■On
average, Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent,
and has the highest average elevation of all the continents.
Since there is little precipitation, except at the coasts, the
interior of the continent is technically the
largest desert in the world.
There are no permanent human residents and there is no evidence of
any existing or pre-historic indigenous population. Only
cold-adapted plants and animals survive there, including penguins,
fur seals, mosses, lichen, and many types of algae. 98% of
Antarctica is covered by ice.
■The
Sahara desert is the world's largest
hot desert and the world's second
largest desert after Antarctica, fills about 1/3 of Africa (and it
is growing constantly) which would nearly fill the continental
United States.
■It snowed
in the Sahara Desert on February 18th, 1979.
■The
Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of
water on Earth by area, variously classed as
the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea
(40 to 44 percent of the total lacustrine waters
of the world), and lies between the southern
areas of the Russian Federation and northern
Iran. It has a maximum depth of about 1025
meters (3,363 ft). It was perceived as a sea by
its ancient coastal inhabitants because it is
salty and seemed boundless.
■11%
of the Earth’s surface is used to grow food.
■70-71%
of the Earth is covered by water.
■Only
3% of the water on our planet is fresh water. Of
the 3%, 2% of it is frozen in glaciers and ice
sheets around the poles. The other 97% is salt
water.
■The lowest dry
point on Earth is the Dead Sea in the Middle
East which is 1300 feet below sea level.
■The
Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.
It covers about 1/3 of the Earth’s surface.
■The
Earth is the densest major body in our solar
system.
■Baikal
Lake in Russian Fed. is the deepest lake in the world at 5371 feet.
■The most
abundant metal in the Earth’s crust is aluminum.
■On
average, an iceberg weighs 20 million tons.
■The
largest icebergs recorded are calved, or broken off from, the Ross
Ice Shelf of Antarctica. Iceberg B-15, photographed by satellite in
2000, measured 295km (183 miles) long and 37km (23 miles) wide, with
a surface area of 11,000 km² (4,250 square miles). The mass was
estimated around 3,000,000,000 metric tonnes.
■When an
iceberg melts, it makes a fizzing sound called "Bergie Seltzer."
This sound is made when compressed air bubbles trapped in the
iceberg pop. The bubbles come from air trapped in snow layers that
later become glacial ice
■200
million years ago Earth contained only one land mass called Pangea.
■The Palm
Islands are artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The
islands are the largest land reclamation projects in the world and
will result in the world's largest artificial islands.
■Due to gravitational effects, you
weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.
■Total
fertility rate of the world is 2.59 children born/woman.
■Worldwide
each day 400 billion gallons of water is used.
■It takes
sun light 8 minutes and 3 seconds to reach Earth.
■The wind
carries 100 million tons of sand particles around the Earth yearly.
<<Facts about
the Earth Part 1
<<Facts about
the Earth Part 2
