foundation. During its construction, 61,729 short tons; 55,116 long tonsof dirt and shale were removed to a depth of 15 metres in the centre, and a base incorporating 7,000 cubic metres (9,156 cu yd) of concrete with 450 tonnes (496 short tons; 443 long tons) of rebar and 36 tonnes (40 short tons; 35 long tons) of steel cable had been built to a thickness of 6.7 metres (22.0 ft). The Canadian National Tower consists of several substructures having a main portion hollow complete hexagonal structure. This tower has got two visitor areas which are the main deck level which is formerly known as SkyPod which is located at 346 metres and the higher SkyPod  formerly known as “SpaceDesk” located at 446.5 metres. Its spectacular structure is making it as one of the wonders of the world.

THE ANGEL FALLS

ANGEL FALLS

(the tallest water falls in the world)

Location: VENEZUELA

ANGEL FALLS

 (the tallest water falls in the world)

Description:

 

    Angel Falls the tallest water falls in the world was discovered by an American pilot-adventurer who saw for the first time during his travel to Venezuela's Guiana Highlands in search of gold. Angel Falls is located in the far flung jungle of Venezuela at the complicated place where sometimes it becomes difficult to get at there. This water fall has got marvelous natural beauty. Water is falling over a reddish white sandstone escarpment, the white water falling from the top goes downward and dissolves in a in a frenzy of spray in a dark green jungle setting. The water first falls steeply in a single unbroken cascade of 2648 feet (807 meters), hits an obstruction and then moves at the greater speed for another 564 feet (172 meters). The height of the falls is so great that water flowing from the top buffets and converted into tiny droplets like water spray. There is a plateau namely Auyan Tepui ("Devil's Mountain") which is covered by droplets of water falling on it. From the top of the fall upto the foot of the gorge the water falls steeply for a distance equal to nearly 20 times the height of Canadian Niagara Falls.