Interesting trivia and facts on Geography and Geology

Amazon River
The Amazon River has 20% of the Earth's fresh water and at 4,000 miles long is the world's second longest river. (Fact for 15 Nov 2008)
Global Warming
A British researcher, Dr Andy Thorpe from the University of Portsmouth has recently concluded that a herd of 200 cows burp the annual equivalent amount of methane to the energy produced by a family car being driven 180,000km using around 21,400 litres of petrol.

Methane is thought to account for one-fifth of global warming experienced since 1750 and it comes mainly from cattle herds in the developed world. (Fact for 19 Nov 2008)
Volcanoes
Japan has over 75 active volcanoes and accounts for one in five of all the active volcanoes in the world. (Fact for 20 Nov 2008)
Mount Kilimanjaro
Located in Mount Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa at 19,340 feet. It is made up of three old volcano cores. Despite being only 3 degrees south of the Equator the highest cone, Kibo, is capped with snow all year round. (Fact for 22 Dec 2008)
Natural Harbour
The largest natural harbour in the world is Sydney Harbour in Australia however the UK surprisingly claims to have two in the top five: Falmouth, Cornwall and Poole, Dorset. (Fact for 5 Jan 2009)

Clever Norwegians
Despite having significant oil reserves Norway produces 99 per cent of its electricity by hydroelectric sources. This enables Norway to be the 4th largest oil exporter with oil accounting for a quarter of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). (Fact for 29 Oct 2008)

Argentinean Wine
Argentinean wine appears to be up and coming, certainly in Denmark. In a recent survey of wine drinkers a huge 51% of Danes had drunk Argentinean wine in the previous 6 months.

This compares with 29% in the UK and 13% in Germany. (Fact for 21 Oct 2008)

Coldest place on earth
The coldest place on Earth is Vostok, Antarctica that reaches minus 81 degrees Celsius. (Fact for 5 Oct 2008)

Largest Crater
The largest crater on Earth is over 500km (or 311 miles) wide, partly located beneath Mexico. It was created following an asteroid impact 65 million years ago that may have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. (Fact for 3 Oct 2008)

India's population
With one child born every 1.26 seconds in India the population is expected to grow rapidly and will at current rates become the most populated place in the world by 2075 with a projected population of 1,900 million.
Unfortunately currently 40% of the world's poorest people live in India (fact for 27 Sept 2008)

Flint
Flint is thought to be re-crystallised silica from sea sponges from the Cretaceous period (fact for 13 Sept 2008)

Southwesterly tip of Australia
Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse is situated at the most southwesterly tip of Australia, standing at the point where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. The tower stands 39 metres high from ground level and 56 metres above sea level. The lighthouse has an intensity of one million candles, which shines over the surrounding rugged sea for 26 nautical miles (48 kilometres).
Cape Leeuwin got its name from the Dutch ship that first discovered the land in 1622. (Fact for 11 Sept 2008)

Glaciers
Over 70% of the worlds freshwater is in the form of glaciers.

Currently 10% of the world's land mass is covered in glaciers - that's 15,000,000 sq km, but during the last ice age glaciers covered 32% of land. (Fact for 10 Sept 2008)

Quarry Aggregates
Over 250 million tonnes of aggregate are quarried each year in the UK - that’s a 20 tonne truckload for every family in the UK.

Each new home uses an average of 50 - 60 tonnes of aggregate and there are 185,000 new homes built each year! The cost of aggregate doubles for every 30 miles it travels. (Fact for 8 Sept 2008)

Australia's Gold Rush
The first payable gold in Australia was discovered at Ophir, New South Wales in 1851. Rushes followed in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The discovery of Australia's greatest goldfield, the Golden Mile in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia was made in 1893. (Fact for 4 Sept 2008)

Oldest Rainforest
The oldest rainforest in the World is not the Amazon Rainforest but is the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, Australia. (Fact for 1 Sept 2008)

Driest place on earth
South America’s Atacama Desert is the world’s driest place. It is believed that parts of the Atacama had no rainfall at all between 1570 and 1971 - over 400 years! (Fact for 5 Aug 2008)

Mount Kilimanjaro

This giant mountain in East Africa is actually a dormant volcano. It is 19,340 feet (5,895 metres) high at the peak.

On the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, at c9,000 feet (2,800 metres) the only animals around Kilimanjaro are moles, rats and birds of prey. At higher altitudes there is just the odd spider that can reach the summit and survive the freezing temperatures! (Fact for 23 July 2008)

Seismic Activity
Over the past 10 years there has been more than 68,000 significant seismic events (ignoring very minor tremors).

The most well known of these is the 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Sumatra which caused the Tsunami in December 2004 reaching a height of 30 meters. The Tsunami hit 12 countries with over 200,000 killed or missing.

The next largest event was in October 1994 in the Kuril Islands, Pacific Ocean with a magnitude of 8.3, this again caused a Tsunami but with a height of only 3.5 metres. Damage was limited to the Islands but was extensive; only 10 people were reported missing or dead. (Fact for 1 July 2008)

Amazon
The Amazon Basin covers over half of Brazil and is home to the largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world. A quarter of the world's freshwater flow by volume falls into the Atlantic from the Basin. Around 26million people live in the Amazon Basin

Waterfalls
100,000 cubic feet of water pours over the Niagara Falls every second

Philippines
The population of the Philippines is 85 million and by current predictions will reach 141 million by 2040. In contrast the UK population is only 60 million and will only have reached 68 million by 2040.

Tasmania
Tasmania has 40% of its 68,332 Km2 land area in formal reserves, national parks and world heritage sites. The World heritage sites alone cover 20%. Human remains have been found in limestone caves dating back 20,000 years.

Faroe Islands
Tórshavn is the capital of the Faroe Islands off the Northern Coast of Scotland. The population is 17,070