Category Social Sciences

What type of glacier is Vatnajokull?

Iceland is home to the largest glacier in Europe – Vatnajokull. Consider its immense dimensions – it covers an area of 8100-8300 sq. km and is about 400 m thick on an average, with a maximum thickness of 1000 m at one point.

Beneath the surface of the vast icy landscape, lie seething volcanoes which give rise to hot springs and geysers. This magical blend of fire and ice plays out to spectacular effect in Kverkfjöll, a 2.8km-long icy cavern system caused by the geothermal activity of the region.

The mountain range of Kverkfjöll is located in the north of the glacier. Its glacier cave was first explored in the 1980s by a French expedition. However, glacial caves keep changing in form as the geothermal heat melts the ice; so the cave you see today is different from what the first explorers had seen.

There are two sets of caves – the Lower and Upper Kverkfjöll Ice Caves. As one enters the extraordinary world of icy splendour, the centuries-old ice shimmers in stunning shades of blue. However, the caves are unstable and dangerous especially in summers when blocks of ice collapse near the entrance. Hence the caves are normally visited in winter.

 

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Which is the second largest volume of hot water in the world?

Beppu, a city on the island of Kyushu, is one place in Japan where you can say you have been to hell and back! Home to the second largest volume of hot water in the world after Yellowstone Park (USA), Beppu has nine major geothermal hot spots, locally called the ‘Nine Hells of Beppu’. It is a popular tourist spot.

With temperatures ranging from 50  to 90 , these nine springs are too hot to bathe in, but they present spectacular multicolored vistas. Of them, the Oniishibozu Jigoku is a hot pit of mud bubbles that resembles the shaven head of a monk. The picturesque turquoise blue waters of Umi Jigoku rise up in puffs of billowing steam. Chinoike Jigoku or ‘Blood Pond Hell’ is so named due to its photogenic pool of red water. The milky white water of Shiraike Jigoku explains its name – ‘white Pond Hell’. In the vicinity is also a geyser that spouts every half-hour for about five minutes.

 

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What are chads?

In the U.S. presidential election of 2000, there was chaos in the state of Florida where votes had to be recounted by hand due to a glitch in the voting machines. The voting machines used cards which had to be punched through for a vote to be registered. A mechanical problem meant that a huge number of cards were incompletely punched out, leaving the bits of paper called chads, ‘hanging’. Some cards had ‘dimpled’ or ‘pregnant’ chads meaning there was only a barely visible indentation!

Chads are the small pieces of paper produced when holes are punched out in a sheet. The bits punched out of tape, plastic, textile or thin metal are also called chads. Punch cards were once widely used in computer programming and the word ‘chad’ probably originated during that time. However, the earliest use of a punch card was in a fully automated weaving loom invented by Joseph Jacquard in 1801.

A number of manufacturing industries generate chads as waste. Since they are small and weigh almost nothing, managing chads is quite bothersome. Paper manufacturers have chad collectors under the punching table to collect the chads which are later recycled and made into new paper.

There are also ‘chad-less’ punching systems available which make slits in the paper instead of holes.

 

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What is watermelon snow?

In high latitude regions around the world including the Arctic, the snow is often coloured pink or red. Called watermelon snow or blood snow, the phenomenon has been observed and remarked on for centuries. Explorers to the North Pole in the 19th Century thought the red colour was due to iron deposited by meteorites.

Today, scientists know that the culprit is an alga, a microorganism called Chlamydomonas nivalis. It is an extremophile, that is, it can survive extremely cold temperatures. The alga which is normally green, turns red when it begins absorbing ultraviolet rays from the sun. It colonizes whole areas, pushing its way up through the snow in streaks and patches, making for a striking sight. Hikers coming across watermelon snow may be forgiven for mistaking it to be the scene of a particularly gory accident!

Watermelon snow looks attractive, but it hides a disturbing fact. A recent study by a team of geo-biologists from Britain and Germany has shown that it has increased the rate of Arctic melt, which is already at dangerous levels because of global warming. Dark surfaces absorb more light and therefore more heat energy. Snow being white, normally reflects most of the light striking it. The red alga decreased the quality of light reflected by the snow. This caused the snow to melt at a much faster rate.

As the snow thaws, it enables the alga to bloom more quickly and spread, causing even more snow to melt.

 

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What main factors are threats to environment?

People have made many changes to the world they live in and some of these have had harmful consequences. As the world population increases, there is more need for bigger cities, new towns and farming land. Land has to be cleared, destroying the habitats of many animals and plants. Some of these are now extinct and others are in danger of becoming so. Hunting has also put animals in danger.

There is now nearly three times as much desert in the world as there was 100 years ago. This is partly due to farmers over-grazing their animals on the meagre grass and shrubs and to the clearance of woodland trees for firewood.

Industrialization is a major threat to the environment. Pollution is just one example. Factories discharge harmful chemicals into rivers and seas, killing fish and plants.

The production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is reckoned to be responsible for damaging the ozone layer, the protective layer in the Earth’s atmosphere that prevents harmful rays from the Sun reaching the surface. CFCs are synthetic chemicals used in aerosol sprays and refrigerators. When they are released into the atmosphere, they destroy the ozone. There is now a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica.

Air pollution is caused by fumes and smoke from vehicles, factory chimneys and power stations. Poisonous gases, such as sulphur dioxide, mix with rain and mist to produce acids. When the acid rain falls, it kills plants over a wide area. Burning fuels also causes a build-up of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide and CFCs are both greenhouse gases. In the right amounts, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the Sun so the Earth is not too hot or too cold. But if the greenhouse gases build up, too much heat is trapped and the Earth becomes warmer. This change in climate, known as global warming, could have disastrous effects. The ice in the Polar Regions may melt, causing severe flooding to low-lying areas. Changes in the climatic pattern worldwide could lead to violent storms and long droughts.

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What is the basic structure of wealth and poverty in various parts of world?

Some nations in the world are rich, while others are very poor. The gap between them seems to grow ever wider. Measured by the average income earned by people in the richest and poorest fifth of the world’s nations, the gap has grown from 30 to 1 in 1960 to nearly 80 to 1 today. Within both rich and poor countries, there are also great contrasts in wealth.

The wealthiest countries are those that have developed industries and services which can supply their own populations with all their needs. They do this either by producing these products and services themselves, or by importing them from other countries, paying for them by exporting goods. In poorer developing countries, people may produce only enough food to feed their families. Disease and climatic disaster may prevent even this.

The population of developing nations has grown greatly in recent years. Their high birth rates means even more mouths to feed.

South America has some of the fastest-growing cities in the world. They include the Brazilian super cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, both with populations of more than 10 million. People from the countryside flock to these cities to find work but there is nowhere for them to live. They build their own shantytowns (locally known as favelas) just outside the city by building shelters and shacks from any material that comes to hand. People who live in shantytowns cannot find work easily and so they are forced to work for very low wages.

The wealth of a nation can be measured by its gross domestic product (GDP).This is defined as the value of all the goods and services produced there, including those produced by foreign-owned firms. The Group of Seven (G7) are the seven leading industrial nations of the world. These nations – the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada – account for more than 60% of the world’s GDP. The country with the highest GDP per person in 1996 was Switzerland ($46,000). In the same year, the figure for Rwanda in Africa was $100. More than 1.3 billion people around the world live on less than one dollar a day.

Wealthy nations such as the G7 lend money to developing countries. However, the developing countries often find that, because of their low GDP, they cannot repay the loans and a big debt burden builds up. The largest foreign aid donor in 1996 was Japan with aid amounting to more than $15,000 million.

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