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Hans Reck
Hans Gottfried Reck (24 January 1886 – 4 August 1937) was a German volcanologist and paleontologist. In 1913 he was the first to discover an ancient skeleton of a human in the Olduvai Gorge, in what is now Tanzania. He collaborated with Louis Leakey in a return expedition to the site in 1931. Birth and education Reck was born into a military family in Würzburg, Bavaria on 24 January 1886. He attended the universities of Wurzburg and Berlin, where he studied natural history and became deeply interested in volcanoes. Iceland In the summer of 1907 the geologist Walther von Knebel, a friend and fellow student of Reck's, disappeared during a field trip in Iceland. Hans Reck was charged with determining what had happened, and set out in June 1908 with two local guides and his fiancé, Ina von Grumbkow. The party traveled on horseback in eleven weeks. Reck and the Icelander Sigurður Sumarliðason were the first people ever to reach the summit of the Herðubreið volcano, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanologist
A volcanologist, or volcano scientist, is a geologist who focuses on understanding the formation and eruptive activity of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, sometimes active ones, to observe and monitor volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra (such as ash or pumice), rock and lava samples. One major focus of inquiry in recent times is the prediction of eruptions to alleviate the impact on surrounding populations and monitor natural hazards associated with volcanic activity. Geologists who research volcanic materials that make up the solid Earth are referred to as igneous petrologists. Etymology The word ''volcanologist'' (or ''vulcanologist'') is derived from the English volcanology (volcano + -logy), which was derived from the French volcanologie (or vulcanologie), which was further derived from the French word volcan (volcano), which was even further derived from Vulcanus, the Latin name of the Roman god of fire and metalworking. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stegosaur
Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, predominantly in what is now North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. Their geographical origins are unclear; the earliest unequivocal stegosaurian, ''Huayangosaurus taibaii'', lived in China. Stegosaurians were armored dinosaurs (thyreophorans). Originally, they did not differ much from more primitive members of that group, being small, low-slung, running animals protected by armored scutes. An early evolutionary innovation was the development of spikes as defensive weapons. Later species, belonging to a subgroup called the Stegosauridae, became larger, and developed long hindlimbs that no longer allowed them to run. This increased the importance of active defence by the thagomizer, which could ward off even large predators because the tail was in a higher position, pointing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uluguru Mountains
The Uluguru mountains are a mountain range in eastern Tanzania, named after the Luguru tribe. The main portion of the Uluguru mountains is a ridge running roughly north-south and rising to altitude at its highest point. On the main Uluguru range, 50 villages touch the forest boundary and over 151,000 people are found within the mountain area, often at increasing densities at higher altitudes up to the forest boundary. Geography The Ulugurus lie 200 km inland from the Indian Ocean. They are part of a chain of mountains in eastern Africa collectively called the Eastern Arc Mountains, which include the Taita Hills, Pare Mountains, Usambara Mountains, Nguru Mountains, Rubeho, Ukaguru, Udzungwa Mountains and Mahenge Mountains. Vegetation The vegetation of the Uluguru main ridge and outlying blocks is extremely variable. It ranges from drier lowland coastal forest habitats, to transitional rainforests, to sub-montane, montane and upper montane forest types. Climate Climaticall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sedimentary Rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles to settle in place. The particles that form a sedimentary rock are called sediment, and may be composed of geological detritus (minerals) or biological detritus (organic matter). The geological detritus originated from weathering and erosion of existing rocks, or from the solidification of molten lava blobs erupted by volcanoes. The geological detritus is transported to the place of deposition by water, wind, ice or mass movement, which are called agents of denudation. Biological detritus was formed by bodies and parts (mainly shells) of dead aquatic organisms, as well as their fecal mass, suspended in water and slowly piling up on the floor of water bodies (marine snow). Sedimentation may also occur as dissolved minerals precipitate from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing Great American Interchang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maasai People
The Maasai (; sw, Wamasai) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best-known local populations internationally due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes and their distinctive customs and dress.Maasai - Introduction Jens Fincke, 2000–2003 The Maasai speak the Maa language (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilotic language family that is related to the , |
Wilhelm Kattwinkel
William Kattwinkel (27 March 1866, Kierspe – 21 January 1935, Partenkirchen) was a German neurologist and paleontologist. He was particularly known for the discovery of the fossil deposit in the Olduvai Gorge, which in the following years delivered many findings of hominins. Life The son of the merchant William Kattwinkel (died 1877) and Henriette Kattwinkel, born Bancklotz (1833–1898) studied science in Bonn and Strasbourg, from 1894, medicine in Bonn, Königsberg and Erlangen. He received his Ph.D. in 1892 and obtained an MD in 1894 in Munich. In 1895 he married in Schwelm Martha (born 1872), daughter of the factory owner Julius Schmidt. After his military service Kattwinkel was a volunteer assistant to Hugo von Ziemssen and a guest student from 1900 to 1905 at Hôpital Salpêtrière and the Bicêtre in Paris. In 1902 he qualified as a professor in Munich, and in 1909 was appointed Associate Professor of Neurology and gained a passing knowledge of paleontology, espec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Manyara
Lake Manyara is a lake located in Monduli District of Arusha Region, Tanzania and is the seventh-largest lake of Tanzania by surface area, at . It is a shallow, alkaline lake in the Natron-Manyara-Balangida branch of the East African Rift. The northwest quadrant of the lake (about 200 sq, km.) is included within Lake Manyara National Park and it is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, established in 1981 by UNESCO as part of its Man and the Biosphere Programme. There are differing explanations for how Lake Manyara got its name. The name Manyara may come from the Maasai language, Maasai word "emanyara", which is the spiky, protective enclosure around a family homestead (boma). Possibly the 600 m high rift escarpment hems in the lake, like the enclosure around a Maasai boma. Another theory is that the Mbugwe tribe, who live in the Lake Manyara area, may have given the lake its name based on the Mbugwe word manyero, meaning a trough or place where animals drink water. Hydr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Natron
Lake Natron is a salt or alkaline lake located in north Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region in Tanzania. It is in the Gregory Rift, which is the eastern branch of the East African Rift. The lake is within the Lake Natron Basin, a Ramsar Site wetland of international significance. The lake is fed principally by the Southern Ewaso Ng'iro River, which rises in central Kenya, and by mineral-rich hot springs. It is quite shallow, less than deep, and varies in width depending on its water level. The lake is a maximum of long and wide. The surrounding area receives irregular seasonal rainfall, mainly between December and May totalling per year. Temperatures at the lake are frequently above . High levels of evaporation have left behind natron (sodium carbonate decahydrate) and trona (sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate). The alkalinity of the lake can reach a pH of greater than 12. The surrounding bedrock is composed of alkaline, sodium-dominated trachyte lavas that were laid down ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Rift
The Gregory Rift is the eastern branch of the East African Rift fracture system. The rift is being caused by the separation of the Somali plate from the Nubian plate, driven by a thermal plume. Although the term is sometimes used in the narrow sense of the Kenyan Rift, the larger definition of the Gregory Rift is the set of faults and grabens extending southward from the Gulf of Aden through Ethiopia and Kenya into Northern Tanzania, passing over the local uplifts of the Ethiopian and Kenyan domes. Ancient fossils of early hominins, the ancestors of humans, have been found in the southern part of the Gregory Rift. Etymology The Gregory Rift is named in honour of the British geologist John Walter Gregory who explored the geology of the rift in 1892–93 and 1919.http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/6/1/1.full.pdf Location The Gregory Rift lies within the Mozambique belt, often considered to be the remains of an orogenic system similar to the Himalayas. This belt runs fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
