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Australian Pelican
The Australian pelican (''Pelecanus conspicillatus'') is a large waterbird in the family Pelecanidae, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant in New Zealand. It is a predominantly white bird with black wings and a pink bill. It has been recorded as having the longest bill of any living bird. It mainly eats fish, but will also consume birds and scavenge for scraps if the opportunity arises. Taxonomy The Australian pelican was first described by Dutch naturalist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1824. Its specific epithet is derived from the Latin verb conspicere, meaning 'to behold', and refers to the 'spectacled' appearance created by its conspicuous eye markings. Description The Australian pelican is medium-sized by pelican standards, with a wingspan of . Weight can range from , although most of these pelicans weigh between .''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coenraad Jacob Temminck
Coenraad Jacob Temminck (; 31 March 1778 – 30 January 1858) was a Dutch people, Dutch Aristocracy (class), aristocrat, Zoology, zoologist and museum director. Biography Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. From his father, Jacob Temminck, who was treasurer of the Dutch East India Company with links to numerous travellers and collectors, he inherited a large collection of bird specimens. His father was a good friend of Francois Levaillant who also guided Coenraad. Temminck's ''Manuel d'ornithologie, ou Tableau systématique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe'' (1815) was the standard work on European birds for many years. He was also the author of ''Histoire naturelle générale des Pigeons et des Gallinacées'' (1813–1817), ''Nouveau Recueil de Planches coloriées d'Oiseaux'' (1820–1839), and contributed to the mammalian sections of Philipp Franz von Siebold's ''Fauna japonica'' (1844–1850). Temminck was the first dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bismarck Islands
The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants of the archipelago arrived around 30–40,000 years ago. They may have traveled from New Guinea, by boat across the Bismarck Sea or via a temporary land bridge, created by an uplift in the Earth's crust. Later arrivals included the Lapita people. The first European to visit these islands was Dutch explorer Willem Schouten in 1616. The islands remained unsettled by western Europeans until they were annexed as part of the German protectorate of German New Guinea in 1884. The area was named in honour of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. On 13 March 1888, a volcano erupted on Ritter Island causing a megatsunami. Almost the entire volcano fell into the ocean, leaving a small crater lake. Following the outbreak of World War I, the Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the lowest natural point in Australia at approximately below sea level ( AHD), and on the rare occasions that it fills completely, is the largest lake in Australia covering an area up to . When the lake is full, it has the same salinity level as seawater, but becomes hypersaline as the lake dries up and the water evaporates. The lake was named in honour of Edward John Eyre, the first European to see it in 1840. The lake's official name was changed in December 2012 to combine the name "Lake Eyre" with the Aboriginal name, Kati Thanda. The native title over the lake and surrounding region is held by the Arabana people. Geography Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre is in the deserts of central Australia, in northern South Australia. The Lake Eyre Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Grassmere
Lake Grassmere / Kapara Te Hau is a New Zealand waituna-type lagoon in the northeastern South Island, close to Cook Strait. The lake is used for the production of salt. Geography Lake Grassmere, south of Blenheim and south of the mouth of the Awatere River, is a shallow lagoon protected from the open sea by a single barrier beach covered by sand dunes. It is on the north-easterly extension of the Ward depression. Covering an area of , it has no natural inflow and is prone to strong warm winds. Close to the sea, it also has a very high salinity. Because of these geographical characteristics, it is ideal for natural salt extraction. Grassmere has been divided into solar evaporation ponds. Seawater is pumped in, and moved between ponds over several months, increasing in salinity with each successive evaporation period. As salinity increases, crystallised salt forms and is extracted. Grassmere's area varies between ; this maximum is attained only in rare floods. The waters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subfossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerusalem, New Zealand
Jerusalem, named for the Biblical Jerusalem (in Māori, ''Hiruhārama''), is a settlement up the Whanganui River from Whanganui, New Zealand. Originally called Patiarero, it was one of the largest settlements on the Whanganui River in the 1840s, with several hundred Ngāti Hau inhabitants of the iwi Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi. Unlike other Whanganui River settlements given transliterated place names by Reverend Richard Taylor in the 1850s, Jerusalem is usually referred to using the English version of its name. It grew into several small settlements, including Roma (named for Rome) and Peterehama (named for Bethlehem), founded by the remains of Taylor's congregation after the majority converted to Catholicism when a Roman Catholic mission was built in 1854. Jerusalem was the isolated site where, in 1892, Suzanne Aubert (better known as Mother Mary Joseph) established the congregation of the Sisters of Compassion. They became a highly respected charitable nursing/religious ord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piling
A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural element of a deep foundation, driven or drilled deep into the ground at the building site. There are many reasons that a geotechnical engineer would recommend a deep foundation over a shallow foundation, such as for a skyscraper. Some of the common reasons are very large design loads, a poor soil at shallow depth, or site constraints like property lines. There are different terms used to describe different types of deep foundations including the pile (which is analogous to a pole), the pier (which is analogous to a column), drilled shafts, and caissons. Piles are generally driven into the ground in situ; other deep foundations are typically put in place using excavation and drilling. The naming conventions may vary between engineering discip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jetties
A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying something thrown out. For regulating rivers Another form of jetties, wing dams are extended out, opposite one another, ''from each bank of a river'', at intervals, to contract a wide channel, and by concentration of the current to produce a deepening. At the outlet of tideless rivers Jetties have been constructed on each side of the outlet river of some of the rivers flowing into the Baltic, with the objective of prolonging the scour of the river and protecting the channel from being shoaled by the littoral drift along the shore. Another application of parallel jetties is in lowering the bar in front of one of the mouths of a deltaic river flowing into a tide — a virtual prolongation of its less sea, by extending the scour of the rive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environments and are an example of an ecotone. Estuaries are subject both to marine influences such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water, and to fluvial influences such as flows of freshwater and sediment. The mixing of seawater and freshwater provides high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea level began to rise about 10,000–12,000 years ago. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns. They can have many different names, such as bays, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') and ''atoll lagoons''. They have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries. Lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world. Definition and terminology Lagoons are shallow, often elongated bodies of water separated from a larger body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef, or similar feature. Some authorities include fresh water bodies in the definition of "lagoon", while others explicitly restrict "lagoon" to bodies of water with some degree of salinity. The distinction between "lagoon" and "estuary" also varies between authorities. Richard A. Davis Jr. restrict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salt Evaporation Pond
A salt evaporation pond is a shallow artificial salt pan designed to extract salts from sea water or other brines. The Salt pans are shallow and large of size because it will be easier for sunlight to travel and reach the sea water. Natural salt pans are geological formations that are also created by water evaporating and leaving behind salts. Some salt evaporation ponds are only slightly modified from their natural version, such as the ponds on Great Inagua in the Bahamas, or the ponds in Jasiira, a few kilometres south of Mogadishu, where seawater is trapped and left to evaporate in the sun. The seawater or brine is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested. The ponds also provide a productive resting and feeding ground for many species of waterbirds, which may include endangered species. The ponds are commonly separated by levees. Salt evaporation ponds may also be called salterns, salt works or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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