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Howland And Baker Islands
Howland Island and Baker Island are two uninhabited U.S. atolls in the Equatorial Pacific that are located close to one another. Both islands are wildlife refuges, the larger of which is Howland Island. They are both part of the larger political territory of the United States Minor Outlying Islands and they are also both part of the larger geographic grouping of the Phoenix Islands. Each is a National Wildlife Refuge managed by a division of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. On January 6, 2009, U.S. President George W. Bush included both islands to the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The Howland-Baker exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a 400 nautical-mile diameter area protected by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Howland-Baker EEZ has 425,700 km2; by comparison, California has 423,970 km2. Howland Island was the area that Amelia Earhart was trying to reach in 1937 when she disappeared. The islands are the only land masses in the world associat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Location Of The Howland, Baker, And Jarvis Islands (cropped)
In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ambiguous boundary, relying more on human or social attributes of place identity and sense of place than on geometry. Types Locality A suburb, locality, human settlement, settlement, or populated place is likely to have a well-defined name but a boundary that is not well defined varies by context. London, for instance, has a legal boundary, but this is unlikely to completely match with general usage. An area within a town, such as Covent Garden in London, also almost always has some ambiguity as to its extent. In geography, location is considered to be more precise than "place". Relative location A relative location, or situation, is described as a displacement from another site. An example is "3 miles northwest of Seattle". Absolute lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Islands Protected Area
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) is located in the Republic of Kiribati, an ocean nation in the central Pacific approximately midway between Australia and Hawaii. PIPA constitutes 11.34% of Kiribati's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and with a size of , it is one of the largest marine protected areas (MPA) and one of the largest protected areas of any type (land or sea) on Earth. The PIPA was also designated as the world's largest and deepest UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. The PIPA conserves one of the world's largest intact oceanic coral archipelago ecosystems, includes 14 known underwater seamounts (presumed to be extinct volcanoes) and other deep-sea habitats. The area contains approximately 800 known species of fauna, including about 200 coral species, 500 fish species, 18 marine mammals and 44 bird species. In total it is equivalent to the size of the state of California in the US, though the total land area is only . To the north of the PIPA is the U.S. admi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jarvis Island
Jarvis Island (; formerly known as Bunker Island or Bunker's Shoal) is an uninhabited coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Unlike most coral atolls, the lagoon on Jarvis is wholly dry. Jarvis is one of the Line Islands and for statistical purposes is also grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. Jarvis Island is the largest of three U.S. equatorial possessions, which include Baker Island and Howland Island. Geography and ecology While a few offshore anchorage spots are marked on maps, Jarvis island has no ports or harbors, and swift currents are a hazard. There is a boat landing area in the middle of the western shoreline near a crumbling day beacon, and another near the sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Date Line
The International Date Line (IDL) is an internationally accepted demarcation on the surface of Earth, running between the South and North Poles and serving as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific Ocean, roughly following the 180° line of longitude and deviating to pass around some territories and island groups. Crossing the date line eastbound decreases the date by one day, while crossing the date line westbound increases the date. Geography Circumnavigating the globe People traveling westward around the world must set their clocks: *Back by one hour for every 15° of longitude crossed, and *Forward by 24 hours upon crossing the International Date Line. People traveling eastward must set their clocks: *Forward by one hour for every 15° of longitude crossed, and *Back by 24 hours upon crossing the International Date Line. Failing to do this would make their time inaccurate to the local time. The Arab geographer Abulfed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PacIOOS
The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) is a nonprofit association and one of eleven such associations in the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, funded in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The PacIOOS area covers eight time zones, and 2300 individual islands associated with the U.S. Observation priorities are public safety, direct economic value, and environmental preservation. Among ocean characteristics reported are: * Currents forecast * Shoreline impacts such as high sea level * Buoy water characteristics including salinity, turbidity, and temperature The PacIOOS website is hosted by the University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ..., and provides interactive graphs and map viewers. Referen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winslow Reef, Phoenix Islands
Winslow Reef is an underwater feature of the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati, located north-northwest of McKean Island at . It is the northernmost and westernmost feature of the Phoenix Islands, not counting the outlying Baker and Howland Islands. It has a least depth of . The reef is about long east–west, and about half that wide. The bottom is pink coral and red sand. History Winslow Reef is mentioned by Robert Louis Stevenson, who sailed over an area thought to be Winslow Reef in late 1889, but did not find it. For long it had been thought that a Perry Winslow (1815-1890), Capt. of the Nantucket whaler ''Phoenix'', was its discoverer in 1851 and that the name of his ship also became attached to the entire group of islands. Entry November 9, 1840, of the log of whaler “Gideon Howland” of New Bedford, Capt. Michael Baker (1802-1860)], however, might suffice as evidence to an even earlier sighting, an entire decade earlier: "Monday 9th, fine weather ligh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiribati
Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati ''The World Factbook''. Europa (web portal). Retrieved 29 January 2016. is an in in the central . The permanent population is over 119,000 (2020), more than half of whom live on |
Guano
Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a lesser extent, sought for the production of gunpowder and other explosive materials. The 19th-century seabird guano trade played a pivotal role in the development of modern input-intensive farming. The demand for guano spurred the human colonization of remote bird islands in many parts of the world. Unsustainable seabird guano mining processes can result in permanent habitat destruction and the loss of millions of seabirds. Bat guano is found in caves throughout the world. Many cave ecosystems are wholly dependent on bats to provide nutrients via their guano which supports bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates. The loss of bats from a cave can result in the extinction of species that rely on their guano. U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phosphorite
Phosphorite, phosphate rock or rock phosphate is a non-detrital sedimentary rock that contains high amounts of phosphate minerals. The phosphate content of phosphorite (or grade of phosphate rock) varies greatly, from 4% to 20% phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5). Marketed phosphate rock is enriched ("beneficiated") to at least 28%, often more than 30% P2O5. This occurs through washing, screening, de-liming, magnetic separation or flotation. By comparison, the average phosphorus content of sedimentary rocks is less than 0.2%.Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy, ''Petrology'', Freeman, 1996, 2nd ed. pp. 345–349 The phosphate is present as fluorapatite Ca5(PO4)3F typically in cryptocrystalline masses (grain sizes < 1 μm) referred to as -sedimentary apatite deposits of uncertain origin. It is also present as |
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic viability of investing in the equipment, labor, and energy required to extract, refine and transport the materials found at the mine to manufacturers who can use the material. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abyssal Zone
The abyssal zone or abyssopelagic zone is a layer of the pelagic zone of the ocean. "Abyss" derives from the Greek word , meaning bottomless. At depths of , this zone remains in perpetual darkness. It covers 83% of the total area of the ocean and 60% of Earth's surface. The abyssal zone has temperatures around through the large majority of its mass. Due to there being no light, there are no plants producing oxygen, which instead primarily comes from ice that had melted long ago from the polar regions. The water along the seafloor of this zone is actually devoid of oxygen, resulting in a death trap for organisms unable to quickly return to the oxygen-enriched water above. This region also contains a much higher concentration of nutrient salts, like nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, due to the large amount of dead organic material that drifts down from the above ocean zones and decomposes. The water pressure can reach up to 76 megapascal. The area below the abyssal zone is the sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic. The name is derived from the Latin ''creta'', "chalk", which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation ''Kreide''. The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now- extinct marine reptiles, ammonites, and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world was ice free, and forests extended to the poles. During this time, new groups of mammals and birds appeared. During the Early Cretaceous, flowering plants appeared and began to rapidly diversify, becoming the dominant group of plants across the Earth b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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