| Did You Know? |
How many people have been killed by volcanoes during the last 500 years? [Earth Facts]
At least 300,000. Between 1980 and 1990, volcanic activity killed at least 26,000 people.
|
How much of the Earth’s surface consists of volcanic rock? [Earth Facts]
Scientists estimate that more than three-quarters of Earth’s surface is of volcanic origin-- that is, rocks either erupted by volcanoes or molten rock that cooled below ground and has subsequently been exposed at the surface. Most of Earth’s volcanic rocks are found on the sea floor.
|
Can an earthquake cause a tsunami? [Earth Facts]
If the earthquake originates under the ocean, yes. Near the earthquake’s epicenter, the sea floor rises and falls, pushing all the water above it up and down. This motion produces a wave that travels outward in all directions. A tsunami can be massive but remain relatively low in height in deep water. Upon nearing the shore, it is forced up and can reach the height of tall buildings. One in 1964 was triggered in Alaska and swamped the small northern California town of Crescent City, moving train cars several blocks and killing several people there. Asteroids can cause tsunami, too.
|
Are all tsunamis high waves when they strike a coastline? [Earth Facts]
No, contrary to many artistic images of tsunamis, most do not result in giant breaking waves. Rather, most tsunamis come onshore more like very strong and fast tides. The water can rise higher than anyone along a given shore area has ever seen, however. [Model of an East Coast tsunami]
|
How much of the Earth’s land surface is desert? [Earth Facts]
About one-third.
|
What's the deepest place in the ocean? [Earth Facts]
The greatest known depth is 36,198 feet (6.9 miles or 11 kilometers) at the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean well south of Japan near the Mariana Islands.
|
What is the fastest surface wind ever recorded? [Earth Facts]
The fastest "regular" wind that's widely agreed upon was 231 mph (372 kph), recorded at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, on April 12, 1934. But during a May 1999 tornado in Oklahoma, researchers clocked the wind at 318 mph (513 kph). For comparison, Neptune's winds can rage to 900 mph (1,448 kph).
|
How much fresh water is stored in the Earth? [Earth Facts]
More than two million cubic miles of fresh water is stored in the planet, nearly half of it within a half-mile of the surface. Mars, too, appears to have a lot of water near its surface, but what's been detected so far is locked up as ice; nobody has estimated how much might be there.
|
How old is Earth? [Earth Facts]
Our planet is more than 4.5 billion years old, just a shade younger than the Sun. Recent evidence actually shows that Earth was formed much earlier than previously believed, just 10 million years after the birth of the Sun, a stellar event typically put at 4.6 billion years ago.
|
What is the world’s largest desert? [Earth Facts]
The Sahara Desert in northern Africa is more than 23 times the size of southern California’s Mojave Desert. [Several readers have e-mailed to suggest that arid Antarctica technically tops this category; true, some researchers put it there, but most lists of deserts don't include it.]
|
