Pierre Du Niton
The Pierres du Niton (French for ''Neptune's Stones'') are two glacial erratics in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in Geneva harbor. On the left bank of the lake near Quai Gustave-Ador, they are remnants from the last ice age, left by the Rhone glacier. Because of their role in Swiss cartography, the rocks have been declared a "Geotope", a national site of geological heritage. Geology Genevan scientist Horace Bénédict de Saussure identified the rocks as granite from the Alps in 1779. Jean-André Deluc later described the two rocks as part of a larger group of 24 erratics of similar composition: a granite with large feldspar crystals, slightly violet quartz, and slightly green chlorite. More recent analysis has determined their likely origin in the Mont Blanc massif, being dated to around 303 million years before present. The Repère ("landmark") Pierre du Niton is the name of the rock which is bigger and further from the shore History The word ''Niton'' is derived from the anci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mont Blanc Massif
The Mont Blanc massif (french: Massif du Mont-Blanc; it, Massiccio del Monte Bianco) is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major independent summits, each over in height. It is named after Mont Blanc (), the highest point in western Europe and the European Union. Because of its considerable overall altitude, a large proportion of the massif is covered by glaciers, which include the Mer de Glace and the Miage Glacierthe longest glaciers in France and Italy, respectively. The massif forms a watershed between the vast catchments of the rivers Rhône and Po, and a tripoint between France, Italy and Switzerland; it also marks the border between two climate regions by separating the northern and western Alps from the southern Alps. The mountains of the massif consist mostly of granite and gneiss rocks and at high altitudes the vegetation is an arctic-alpine flora. The val ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean-André Deluc
Jean-André Deluc or de Luc (8 February 1727 – 7 November 1817) was a Swiss geologist, natural philosopher and meteorologist. He also devised measuring instruments. Biography Jean-André Deluc was born in Geneva. His family had come to the Republic of Geneva from Lucca, Italy, in the 15th century. His mother was Françoise Huaut. His father, Jacques-François Deluc, had written in refutation of Bernard Mandeville and other rationalistic writers, but he was also a decided supporter of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As a student of Georges-Louis Le Sage, Jean-André Deluc received a basic education in mathematics and in natural philosophy. He engaged early in business, which occupied a large part of his first adult years, with the exception of scientific investigation in the Alps. With the help of his brother Guillaume-Antoine, he built a splendid collection of mineralogy and fossils. Deluc also took part in politics. In 1768, sent on an embassy to the duc de Choiseul in Paris, he s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Geography Of Geneva
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. The first recorded use of the word γεωγραφία was as a title of a book by Greek scholar Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. One such concept, the first law of geography, proposed by Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metres Above The Sea (Switzerland)
Metres above the Sea (German: ''Meter über Meer (m ü. M.)'') is the vertical datum used in Switzerland. Both the system and the term are also used in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Use In Switzerland, levelled heights from the Swiss national levelling network 1902 (LN 02) are used as official heights without compensation for gravity. The reference point for the Swiss national height network is the Pierres du Niton ( French: ''Neptune's Stones''), a pair of unusual rocks in the harbour of Lake Geneva. That height is defined from the average height of the Marégraphe in Marseille, the reference point for height data in France, and rounded to 373.6 m. The height was only measured accurately in 1902. As the height of the Pierres du Niton had been inaccurately measured in 1845 as being 376.86 meters, height information relating to this ''old horizon'' (for example in the ''Siegfried Map'' and the ''Dufour Map'', both of them widely used) is 3.26 m higher than today ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Topographic Map Of Switzerland
The Topographic Map of Switzerland (German: ''Topographische Karte der Schweiz''), also known as the ''Dufour Map'' (German: ''Dufourkarte''; French: ''Carte Dufour'') is a 1:100 000 scale map series depicting Switzerland for the first time based on accurate geometric measurements. It is also the oldest official map series of Switzerland. The ''Atlas Suisse'' as predecessor From 1796 to 1802, the '' Atlas Suisse'' was published in Aarau by Johann Heinrich Weiss, Johann Rudolf Meyer and Joachim Eugen Müller. The ''Atlas Suisse'' map series consisted of 16 sheets, was produced by a copperplate or intaglio printing process, and depicted the whole of Switzerland at a scale of 1:120,000. The Dufour Map Publication of the Dufour Map was begun in 1845 by the Federal Topographic Bureau under Guillaume-Henri Dufour, and continued to December 1864. The Dufour Map was based on measurements by the Cantons and the Swiss Confederation. The original images for the Dufour Map wer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lausanne
, neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), Maxilly-sur-Léman (FR-74), Montpreveyres, Morrens, Neuvecelle (FR-74), Prilly, Pully, Renens, Romanel-sur-Lausanne, Saint-Sulpice, Savigny , twintowns = Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and facing the French town of Évian-les-Bains across the lake. Lausanne is located northeast of Geneva, the nearest major city. The municipality of Lausanne has a population of about 140,000, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland after Basel, Geneva, and Zurich, with the entire agglomeration area having about 420,000 inhabit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gauls
The Gauls ( la, Galli; grc, Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). They spoke Gaulish, a continental Celtic language. The Gauls emerged around the 5th century BC as bearers of La Tène culture north and west of the Alps. By the 4th century BC, they were spread over much of what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, by virtue of controlling the trade routes along the river systems of the Rhône, Seine, Rhine, and Danube. They reached the peak of their power in the 3rd century BC. During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the Gauls expanded into Northern Italy ( Cisalpine Gaul), leading to the Roman–Gallic wars, and into the Balkans, leading to war with the Greeks. These latter Gauls eventually settled in Anatolia, becoming known as Galatians. After the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neptune (mythology)
Neptune ( la, Neptūnus ) is the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the Greek tradition, he is a brother of Jupiter and Pluto; the brothers preside over the realms of heaven, the earthly world (including the underworld), and the seas. Salacia is his wife. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those in North Africa, were influenced by Hellenistic conventions. He was likely associated with freshwater springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, he was also worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, as ''Neptunus equestris'' (a patron of horse-racing). Worship The theology of Neptune is limited by his close identification with the Greek god Poseidon, one of many members of the Greek pantheon whose theology was later tied to a Roman deity. The ''lectisternium'' of 399 BC indicated that the Greek figures of Poseidon, Art ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers. Granite is typical of a larger family of ''granitic rocks'', or ''granitoids'', that are composed mostly of coarse-grained quartz and feldspars in varying proportions. These rocks are classified by the relative percentages of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase (the QAPF classification), with true granite representing granitic rocks rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. Most granitic rocks also contain mica or amphibole minerals, though a few (known as leucogranites) contain almost no dark minerals. Granite is nearly alway ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated in the south west of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Canton of Geneva, Republic and Canton of Geneva. The city of Geneva () had a population 201,818 in 2019 (Jan. estimate) within its small municipal territory of , but the Canton of Geneva (the city and its closest Swiss suburbs and exurbs) had a population of 499,480 (Jan. 2019 estimate) over , and together with the suburbs and exurbs located in the canton of Vaud and in the French Departments of France, departments of Ain and Haute-Savoie the cross-border Geneva metropolitan area as officially defined by Eurostat, which extends over ,As of 2020, the Eurostat-defined Functional Urban Area of Geneva was made up of 9 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |